Literature Review:
Doxorubicin (Dox) is a potent antitumor agent used in cancer treatment. Unfortunately, Dox is myotoxic and results in significant reductions in skeletal muscle mass and function. (Smuder, Min, & Powers, 2011). Cancer patients receiving doxorubicin chemotherapy experience both muscle weakness and fatigue. (Gilliam, et al., 2009). A growing problem among scientists is treating cancer without patients suffering during and afterwards. Creatine strongly supports the solution to this problem. Greenway and Chan have tested creatine and said, “In this present study, we investigated the direct effects of acute creatine incubation on isolated mouse fast-twitch EDL muscles, and examined how these effects change with fatigue.” (Greenaway & Chan, 2009). Before fatigue, creatine treatment resulted in a significantly higher force at the location of 100 Hz. In fatigued muscle, incubation in a creatine load solution prevented a significant amount of the loss of force seen as a result of repetitive activation in the same muscle under control (untreated) conditions.” (Greenaway & Chan, 2009).
Doxorubicin (Dox) is a potent antitumor agent used in cancer treatment. Unfortunately, Dox is myotoxic and results in significant reductions in skeletal muscle mass and function. (Smuder, Min, & Powers, 2011). Cancer patients receiving doxorubicin chemotherapy experience both muscle weakness and fatigue. (Gilliam, et al., 2009). A growing problem among scientists is treating cancer without patients suffering during and afterwards. Creatine strongly supports the solution to this problem. Greenway and Chan have tested creatine and said, “In this present study, we investigated the direct effects of acute creatine incubation on isolated mouse fast-twitch EDL muscles, and examined how these effects change with fatigue.” (Greenaway & Chan, 2009). Before fatigue, creatine treatment resulted in a significantly higher force at the location of 100 Hz. In fatigued muscle, incubation in a creatine load solution prevented a significant amount of the loss of force seen as a result of repetitive activation in the same muscle under control (untreated) conditions.” (Greenaway & Chan, 2009).
Introduction:
Dox (Fig. 1) has been used to effectively cure several types of cancer, such as lung, stomach, breast, solid tumor, and melanoma. Dox has stopped the replication of cancer cells, a medical contrivance. Although Doxorubicin is effective it poses serious side-effects. Heart dysfunction is one the serious side-effects from the drug Dox along with muscle dysfunction. Dox causes the heart muscles to weaken and makes the pumping of blood more difficult for the heart. (Mallick, 2014). Dox affects the mitochondria as well. Dox does not allow the mitochondria to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is essential to all of cell life. Without ATP, glucose is not fed to the muscle. Therefore, a person using Dox will have trouble completing everyday tasks such as folding laundry, walking up steps, and putting away food. One way to help balance out the negative effects of Dox is to use creatine.
Creatine is an organic acid that supplies energy to all cells in the body. Creatine phosphate gives up its phosphate molecule to ADP (adenosine-diphosphate), thus recreating ATP. (bodybuilding.com, 2004). ATP is then given to muscles and supplies more energy. In my research we can use creatine as a tool to keep an ex vivo muscle alive and reduce its chance of fatigue using creatine. This will later reduce the negative effects of Dox. The people that have used Dox now will not have to worry about doing everyday tasks with complete pain and struggle.
The purpose of using creatine in my research is to test how creatine affects muscles and the time it takes for the muscles to fatigue or essentially give out after being treated with a creatine buffer. Buffer is essentially sugars and electrolytes that help keep the muscle alive after being removed from the body. After using a creatine buffer we compared the data collected to the Dox buffer and a regular buffer. Then we tested how the creatine and Dox buffers affect the muscle.
I predicted that the creatine buffer by itself will cause the muscle to stay active for longer amounts of time then the regular and Doxorubicin buffers because more ATP will be supplied to the muscle rather than the other buffers. Also, I thought that the Dox buffer will have negative results and the muscle will fatigue faster than normal. I also believed that the creatine and Dox buffers mixed together will balance out and have a better result than the Dox buffer by itself. These results provided a good start for using Dox without negative effects. The objective of testing these different buffer solutions is to find a way to still use Dox without the negative effects and the pain cause from it. If we can get great results, our research could fight against the growing war of curing cancer.
Dox (Fig. 1) has been used to effectively cure several types of cancer, such as lung, stomach, breast, solid tumor, and melanoma. Dox has stopped the replication of cancer cells, a medical contrivance. Although Doxorubicin is effective it poses serious side-effects. Heart dysfunction is one the serious side-effects from the drug Dox along with muscle dysfunction. Dox causes the heart muscles to weaken and makes the pumping of blood more difficult for the heart. (Mallick, 2014). Dox affects the mitochondria as well. Dox does not allow the mitochondria to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is essential to all of cell life. Without ATP, glucose is not fed to the muscle. Therefore, a person using Dox will have trouble completing everyday tasks such as folding laundry, walking up steps, and putting away food. One way to help balance out the negative effects of Dox is to use creatine.
Creatine is an organic acid that supplies energy to all cells in the body. Creatine phosphate gives up its phosphate molecule to ADP (adenosine-diphosphate), thus recreating ATP. (bodybuilding.com, 2004). ATP is then given to muscles and supplies more energy. In my research we can use creatine as a tool to keep an ex vivo muscle alive and reduce its chance of fatigue using creatine. This will later reduce the negative effects of Dox. The people that have used Dox now will not have to worry about doing everyday tasks with complete pain and struggle.
The purpose of using creatine in my research is to test how creatine affects muscles and the time it takes for the muscles to fatigue or essentially give out after being treated with a creatine buffer. Buffer is essentially sugars and electrolytes that help keep the muscle alive after being removed from the body. After using a creatine buffer we compared the data collected to the Dox buffer and a regular buffer. Then we tested how the creatine and Dox buffers affect the muscle.
I predicted that the creatine buffer by itself will cause the muscle to stay active for longer amounts of time then the regular and Doxorubicin buffers because more ATP will be supplied to the muscle rather than the other buffers. Also, I thought that the Dox buffer will have negative results and the muscle will fatigue faster than normal. I also believed that the creatine and Dox buffers mixed together will balance out and have a better result than the Dox buffer by itself. These results provided a good start for using Dox without negative effects. The objective of testing these different buffer solutions is to find a way to still use Dox without the negative effects and the pain cause from it. If we can get great results, our research could fight against the growing war of curing cancer.