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Written By: Editorial Team | Published : December 2, 2014 12:41 PM IST
Washington, Dec 1: According to a new study published online in the journal Cancer Research, anti-HIV drugs may have the ability to slow down the spread of prostate cancer.
How do HIV drugs work on prostate cancer?
According to the researchers, the receptor CCR5, that is best known for its role in HIV therapy, may be involved in progressing the spread of prostate cancer to the bone. In the study, they analysed the genes of the metastasised bone and brain tumours and found genes driving the cancer were also involved in the CCR5 signalling pathway. To investigate further, the researchers administered the CCR5-blocking drug maraviroc to the new prostate cancer mouse model. In comparison to control animals, maraviroc dramatically reduced the overall metastatic load by 60 percent in the bone, brain and other organs. (Read: Why testosterone may increase prostate cancer risk in men)
Finally, in order to determine whether a similar mechanism might be at play in human prostate cancer, the researchers mined the genomic data of patients with prostate cancer and found that CCR5 was more highly expressed in prostate cancer tissue compared with normal tissue, and even more highly expressed in metastases compared with primary tumours. (Read: 6 symptoms of prostate cancer all men should know)
Co-first author Xuanmao Jiao, Ph.D. said that they noticed that the patients who had a lower expression of the CCR5-pathway genes had a longer survival times, whereas high expression of these CCR5 genes was associated with a shorter overall survival. (Read: Robot-assisted surgery controls prostate cancer)
What next?
Senior author on the study Dr. Richard Pestell at Thomas Jefferson University said that since their work showed that they could dramatically reduce metastasis in pre-clinical models, and because the drug was already FDA approved for HIV treatment- they may be able to test soon whether this drug could block metastasis in patients with prostate cancer. (Read: Is there an anti-HIV drug on its way?)
Source: ANI
Photo source: ANI
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