From off to on in fractions of a second – researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have investigated a light-switchable drug for high blood pressure: They observed how the molecule transforms from one form to another and how this affects its effectiveness in the body. This could aid in the development of medications whose effects can be precisely controlled, within the body, using light. The study has now been published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
Rendering a drug effective or ineffective in a flash at the appropriate location – this is the focus of research in photopharmacology. The goal is to develop drugs that can be switched on and off with light of a specific wavelength. Orally administered medications could then be selectively activated by irradiating only a specific part of the body with light; the medication would remain ineffective in the rest of the body – thus reducing side-effects. For example, a drug intended to lower blood pressure in the heart could then be activated only there; other organs with identical binding sites for the active ingredient would remain unaffected.
Researchers in the PSI Center for Life Sciences have now observed, at the molecular level, how a light-switchable drug interacts with its corresponding biological receptor. Most important, they have discovered why the drug changes its potency.
“Observing exactly what happens at such receptors when a drug is altered by light is an important step toward making light-switchable drugs a reality in the clinic,” says Jörg Standfuss, a laboratory head in the PSI Center for Life Sciences and co-author of the new study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
Read more on the PSI website
Image: Jörg Standfuss (left) and Quentin Bertrand are two of the researchers in the PSI Center for Life Sciences who now have found out, on the molecular level, why a light-controllable drug changes its potency.
Credit: © Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Markus Fischer