L-Asparaginase : An Anti-Leukemic Agent

Cancer is one of the fatal diseases occurring throughout the world in which the body cells become abnormal, divides continuously and form tumors. Various treatments are under use for cancer like chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery. All of the ways have some advantages, limitations and side effects. So there is a need to find some potent but safe therapeutic agent to treat cancers. L-Asparaginase is found to be a novel therapeutic agent against blood cancer i.e. leukemia. It catalyzes deamidation of L-asparagine to L-aspartate and ammonia (L-asparagine amidohydrolase; E.C. 3.5.1.1). Several types of microorganisms ranging from fungi, bacteria, yeast and variety of plants produce this enzyme, while in humans this enzyme is totally absent. As this enzyme is having potent anti cancerous properties and along with no side effects (sometimes minor allergic response occurs as reported in some studies) in compare to other chemotherapeutic agents, it has attracted scientists from biological field to find out probable potent sources of the enzyme.