PRMT1 activator boosts chemotherapy in mice with pancreatic cancer

At Marburg University, a structural model shows TR-07 as a turquoise-and-red molecule nestled against PRMT1. That small-molecule activator has now made pancreatic cancer cells easier to kill and strengthened an established chemotherapy regimen in mice, according to a team spanning the university’s molecular biology, medicinal chemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry groups.

The idea runs against the direction most researchers have taken. PRMT enzymes implicated in cancer have generally been targeted with inhibitors, but PRMT1 can act as a tumor suppressor in pancreatic cancer. The Marburg team therefore tested the opposite strategy: activating the enzyme. TR-07 is described as the first selective activator for PRMT1, an arginine methyltransferase.

The compound emerged from computer-aided searches in Peter Kolb’s laboratory. The screening produced many nonselective inhibitors, but also, unexpectedly, an activating molecule. Christian Iking synthesized TR-07 and a series of variants, while Sepideh Salehipour-Bavarsad, Caroline Bouchard and Marion Meixner examined how the compounds changed enzyme activity and affected cells and animal models. Structural biology work led by Gert Bange helped clarify how TR-07 might activate PRMT1.

For patients, the immediate implication is not a new available drug but a possible way to make existing chemotherapy work harder in some pancreatic cancers. The study’s evidence comes from cell cultures and a mouse model, so it has not established a benefit in people; the researchers still need to refine TR-07 and identify the cancer types and patients most likely to benefit.

That distinction leaves the result at the laboratory stage, while preserving a practical direction: targeted combination treatments built around enzyme activation rather than inhibition. The Marburg researchers’ work, published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry in 2026, turns an unexpected screening result into a testable path for future drug development.