[Research development of tumor treatment with methionine gamma-lyase]

Methionine-dependent increase in tumor cells is a specific metabolic defect. This metabolic defect is also a target for selective treatment of cancer. Studies found that the methionine gamma-lyase (methioninase, L-methionine gamma-lyase) can specificly split the methionine of extracellular and intracellular, so it can strongly inhibit the growth of tumor cells and induce apoptosis of tumor cells. However, no effect on normal cells has been found, so the methionine gamma-lyase may play the anti-tumor role. We also explored in the present study another effect of methionine gamma-lyase as a single agent on DNA methylation levels and DNA synthesis, which may change as a result of deprivation of methionine, and thus may enhance anti-tumor effects. Animal studies and clinical trials showed that a variety of methionine dependent methionine gamma-lyase can eliminate the tumor cells. Therefore, methionine restriction is an effective anticancer strategy. Methionine gamma-lyase has shown great prospects as a new type of gene therapy. This article made a review of it.