Creating Novel Drugs for Novel Targets
Cytocapsulae and Cancer
Cytocapsula is a recently discovered organelle generated by a single cancer cell. This organelle can form many shapes including tubes and interconnected networks, allowing cells to migrate inside CCT networks while remaining protected from outside environmental factors.
Cytocapsular tubes formed by cancer cells allow the cancer to metastasize and transport into neighboring and far-distance healthy tissues. The bi-directional movement in tube network gives cancer cells the ability to evade local stressful and toxic environments containing many cancer cells, and establish new tumor colonies throughout the body.
Cytocapsular Tubes in Clinical Samples
Individual Tubes
3-6 µm diameter in solid cancers, and 8-10µm in bone marrow
30µm-110 meters (m) in length
Diverse Morphology
- • Straight/curved tubes
- • Helixes/coils
- • Branched networks
- • Dense clusters
Diverse Morphology
Intact and non-degraded Thin-long strands (0.1-1 µm in thickness) Very thin-short strands (<0.1 µm in thickness) Total decomposition and disappearance
Targeted Drug Design, Synthesis, Screening, Selection, Refinement, and Development
One of the functions of cytocapsular tubes is to protect cancer cells from exposure to extracellular environments (ECM) and traditional cancer therapies. By utilizing CCT membrane barrier testing and CCT xenograft drug candidate screening platforms, CellPhar can identify and select cancer drug candidates that penetrate CCT membrane barriers and eliminate cancer cells in CCTs, therefore, increasing cancer drug development efficiency.
