Empowering the Prostate Cancer Cells against Achieving Therpay Resistance

Release Date: 31-Jul-2020

There are several mechanisms through which cancer cells develop resistance against the used therapy. This is now an emerging problem as all the therapies that are available for the cancer treatment are now inclining towards more failure. To counteract this, researchers are now focusing on understanding the in-depth knowledge about the microenvironment in which the tumor is present as the enivornment of the tumor is considered to be a hub for the development of novel cancer therapies. 

According to a group of researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering, they have identified a protein molecule in the microenvironment of the prostate cancer having the ability to prevent the resistance developed by the tumor cells against the cancer therapy. After the identification and verification of the protein in the cancer cell development, their primary aim was to block the protein in order to prevent therapy resistance.

The clinical trial results conducted on mouse models and cell cultures of prostate cancer were fascinating. They found a protein called as NRG1 in the environment of the prostate cancer. The presence of NRG1 protein in the environment activates another protein called as HER3, which is responsible for the blocking the therapy action and driving the growth of the cancer cells. Also, the tumor samples derived from the patients who had received androgen deprivation therapy and vice versa indicated that the patients who received androgen deprivation therapy had elevated levels of NRG1 than the other patients.

The protein HER3 is already found in the case of breast cancer and is one of the major targets for the treatment of breast cancer but so far the therapies targeting HER3 have not been delivering prominent results in the case of treating prostate cancer. It is estimated that the further work of the study will include development of the antibody that mainly target such proteins. The study conducted for the development of an antibody specifically targeting the proteins in the environment is estimated to get completed in no time with several antibodies in hand in few years of time.