Jasmonates
The seminal work by Professor Flescher investigated the effect of the plant stress hormone methyl jasmonate on human cancer cells. Isolated initially in 1962 from the essential oil of Jasminum grandiflorum, found since throughout the plant kingdom, methyl Jasmonate is involved in the defense of plants against external stress. Professor Flescher demonstrated that methyl-jasmonate displays an anticancer activity on a large spectrum of human cancer cells, without affecting normal cells.The striking effects of jasmonates are due to the fact that they affect the mitochondrial function of cancer cells and not that of normal cells. Mitochondria are responsible for energy synthesis within cells. In contrast to mitochondria from most normal tissues, cancer cell mitochondria display association between the glycolytic enzyme hexokinase and the voltage dependent anion channel (VDAC). This association is an important feature of the overactive bio-energetic activity of tumor cells characterizing the Warburg effect. Jasmonates cause detachment of hexokinase from its mitochondrial anchor in tumor cells, leading to disruption of energy generation in these cells and consequently to cancer cell death.
Sepal Pharma candidate molecules constitute a potential novel therapeutic class of bioenergetics-targeted cancer therapies due to their unique mode of action that causes the detachment of hexokinase from cancer cell mitochondria.
