The efficacy and safety comparison of docetaxel, cabazitaxel, estramustine, and mitoxantrone for castration-resistant prostate cancer: A network meta-analysis

Development of a Plasmonic Sensor for a Chemotherapeutic Agent Cabazitaxel

Drug dosage is a crucial subject in both human and animal treatment. Administering less drug dosage may prevent treatment or make it less effective, and high drug dosage may cause a heightened risk of adverse effects, or in some cases, cost a patient's life. Also, even when the dosage is administered carefully, metabolic differences may cause different effects on different patients. Because of these considerations, monitoring drug dosage in the body is a critical and significant requirement in the health industry. Within the scope of this study, a reusable surface plasmon resonance (SPR) chip with fast response, high selectivity, and no pretreatment is produced for the chemotherapeutic agent cabazitaxel. A cabazitaxel-imprinted nanofilm was synthesized on the sensor chip surface and characterized by atomic force microscopy, ellipsometry, and contact angle measurements. Standard cabazitaxel solution and an artificial plasma sample were used for the kinetic analysis. Docetaxel, methylprednisolone, and dexamethasone were analyzed for their selectivity experiment. In addition, the repeatability and storage durability of the sensor were also evaluated. As a result of the adsorption studies, the limit of detection and limit of quantitation values were found to be 0.012 and 0.036 μg/mL, respectively. High-performance liquid chromatography analysis was used to validate the response of the cabazitaxel-imprinted sensor.

177Lu-PSMA Radioligand Therapy Is Favorable as Third-Line Treatment of Patients with Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer. A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

In this systematic review and network meta-analysis (NMA), we aimed to assess the benefits and harms of third-line (L3) treatments in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Two reviewers searched for publications from 1 January 2006 to 30 June 2021. The review analyzed seven RCTs that included 3958 patients and eight treatments. Treatment with prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-based radioligand therapy (PRLT) resulted in a 1.3-times-higher rate of median PSA decline ≥50% than treatment with abiraterone, enzalutamide, mitoxantrone, or cabazitaxel (p = 0.00001). The likelihood was 97.6% for PRLT to bring about the best PSA response, out of the examined treatments. PRLT resulted in a 1.1-times-higher six-month rate of median radiographic progression-free survival. Treatment with PRLT in the VISION trial resulted in 1.05-times-higher twelve-month median overall survival than L3 treatment with cabazitaxel in other RCTs. PRLT more often resulted in severe thrombocytopenia and less often in severe leukopenia than did cabazitaxel. In conclusion, for patients with mCRPC, L3 treatment with PRLT is highly effective and safe.

Taxanes Sensitize Prostate Cancer Cells to TRAIL-Induced Apoptotic Synergy via Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress

Docetaxel and cabazitaxel are guideline-chemotherapy treatments for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), which comprises the majority of prostate cancer deaths. TNF-related apoptosis inducing ligand (TRAIL) is an anticancer agent that is selectively cytotoxic to cancer cells; however, many human cancers are resistant to TRAIL. In this study, we sensitized androgen-independent and TRAIL-resistant prostate cancer cells to TRAIL-mediated apoptosis via taxane therapy and examined the mechanism of sensitization. DU145 and PC3 cells displayed no significant reduction in cell viability when treated with soluble TRAIL, docetaxel, or cabazitaxel alone indicating that both cell lines are resistant to TRAIL and taxanes individually. Taxane and TRAIL combination synergistically amplified apoptosis strongly suggesting that taxanes sensitize prostate cancer cells to TRAIL. A Jun N-terminal kinases (JNK) inhibitor inhibited apoptosis in treated cells and significantly reduced death receptor expression indicating JNK activation by ER stress sensitizes PCa cells to TRAIL-induced apoptosis by upregulating DR4/DR5 expression. In addition, suppression of C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP) reduced TRAIL sensitization in both cell lines indicating that ER stress-related apoptosis is mediated, in part, by CHOP. Cytochrome c knockdown showed a significant decrease in sensitivity in PC3 cells, but not in Bax-deficient DU145 cells. A computational model was used to simulate apoptosis for cells treated with taxane and TRAIL therapy as demonstrated in in vitro experiments. Pretreatment with taxanes sensitized cells to apoptosis induced by TRAIL-mediated apoptosis, demonstrating that combining TRAIL with ER stress inducers is a promising therapy to reverse TRAIL resistance to treat mCRPC.

Prediction of Synergistic Drug Combinations for Prostate Cancer by Transcriptomic and Network Characteristics

Prostate cancer (PRAD) is a major cause of cancer-related deaths. Current monotherapies show limited efficacy due to often rapidly emerging resistance. Combination therapies could provide an alternative solution to address this problem with enhanced therapeutic effect, reduced cytotoxicity, and delayed the appearance of drug resistance. However, it is prohibitively cost and labor-intensive for the experimental approaches to pick out synergistic combinations from the millions of possibilities. Thus, it is highly desired to explore other efficient strategies to assist experimental researches. Inspired by the challenge, we construct the transcriptomics-based and network-based prediction models to quickly screen the potential drug combination for Prostate cancer, and further assess their performance by in vitro assays. The transcriptomics-based method screens nine possible combinations. However, the network-based method gives discrepancies for at least three drug pairs. Further experimental results indicate the dose-dependent effects of the three docetaxel-containing combinations, and confirm the synergistic effects of the other six combinations predicted by the transcriptomics-based model. For the network-based predictions, in vitro tests give opposite results to the two combinations (i.e. mitoxantrone-cyproheptadine and cabazitaxel-cyproheptadine). Namely, the transcriptomics-based method outperforms the network-based one for the specific disease like Prostate cancer, which provide guideline for selection of the computational methods in the drug combination screening. More importantly, six combinations (the three mitoxantrone-containing and the three cabazitaxel-containing combinations) are found to be promising candidates to synergistically conquer Prostate cancer.

Overcoming TRAIL-resistance by sensitizing prostate cancer 3D spheroids with taxanes

Three-dimensional spheroid cultures have been shown to better physiologically mimic the cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions that occur in solid tumors more than traditional 2D cell cultures. One challenge in spheroid production is forming and maintaining spheroids of uniform size. Here, we developed uniform, high-throughput, multicellular spheroids that self-assemble using microwell plates. DU145 and PC3 cells were cultured as 2D monolayers and 3D spheroids to compare sensitization of TRAIL-resistance cancer cells to TRAIL mediated apoptosis via chemotherapy based on dimensionality. Monocultured monolayers and spheroids were treated with soluble TRAIL alone (24 hr), DTX or CBZ alone (24 hr), or a combination of taxane and TRAIL (24 + 24 hr) to determine the effectiveness of taxanes as TRAIL sensitizers. Upon treatment with soluble TRAIL or taxanes solely, monolayer cells and spheroids exhibited no significant reduction in cell viability compared to the control, indicating that both cell lines are resistant to TRAIL and taxane alone in 2D and 3D. Pretreatment with CBZ or DTX followed by TRAIL synergistically amplified apoptosis in 2D and 3D DU145 cell cultures. PC3 spheroids were more resistant to the combination therapy, displaying a more additive effect in the DTX + TRAIL group compared to 2D. There was a downregulation of DR4/5 expression in spheroid form compared to monolayers in each cell line. Additionally, normal fibroblasts (NFs) and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) were cocultured with both PCa cell lines as spheroids to determine if CAFs confer additional resistance to chemotherapy. We determined that co-cultured spheroids show similar drug resistance to monocultured spheroids when treated with taxane plus TRAIL treatment. Collectively, these findings suggest how the third dimension and cocultures of different cell types effect the sensitization of androgen-independent prostate cancer cells to TRAIL, suggesting therapeutic targets that could overcome TRAIL-resistance in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).

FOXM1 contributes to docetaxel resistance in castration-resistant prostate cancer by inducing AMPK/mTOR-mediated autophagy

Docetaxel-mediated chemotherapy is the first line therapy for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) patients, but its therapeutic benefit is limited by the development of resistance. Although Forkhead box protein M1 (FOXM1) has been implicated in prostate tumorigenesis and metastasis, its role in docetaxel resistance has not been studied. Here, we showed that FOXM1 expression was upregulated in the docetaxel resistant CRPC cell lines (PC3-DR and VCaP-DR) and knockdown of FOXM1 sensitized the cells to docetaxel both in vitro and in vivo. In addition, autophagy was found to be significantly enhanced in resistant cells. Moreover, FOXM1 overexpression cells showed increased autophagic flux and higher numbers of autophagosomes. Knockdown of ATG7, beclin-1 or cotreatment with chloroquine, partly restored sensitivity to docetaxel in the FOXM1-overexpressing cells. Mechanistically, FOXM1 targeted AMPK/mTOR to activate the autophagy pathway and altered docetaxel response in CRPC. These findings identify the role of FOXM1 as well as the mechanism underlying FOXM1 action in docetaxel sensitivity and may, therefore, aid in design of CRPC therapies.