Drug Discovery Opinion

Although oestrogen replacement lowers cardiovascular risk in post-menopausal women, treatment is associated with an increased risk of uterine and breast cancer.

The increased cancer risk is linked to oestrogen’s action at nuclear receptors but researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have now found that a subpopulation of oestrogen receptors outside the cell nucleus mediate the beneficial cardiovascular effects. The extra-nuclear receptors in endothelial cells are important for blood vessel maintenance and repair and also regulate production of nitric oxide which has a number of beneficial cardiovascular effects. The team have found that an oestrogen-macromolecule complex which is excluded from the nucleus is highly effective in stimulating the extra-nuclear receptors. Similar dendrimer conjugates have been successfully used as drug delivery device in animal models and the oestrogen complex was shown to provide cardiovascular protection in high cholesterol ovariectomized female mice without stimulating growth of breast or uterine cancer. The team believe that such oestrogen-macromolecule complexes could provide cardiovascular protection for both men and women and are creating molecules that may be suitable for use in humans.

The study is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

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