Treatment for aggressive chemotherapy-resistant prostate cancer

Unmet Need: Treatment of aggressive chemotherapy-resistant prostate cancer

Prostate cancer (Pa) is a current epidemic that affects roughly 1 in 9 men. While treatment of early stages of this disease are very successful, a small percentage of patients have a recurrence of the disease that is much more aggressive. Current second line therapies include anti-androgens and chemotherapy yet eventually the disease becomes resistant to both therapies. Chemotherapy-resistant prostate cancer (ChRPC) remains a leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men as there are currently no therapeutics for PCa once it becomes resistant to chemotherapy.

The Technology: Combining antimuscarinics with chemotherapy agents

Researchers at WSU propose that the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors 1 and 3 (CHRM1/3) signaling leads to the development and maintenance of chemotherapy-resistant PCa. They discovered that pretreating ChRPC cells with antagonists of CHRM1 or CHRM3 before treatment with the chemotherapy agent docetaxel (DTX), re-sensitizes these cells to DTX-induced cell death in vitro.

Applications:

• Treatment of chemotherapy-resistant prostate cancer.

Advantages:

• Pretreating chemotherapy-resistant PCa cells with antagonists of CHRM1 or CHRM3 before treatment with DTX enhances DTX-induced cell death in DTX sensitive cells and re-sensitizes DTX-resistant cells to DTX in vitro.

Patent Information:

Provisional patent application filed