Engineering a Redox-Responsive Bimolecular Prodrug for Targeted Gastric Cancer Combination Therapy: Design, Synthesis, and In Vivo Evaluation
Chao Wang, Yutao Xiu, Yujing Zhang, Jiazhen Xu, Yanhong Wang, Dongming Xing, Mario Allegra, Irina G. Gazaryan · 2026
Read Engineering a Redox-Responsive Bimolecular Prodrug for Targeted Gastric Cancer Combination Therapy: Design, Synthesis, and In Vivo Evaluation by Chao Wang, Yutao Xiu, Yujing Zhang, Jiazhen Xu, Yanhong Wang, Dongming Xing, Mario Allegra, Irina G. Gazaryan (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13603236.txt.
Description
Chao Wang and colleagues engineer a single molecule that carries two gastric cancer drugs and releases them inside tumors. Combination chemotherapy often fails on timing: two free drugs circulate differently and poison healthy tissue. Their prodrug joins combretastatin A-4, a tubulin blocker, to gefitinib, an EGFR blocker, through a disulfide link that snaps open inside cancer cells. The design aims to synchronize delivery and concentrate both attacks on the tumor.
Against SGC-7901 gastric cancer cells, the conjugate killed potently while sparing normal cells, scoring a safety index of 98. It jammed microtubule assembly, froze cells at the G2/M checkpoint, dampened ERK signaling, and pushed cells into apoptosis. In mice, it circulated longer, exposed the body to less free combretastatin, shrank tumors better than the free-drug pair, and caused markedly less toxicity. The authors offer the conjugate as a general platform for combination therapy.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Chao Wang, Yutao Xiu, Yujing Zhang, Jiazhen Xu, Yanhong Wang, Dongming Xing, Mario Allegra, Irina G. Gazaryan |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 52 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |