The traditional means for getting the healthful benefits of coffee is the old-fashioned way: you drink it. You drink it and then pretty much all your insides reap the benefits, scientifically speaking. But researchers from Texas A&M have found another way coffee could help you live forever: using caffeine as an on/off switch for gene-editing tools, with a potential to help treat cancer.
As reported by ScienceDaily, researchers from A&M’s Center for Translational Cancer Research at the Institute of Biosciences and Technology sought to use caffeine not for its own litany of health benefits but as a trigger for gene editing. Publishing their findings in the journal Chemical Science, they created “caffebodies”, “a specially engineered nanobody [that] responds to caffeine.” These caffebodies then get paired with CRISPR, a gene-editing tool, and transferred to into cells.
Once in the cells, researchers are able to use caffeine to trigger the caffebodies, which acts as an on switch for CRISPR, “which then carries out specific gene modifications within the cell.” The modifications will continue for as long as it takes the caffeine to pass through the system, generally a few hours. And when the caffeine is gone, the modifications cease.
Researchers selected caffeine in particular because it is well-researched, easy to access and manage, and has fewer side effects than current options.
To further hone the timing of the intervention, researchers found they could use Rapamycin, an immunosuppressant and antiproliferative drug, to turn off CRISPR instead of waiting for the passing to naturally work its way out.
“Instead of acting as therapies themselves, molecules like caffeine or rapamycin can serve as precise control signals for sophisticated cell and gene therapies,” states Yubin Zhao, Yubin Zhou, professor and director of the Center for Translational Cancer Research at the Institute of Biosciences and Technology and one of the study’s authors. “Our hope is that one day, clinicians could use simple, familiar inputs to finely tune powerful therapies in a safe and reversible way.”
Potential uses for the caffebody-controlled CRISPR would be in triggering CAR T cells. These are immune cells in the body that have been genetically engineered to recognize and destroy cancer cells. Per Mindbodygreen, CAR T cells are always “on”, resulting in serious side effects, including an overactive immune response known as cytokine release syndrome. By using caffeine and Rapamycin, doctors could essentially activate and deactivate CAR T cells as needed.
Caffebodies could also be used to trigger insulin production for those with diabetes.
Caffebodies have yet to go to human trial and thus are still a long way away from being an approved and readily available therapeutic. But the potential is exciting. Pretty soon, your morning coffee could also double as a cancer treatment.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
