| References: |
Hsp90 has emerged as an attractive anti-cancer target. Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly aggressive and difficult to treat subtype of breast cancer. Because TNBC is unresponsive to hormone therapies, there are no good therapy options available. Thus, Hsp90 may serve as a reasonable target for TNBC. Hs-27 is a novel Hsp90 inhibitor made by Dr. Timothy Haystead of Duke University’s Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology. It was developed with a fluorescein contrast agent, which makes it suitable for diagnostics. Preliminary experiments with Hs-27 with breast cancer cell lines of different receptor subtypes show that it binds to ectopically expressed Hsp90 in tumor cells. In vitro therapy experiments also show that Hs-27 down-regulates client proteins implicated in tumor growth. In this study, I further establish Hs-27’s diagnostic and therapeutic ability in vivo through hyperspectral and fluorescence imaging in dorsal skinfold window chamber tumor models in mice. Largely, I observed that at lower doses, Hs-27 allows for real-time, non-invasive imaging for cancer detection and at higher doses has the potential for therapeutic benefits. |
