mRNA Trojan Horse tricks cancer into making toxins to kill itself

Inside all living cells are ribosomes, which are essentially tiny factories that produce proteins. Exactly which proteins they make depends on the 'blueprints' they receive, and these come from messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules.

Over the past few decades, scientists have found that they can hijack this mechanism to make beneficial proteins on demand. This mRNA technology was greatly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, scientists have turned their sights onto cancer, experimenting with using mRNA to produce proteins that mimic those made by tumors, helping to launch an immune response against the cancer.

But for the new study, scientists at Tel Aviv University in Israel created an mRNA cancer treatment that works in a different way. The mRNA molecules are encoded to produce a toxin that bacteria make, and are then packaged into lipid nanoparticles and injected into the tumors. This causes the cells to start producing the toxin, and effectively poison themselves. The team says this could be a safer option than chemotherapy, which also harms healthy cells.

In tests in mice with melanoma, between 44 and 60% of the cancer cells were destroyed after a single injection. The tumor growth slowed and the mice showed significantly improved survival rates over control mice. No adverse effects were seen in the animals.

Image source: Granot-Matok et al. (2023), Theranostics.