Letter to Editor of Cancer Communications Touts Great Clinical Potential of Mito-ATO

A group of international collaborators wrote a letter to the editor of Cancer Communications to share the potential benefits of mitochondria-targeted atovaquone (Mito-ATO). The collaborators, who developed Mito-ATO and found that it has stronger anti-tumor efficacy than atovaquone, have also found that it promotes anti-lung cancer immunity by reshaping the tumor microenvironment and enhancing energy metabolism of anti-tumor immune cells. Atovaquone is being used in anti-cancer clinical trials. Since Mito-ATO is more potent against human cancer cell lines compared with atovaquone, the group believes that Mito-ATO has great potential in the clinic.

The authors of this letter to the editor include Balaraman Kalyanaraman, PhD, professor of biophysics and the Harry R. & Angeline E. Quadracci Professor in Parkinson’s Research at MCW; Donghai Xiong, PhD, Zheng Yin, PhD, Mofei Huang, PhD, Yian Wang, PhD, and Ming You, MD, PhD, at the Center for Cancer Prevention, Houston Methodist Research Institute in Texas; Stephen Wong, PhD, at the Houston Methodist Cancer Center, Houston Methodist Hospital and Weill Cornell Medicine in Texas; and Micael Hardy, PhD, at Aix-Marseille Université in France.