Tick saliva can treat cancer: Study
Tick, a parasite and a vector for numerous diseases, holds the key compound effective in treating skin, liver, and pancreatic cancers.
According to Brazilian researchers, proteins found in the saliva of Amblyomma cajennense, a common South American tick, can fight cancerous cells, while leaving healthy cells intact.
Factor X active shares similar anti-coagulant properties to that of a Kunitz-type inhibitor known as Tissue Factor Pathway Inhibitor (TFPI), a protein that interferes with cell growth.
‘If I treat every day for 14 days an animal's tumor, a small tumor, this tumor doesn't develop -- it even regresses. The tumor mass shrinks. If I treat for 42 days, you totally eliminate the tumor,’ said the lead researcher Ana Marisa Chudzinski-Tavassi.
She concluded that the new protein helps shrink the size of the tumor after prolonged treatment and eventually causes it to completely vanish.
Scientists are optimistic that their findings will pave the way for the development of an effective cancer treatment in the near future.
Source: presstv.ir
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