Penn's fPE7max Uncovers 18 Fungal Molecules, Including 3 Anti-Cancer Candidates
Updated
Updated · Tech Times · Jul 3
Penn's fPE7max Uncovers 18 Fungal Molecules, Including 3 Anti-Cancer Candidates
1 articles · Updated · Tech Times · Jul 3
Summary
Three newly identified compounds selectively killed cancer cells in lab assays after Penn researchers used the fPE7max editing platform to activate silent pathways in filamentous fungi.
fPE7max uncovered 18 complex molecules in total, including 8 never previously described, by precisely editing regulatory controls that normally keep fungal biosynthetic gene clusters dormant in lab conditions.
The Nature Biotechnology study says the platform is the first successful use of prime editing in filamentous fungi, reaching nearly 90% efficiency across multiple species while avoiding the double-strand DNA breaks that hinder CRISPR-based approaches.
More than 11,000 fungal genomes contain nearly 294,000 biosynthetic gene clusters, yet fewer than 1% are linked to known compounds, leaving a vast pool of potential drug chemistry largely unexplored.
The anti-cancer hits are only lead compounds—not near-term treatments—but the platform could also broaden searches for new antibiotics and other medicines from fungi that already yielded penicillin, statins and cyclosporine.