| DYSREGULATION OF VITAMIN D3 SIGNALLING BY HISTONE DEACETYLATION IN PROSTATE CANCER.
Moray J. Campbell et al. University of Birmingham |
Both laboratory and animal studies suggest there is a role for a form of vitamin D in regulating the development of the normal prostate gland. However prostate cancer cells do not appear sensitive to this regulation; the reasons for this are not clear.
The researchers started out with the hypothesis that the regulated prostate growth, overseen by vitamin D3, was suppressed by a process involving “histone deacetylation”. They used low dose inhibition of this process with new drugs to slow the growth of prostate cancer cell lines. The new agents, blocking the histone deacetylation were found to act synergistically (i.e. the total effect is greater than the effect from the individual agents) with Dihydroxyvitamin D3 (the vitamin D form mentioned above).
They suggest that the underlying mechanism may be that histone deacetylation somehow blocks the messages from vitamin D3 telling normal prostate cells to “die”. This results in proliferation of prostate cells and the clinical picture we recognize as cancer. They propose that combination therapy with the new agents combined with vitamin D3 analogues may be a new avenue of treatment in prostate cancer. The science in this research was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, and therefore has received good peer body approval.
Summary of original research proposal dated 17 July 2001
Project 2000/06