Blocking Myc to Treat Cancer: Reflecting on Two Decades of Omomyc

• Published in: Cells (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 9; no. 4; p. 883
• Main Authors: Massó-Vallés, Daniel, Soucek, Laura
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 04.04.2020; MDPI
• Subjects: Amino Acid Sequence; Amino acids; Animals; Apoptosis; Biomedical Research; Biosynthesis; Cancer; Cell cycle; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; Drug development; Epigenesis, Genetic; Gene expression; Humans; Kinases; Lymphoma; Metastasis; mouse models; Myc; Myc inhibition; Myc protein; Neoplasms - genetics; Neoplasms - therapy; omomyc; Peptide Fragments - administration & dosage; Peptide Fragments - chemistry; Peptide Fragments - metabolism; peptides; Physiology; Proteins; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-myc - administration & dosage; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-myc - chemistry; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-myc - metabolism; Review; Transcription factors; Transcriptional Activation - genetics; mouse models; Myc; omomyc; peptides; cancer; new therapeutics; anticancer drugs; Myc inhibition
• ISSN: 2073-4409; 2073-4409
• DOI: 10.3390/cells9040883

First designed and published in 1998 as a laboratory tool to study Myc perturbation, Omomyc has come a long way in the past 22 years. This dominant negative has contributed to our understanding of Myc biology when expressed, first, in normal and cancer cells, and later in genetically-engineered mice, and has shown remarkable anti-cancer properties in a wide range of tumor types. The recently described therapeutic effect of purified Omomyc mini-protein—following the surprising discovery of its cell-penetrating capacity—constitutes a paradigm shift. Now, much more than a proof of concept, the most characterized Myc inhibitor to date is advancing in its drug development pipeline, pushing Myc inhibition into the clinic.