Drug Requires Low Glucose Levels
Prostate Cancer Treatment
The researchers suggest that the vulnerability that their findings have identified in PTEN-deficient cells may pave the way for highly selective targeting of incurable prostate cancer using mitochondrial inhibitors. Metformin, the widely prescribed diabetes drug, is also a mitochondrial inhibitor and is already being tested in clinical trials as an anti-cancer treatment. The authors note that in the case of prostate cancer, treatment with metformin seems to reduce disease deaths but not incidence. This suggests, they add, that metformin may preferentially target aggressive , and there are currently trials trying to find this out. They propose that their new findings contribute to these efforts. However, they note that their study also suggests that one of the conditions necessary for mitochondrial inhibitors to have maximal selective killing power is depletion of tumor cell glucose supplies. This would indicate the need for a treatment scenario that is opposite to that of diabetes, in which metformin is taken just after a meal when blood glucose levels are high. The authors conclude:
Deguelin Stopped Cancer ProgressionProf. Trotman and colleagues suggest that, of the 3 million men in the U.S. who have prostate cancer, roughly 100,000 carry cancers with co-mutation of . This prompted them to look for drugs that might work specifically against prostate cancers that carry mutated PTEN and p53. However, because several studies have shown that loss only of p53 does not give rise to prostate cancer, they decided to focus on PTEN. The researchers began the study by running a series of experiments using cells with and without PTEN. They found that deguelin had the capacity to kill both types of cell, but the dose required to kill cells with PTEN was 500 times higher than the dose required to kill cells without PTEN . They also discovered that the drug had a much stronger effect on the cells without PTEN because their mitochondria were consuming ATP instead of producing it. Thats the exact opposite, Prof. Trotman says, of what mitochondria are supposed to be doing. Mitochondria are supposed to generate ATP for the rest of the cell. Finally, when they then tested deguelin in their mouse model of lethal metastatic prostate cancer, the researchers found that it stopped the cancer progressing. Diet Tips For Prostate Health
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