Biochemical Pharmacology of Antimetabolites (Dr. Helena Mertlíková-Kaiserová)

The group was established in 2010 as a successor team of the biochemical part of former Prof. Holý's department. Based on the long-term expertise accumulated by Dr. Votruba in the field of biochemistry of nucleic acid components and their analogs we cooperate with the IOCB's medicinal chemistry groups on the identification of new potential drugs and up-to-date drug targets providing the chemists with valuable feedback information. Our goal is to describe the interactions of the newly synthesized compounds with individual enzymes and/or cellular systems and shed some light onto their mechanisms of action. The research is focused especially on the applications of innovative nucleoside/nucleotide analogs in the field of anticancer therapy. Our work is based on in vitro experiments ranging from enzymatic test-tube assays to cell culture level. To achieve our goals we employ classical spectral and separation methods as well as advanced techniques such as flow cytometry or real-time RT-PCR.