How does a the targeted cancer treatment kinase inhibitor Ayvakit work to treat Indolent Systemic Mastocytosis on a molecular level? What’s the process?
In: Chemistry
Your body is one complex puzzle, and how everything fits together is crucial to ensure you survive (a coherent picture forms). Ayvakit is a kinase inhibitor which means it blocks protein kinases from working. A protein kinase is an enzyme that changes the shape of a specific protein. Now, if you stop a kinase, you stop a protein from changing shape, which means the puzzle no longer fits together.
The analogy falls apart once you realise that this doesn’t kill you but is mainly used to kill specific tumour cells.
Avapritinib (brand name ayvakit) hits two kinases (KIT and PDGFRa) that are commonly mutated in some cancers, and then specifically the mutated forms they often end up in. Take out these cancer-driving proteins, cancer stops or at least becomes more vulnerable.
Latest Answers