A team of researchers at the Centenary Institute has led a breakthrough in prostate cancer research after discovering how to cut off the ‘food supply’ to prostate cancer cells.

 

The team, led by Dr Jeff Holst, discovered the potential treatment through starving prostate cancer cells of an essential nutrient required to grow rapidly.

 

The cancer, which kills around 3,300 Australian men per year, is the country’s second worst cancer killer for men, roughly matching the impact of breast cancer on women.

 

Dr Holst’s team found that by depriving growing prostate cancer cells of an essential nutrient, the amino acid called leucine, the cell’s speed of development declined significantly.

 

Cancerous cells possess ‘pumps’ which control the intake leucine, with prostate cancer cells possessing more than usual.

 

“This information allows us to target the pumps – and we’ve tried two routes. We found that we could disrupt the uptake of leucine firstly by reducing the expression amount of the protein pumps, and secondly by introducing a drug that competes with leucine. Both approaches slowed cancer growth, in essence ‘starving’ the cancer cells,” Dr Holst says.

 

First author Dr Qian Wang says by targeting different sets of pumps, the researchers were able to slow tumour growth in both the early and late stages of prostate cancer.

 

“In some of the experiments, we were able to slow tumour growth by as much as 50 per cent. Our hope is that we could develop a treatment that slows the growth of the cancer so that it would not require surgical removal. If animal trials are successful over the next few years then clinical trials could start in as little as five years,” he says.