Beijing Team's Copper-Peptide Nanospheres Turn Ultrasound Into Tumor-Killing Oxygen Radicals and Carry a Protein Degrader in Mice
Beijing University of Chemical Technology researchers coordinated copper ions with the dipeptide diphenylalanine to build nanospheres that generate reactive oxygen species under ultrasound, then loaded them with a PROTAC that degrades the cancer-linked proteins BRD3 and BRD4, reporting in Small. The combination with ultrasound killed 91.3% of HeLa cervical cancer cells in culture and inhibited tumor growth by 92.6% in tumor-bearing mice; there is no human data.