COPPER SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION, CONCENTRATION & STATUS IN NORMAL & TUMOR TISSUES

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. In a previous experiment, we have demonstrated that DSF and CQ can interact with Cu in solution forming a new compound. The combined CQ-Cu and DSF-Cu compounds can be used as anticancer drugs with minimum toxicity levels. To investigate the Cu distribution in normal and tumor tissues we performed elemental fluorescence mapping on normal and tumor tissue from mouse breast and mouse prostate tissue. We also performed mapping experiment in treated tissues to investigate the effect of the mentioned compounds in the Cu distribution in vivo. The samples used were breast cancer and prostate cancer tissue. Our data indicate that Cu is found in very low amount in normal tissue and in higher levels in tumor tissue. We have also measured the correlation of Cu, Zn and Fe distributions in both sets of samples. The results indicate a significant activity of the compounds at the tumor tissue samples. More samples are under preparation to investigate the effect of the drugs at different stages of the tumor development. Optimization of the experimental conditions is also under development.