Computer-Aided Design for Identifying Anticancer Targets in Genome-Scale Metabolic Models of Colon Cancer

The efficient discovery of anticancer targets with minimal side effects is a major challenge in drug discovery and development. Early prediction of side effects is key for reducing development costs, increasing drug efficacy, and increasing drug safety. This study developed a fuzzy optimization fram...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Chao-Ting Cheng, Tsun-Yu Wang, Pei-Rong Chen, Wu-Hsiung Wu, Jin-Mei Lai, Peter Mu-Hsin Chang, Yi-Ren Hong, Chi-Ying F. Huang, Feng-Sheng Wang
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: MDPI AG 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/de022faa0a5e41939696ea1bb0ac68a8
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:The efficient discovery of anticancer targets with minimal side effects is a major challenge in drug discovery and development. Early prediction of side effects is key for reducing development costs, increasing drug efficacy, and increasing drug safety. This study developed a fuzzy optimization framework for Identifying AntiCancer Targets (IACT) using constraint-based models. Four objectives were established to evaluate the mortality of treated cancer cells and to minimize side effects causing toxicity-induced tumorigenesis on normal cells and smaller metabolic perturbations. Fuzzy set theory was applied to evaluate potential side effects and investigate the magnitude of metabolic deviations in perturbed cells compared with their normal counterparts. The framework was applied to identify not only gene regulator targets but also metabolite- and reaction-centric targets. A nested hybrid differential evolution algorithm with a hierarchical fitness function was applied to solve multilevel IACT problems. The results show that the combination of a carbon metabolism target and any one-target gene that participates in the sphingolipid, glycerophospholipid, nucleotide, cholesterol biosynthesis, or pentose phosphate pathways is more effective for treatment than one-target inhibition is. A clinical antimetabolite drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) has been used to inhibit synthesis of deoxythymidine-5<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msup><mrow></mrow><mo>′</mo></msup></semantics></math></inline-formula>-triphosphate for treatment of colorectal cancer. The computational results reveal that a two-target combination of 5-FU and a folate supplement can improve cell viability, reduce metabolic deviation, and reduce side effects of normal cells.