Scientists based in Australia and China have identified a pair of pesky enzymes responsible for prolonging prostate cancer – which means we can potentially target them for quicker and more effective treatment of a condition that affects 1.5 million men around the world annually.
In a paper set to appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers from Flinders University in Australia and the South China University of Technology noted that two enzymes – PDIA1 and PDIA5 – protect prostate cancer cells in the body as they grow, and help them resist treatment.
Specifically, they guard a protein known as the androgen receptor (AR), and even help these cells regulate energy production internally – enabling them to survive within the body.
"By targeting these enzymes, we can destabilize the AR and make tumors more vulnerable to existing therapies like enzalutamide," noted senior author Professor Luke Selth from Flinders University.
The team found that blocking the enzymes with specially formulated drugs caused cancer cell death, and even led to cancerous tumors shrinking in lab-grown cells and animal models. This also hits the mitochondria – the powerhouse of the cancer cells – and brings on oxidative stress in them, damaging them further.
Combining enzyme-targeting drugs with a common prostate cancer medication called enzalutamide enhanced the effectiveness of the treatment too.
That certainly sounds promising. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in the world, closely following lung cancer – and while treatments exist, many patients often exhibit resistance to current therapies.
The team notes that its approach isn't yet ready for prime time: the drugs that can specifically target PDIA1 and PDIA5 need to be developed further so they don't affect healthy cells while they go about tackling just those two enzymes.
Source: Flinders University via Scimex
