Novel potential therapy for prostate cancer was discovered by Morehouse School of Medicine scientists at Cancer Biology Program, Dept of OB/GYN, Georgia Cancer Center for excellence, Grady Hospital, Atlanta
In the United States of America, prostate cancer is the second most common age-related cancer among men. African-American men have the highest incidence of, and mortality rate from this disease and they have twice the risk of developing prostate cancer as Caucasian men. ERG gene (discovered by us) was found to be involved in a majority of human Prostate cancers (50-80%). Another ERG/ETS related gene, ETV1 is believed to be responsible for 10% of prostate cancer.
In order to understand the molecular mechanism by which ETV1 cancer protein causes prostate cancer, Dr Reddy and his Ph.D. student Sharif Morsalin in collaboration with other scientific colleagues Drs Chunshu Yang, Jinbo Fang, Shubhalaxmi Kayarthodi, Ed Childs, Roland Matthews, Sampreet Reddy, Veena N Rao ( from Cancer Biology Program, Dept of OB/GYN, Morehouse School of Medicine, Georgia Cancer Center for Excellence, Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta ) discovered that ETV1 cancer protein induces certain enzymes ( kinases) in cancer cells which deregulate the critical protein beta-catenin by protein modification. They have also identified therapeutic agent (commercially available) that interferes with this process. In addition, they have demonstrated that this therapeutic agent targets these cancer cells effectively. These therapeutic agents will have a profound impact on prevention and treatment of prostate cancer which may help to reduce health disparity seen in minority prostate cancer patients. They also believe that such targeted mechanistic studies will help patients not to undergo unnecessary and more dramatic chemo- therapy treatment
Molecular Mechanism of β-Catenin Signaling Pathway Inactivation in ETV1-Positive Prostate Cancers. Sharif Morsalin, Chunshu Yang, Jinbo Fang, Shubhalaxmi Kayarthodi, Ed Childs, Roland Matthews, Veena N Rao and E. Shyam P. Reddy. Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacology (In Press)