New Potential Therapeutics for TSC (Tuberous Sclerosis)

TSC tumors are caused mainly by dysfunction of two tumor suppressors called TSC1 and TSC2. In short, this dysfunction leads to the abnormal activation of an oncogenic kinase called TOR (target of rapamycin). Currently, TOR inhibitors such as Rapamycin and its derivative called CCI-779 are still in clinical trials (phase 2) for a variety of cancers. Thus, so far no effective therapeutic (FDA-approved authentic drug) is available in the market for TSC patients as yet.

Interestingly, however, in 2002 two groups led by David Sabatini at MIT and Kazuyoshi Yonezawa (1956-2005)* at Kobe University in Japan found that TOR requires a scaffold protein called "Raptor" for its full kinase activity. Then in 2004, Danold Riddle's group at University of Missouri discovered that the tumor suppressor FOXO inactivates Raptor gene in a tiny nematode called C. elegans. In 2007 a similar phenomenon was also found in mice by a group at Baker Institute in Melbourne.

In other words TSC patients could be effectively treated with a few natural products available in the market such as bitter melon (originally from China or Okinawa), "Resveratrol" (trans-R3) from Red grapes or wines, and propolis (bee wax) such as Bio 30, a water-miscible CAPE-based extract of propolis from New Zealand, and ARC (artepillin C)-based Brazilian green propolis extract, that activate FOXO by activating the anti-oncogenic kinases LKB1/AMPK or inactivating the oncogenic kinase PAK1.

*Deceased on July 8, 2005

To be continued