A SNAKE venom may stop cancer cells spreading in the body, or
“metastasising”.
Cells move by dissolving one side of their internal skeleton and rebuilding
it on the opposite side. The process involves surface proteins called integrins.
Most tumour cells capable of metastasis have an integrin seldom found on healthy
adult cells.
Francis Markland and his colleagues at the University of Southern California
in Los Angeles knew that a protein called contortrostatin, extracted from the
venom of the southern copperhead snake, binds to this integrin. So they
reckoned it might stop cancer metastasising.
Matthew Ritter, one of the researchers, added…
