Prostate cancer is the first non-skin cancer diagnosed in men. Riluzole, a drug indicated in the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) could “help” in the treatment of prostate cancer, reveals this study from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center (Buffalo), presented in the specialized journal The Prostate .
Since the 1940s, androgens have been well documented as being linked to prostate cancer, and decades of research have gone into the androgen receptor (AR). Although this transcription factor causes prostate cancer, inhibiting it only induces remission for a short time. This team shows that riluzole, a drug approved for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis promotes the degradation of RA by a distinct pathway. This discovery provides a promising complementary option for the treatment of advanced-stage prostate cancer.
The androgen-dependent transcription factor drives cancer progression , but inhibiting its biosynthesis only induces remission for a short period, the researchers point out in the preamble. At advanced stage, the tumor is more aggressive with reactivated RA-dependent signaling. When researchers treat prostate cancer cell lines with the drug riluzole, AR expression is reduced in particular "by selective autophagy." Moreover, riluzole also significantly inhibits the transcriptional activity of the RA receptor by decreasing the expression of its target genes (PSA, TMPRSS2 and KLK2).
In short, data qualified by the authors as “mechanistic” which confirm the anti-tumorigenic effects of riluzole which induces the degradation of the RA protein by an autonomous pathway.
These results support the potential usefulness of riluzole for the treatment of prostate cancer, particularly at the advanced stage of the disease.
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