Large doses of iron help men beat prostate cancer

By Danny Halpin via SWNS

Large doses of iron could be used to kill off drug-resistant prostate cancer cells, scientists believe.

Sometimes prostate cancer growth is fuelled by sex hormones such as testosterone.

There are a variety of treatments and whilst these usually work at first, some cancers develop resistance after 18-24 months and that limits dramatically the available options.

However, a team of scientists led by Dr. Chunhong Yan of the Medical College of Georgia is hoping to use iron to fight this stubborn disease in a process called ferroptosis.

Iron is important for red blood cells carrying oxygen around the body but large amounts of it can be lethal to cells.

It produces a lot of toxic free radicals, or reactive oxygen species (ROS) which damage an important part of the cell membrane called lipids.

Lipids are important for energy storage and for internal cell signaling and through this process, free radicals cause them to lose their flexibility and efficiency until the cell dies, though exactly why is unclear.

Prostate cancer cells are unusually resistant to this destruction because their lipids are already changed in a similar way so the cells have the energy they need to grow and spread.

But Dr Yan’s team has found a gene called ATF3 that can lower the stress threshold of prostate cancer cells and make them more vulnerable to a new iron compound called JKE-1674 which induces ferroptosis.

Dr. Yan said: “When the cell takes up iron, it goes through different processes, which generate a lot of ROS.

“What we are trying to do is take advantage of this side effect to treat prostate cancer.”

Working on a $1.1 million idea development award from the US Department of Defence, the team has also found that combining a chemotherapy drug with one of the body’s natural mechanisms can also help kill prostate cancer cells.

The drug is called bortezomib and it helps activate the ATF3 gene while the compound JKE-1674 inhibits a process called glutathione peroxidase 4, or GPX4, which separates iron and free radicals and allows cells to repair.

Dr Yan said clinical trials have shown that bortezomib is not very effective at treating prostate cancer on its own but that when combined with JKE-1674 it becomes a powerful weapon.

The next steps are to conduct experiments on mice and see whether advanced prostate cancer can be neutralized using ferroptosis.

The scientists have a genetically engineered mouse that produces more ATF3 and they want to see whether this makes prostate cancer cells more vulnerable to ferroptosis as well.

Dr. Yan wants to develop a therapy that could progress quickly from the lab to a clinical trial and help combat the disease. Approximately one in eight American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime.