Publication

Abstract : Familial cancers, which are in general incapable of exhibiting symptoms at the early onset period of the disease, can become fatal if left undiagnosed. Such cancers turn out to be a great threat through many generations in the long run. The remedial alternative to this is treatment at the genetic level which quite obviously points out to gene therapy. In this work, gene therapy proposed at the pre-transcriptional level intends to silence mutation of the target gene, thereby inhibiting or silencing gene expression in the form of a defective protein. Skin cancer, the second most common type of cancers widespread across the globe, has been considered for our studies. Phytochemicals that have been reported to have anti-skin cancer properties (at the protein level - acting on the defective protein targets), have been further investigated for antimutagenic activity at the gene level (intended to act on gene targets). Lutein and crocetin have been reported to show antimutagenic behavior towards the skin cancer genes considered in the analysis. Considering the drug-likeness of these two molecules, it has been found that the water solubility of lutein and the bioavailability of both lutein and crocetin need to be improved to make them into effective drugs in gene therapy.