HomeScience and ResearchScientific ResearchThis Surprising Discovery Offers New Hope For Prostate Cancer Patients

This Surprising Discovery Offers New Hope For Prostate Cancer Patients

Published on

Although hormone therapy is effective at controlling metastatic prostate cancer, eventually the tumor cells develop resistance to it. Now, medicines that were not made to fight cancer but to target proteins that control a cell’s circadian rhythm have shown promise as a possible solution.

This discovery will be made public on June 27, 2022 by an international team of scientists under the direction of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in the prestigious journal Cancer Discovery, a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Hormones, particularly testosterone, play a role in the development of the tumor type known as prostate cancer. Anti-hormonal therapy, which blocks the signal released by testosterone that drives tumor growth, is frequently used to treat patients with metastatic prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer can be managed with anti-hormonal therapy, but eventually the disease manages to spread in spite of continued treatment. The cancer cells have developed resistance. This suggests that finding medications to block tumor development itself will not be the biggest issue in treating metastatic prostate cancer; rather, it will be finding medications to block hormone therapy resistance. But until today, the precise mechanism by which tumor cells develop resistance to hormone therapy remained a mystery.

Now, a team lead by the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Oncode Institute has discovered a shocking discovery employing prostate cancer tissue treated with testosterone-inhibiting medicines. They found that proteins that typically control the circadian clock, an unanticipated class of proteins, dampen the effects of the anti-hormonal medication.

One of the research’s main figures, Wilbert Zwart, says that “prostate cancer cells no longer have a circadian rhythm But these ‘circadian clock’ proteins acquire an entirely new function in the tumor cells upon hormonal therapy: they keep these cancer cells alive, despite treatment. This has never been seen before.”

Having identified the tumor’s escape route, the researchers will now collaborate with Oncode to create cutting-edge methods to halt it, ultimately boosting the effectiveness of anti-hormonal therapy against prostate cancer.

This new study “has shown us that we will need to start thinking outside the box when it comes to new drugs to treat prostate cancer and test medicines that affect the circadian clock proteins in order to increase sensitivity to hormonal therapy in prostate cancer,” Zwart adds, “Fortunately, there are already several therapies that affect circadian proteins, and those can be combined with anti-hormonal therapies. This lead, which allows for a form of drug repurposing, could save a decade of research .”

56 patients with high-risk prostate cancer who had undergone three months of anti-hormonal medication prior to surgery provided tissue for the study. Their tissue was tested at the DNA level after those three months.

According to researcher Simon Linder, who will obtain his PhD for his work on this study, “we noticed that the genes keeping the tumor cells alive despite the treatment, were suddenly controlled by a protein that normally regulates the circadian clock.”

This unexpected finding also opens up new possibilities because it was discovered that prostate tumor cells in both animals and lab settings were more sensitive to anti-hormonal therapy when this circadian protein was inhibited.

The findings of this study may raise concerns about whether shift work or other circadian clock disruptions could enhance the likelihood of prostate cancer medication insensitivity.

Medical oncologist André Bergman adds that “there is no evidence to support this.”

“The circadian rhythm in prostate tumor cells is no longer functional, and the proteins have taken on an entirely new role. This new escape route of the tumor cell has our full attention now, and follow-up research will show whether inhibition of this process can improve prostate cancer treatment.”

Image Credit: Netherlands Cancer Institute

You were reading: This Surprising Discovery Offers New Hope For Prostate Cancer Patients

Latest articles

Here’s How and When Mount Everest-sized ‘Devil Comet’ Can Be Seen With Naked Eye

Mount Everest sized Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, also known as "devil comet" which is making its...

Something Fascinating Happened When a Giant Quantum Vortex was Created in Superfluid Helium

Scientists created a giant swirling vortex within superfluid helium that is chilled to the...

The Science of Middle-aged Brain and the Best Thing You Can Do to Keep it Healthy, Revealed

Middle age: It is an important period in brain aging, characterized by unique biological...

Science Shock: Salmon’s Food Choices Better at Reducing Risk of Heart Disease and Stroke

Salmon: Rich in Health Benefits, Yet May Offer Less Nutritional Value - This is...

More like this

Here’s How and When Mount Everest-sized ‘Devil Comet’ Can Be Seen With Naked Eye

Mount Everest sized Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, also known as "devil comet" which is making its...

Something Fascinating Happened When a Giant Quantum Vortex was Created in Superfluid Helium

Scientists created a giant swirling vortex within superfluid helium that is chilled to the...

The Science of Middle-aged Brain and the Best Thing You Can Do to Keep it Healthy, Revealed

Middle age: It is an important period in brain aging, characterized by unique biological...