Understanding how prostate cancer 'turns back the clock' to grow and hide from treatment

Grant information

Institution - Newcastle University
Researcher - Professor Craig Robson
Grant award - £209,648
Duration - 2013-2017
Status - Complete 
Reference - PG12-24

Why did we fund this project?

• The growing organs of a developing baby are built from stem cells - special cells that can turn into any other type of cell in the body. These stem cells grow and spread rapidly by producing powerful ‘growth promoters’.
• Prostate cancer cells grow and spread rapidly too. Researchers have shown to achieve this rapid growth, cancer cells can start producing the growth promoters again.
• Another key driver of prostate cancer is the androgen receptor (AR), which is targeted by many prostate cancer treatments, like hormone therapy.
• Professor Robson and team proposed that growth promoters might 'work together' with the AR to make prostate cancer grow and spread even faster, and help the cancer hide from treatments.
• This project explored how the AR and growth promoters work together, and if blocking the interaction between them could slow cancer growth and keep treatments working for longer.

What did the team do?

• The team grew prostate cancer cells in the lab, and used genetic techniques to make them produce the growth promoters. 
• They studied the interaction between the growth promoters and the AR, to understand whether they were working together to drive cancer growth.

What did the team achieve?

• The team found growth promoters helped prostate cancer grow and spread more rapidly and hide from treatments.
• Unexpectedly, they found out that the growth promoters did not work together with the AR.
• The growth promoters instead activated a different hormone pathway to drive prostate cancer growth and treatment resistance.
• Importantly, when the researchers used a drug to block this hormone pathway, this reversed some of the changes.

What does this mean for men?

• The team's work has gained understanding on how growth promoters cause prostate cancer to grow, spread and hide from treatments.
• The team hope to use this insight to develop drugs to test in clinical trials, ultimately leading to a new treatment for men with advanced prostate cancer.