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Scientists use Dominica marine plant to treat advanced prostate cancer

By Thomson Fontaine
January 24, 2012 11:25 a.m.



Niphates digitalis
Extracts taken from the Niphates digitalis from Penville, Dominica are shown to be a viable method to control the growth of final stage prostate cancer.

Vancouver, British Columbia (TDN) - The scientific community is reporting a major medical breakthrough with news that extracts from a marine plant taken from the shallow waters off Penville in Dominica has shown great promise in the development of a new class of drugs for effectively treating advanced prostate cancer.

Scientists from the University of British Columbia (UBC) using scuba equipment collected specimens of Niphates digitalis (Pink Vase Sponge) (Lamarck, 1814) on shallow reefs near Penville, Dominica, on September 3, 2000, which were then immediately frozen on site for transport to UBC. At the university the specimens were thawed and the extracts obtained.

Prostate cancer is one of the leading causes of death among men across the globe with one in six (240 000) being diagnosed with prostate cancer, and more than 33 000 men succumbing to the disease in the United States alone.

Men with low grade prostate cancer are often treated with radical prostectomy and/or radiation therapy. However, about 30 percent receiving the treatment will eventually have recurrence of their cancer accompanied by a sharp rise in the tumor and serum concentrations of prostate-specific antigen (PSA).

According to the report, “treatment of this second stage of the disease involves androgen ablation by chemical or surgical castration and administration of antiandrogens, resulting in effective tumor regression and a drop in PSA concentrations.”

Unfortunately, the cancer usually emerges after a period of up to a few years, and is referred to as castration recurrent prostate cancer (CRPC). The report notes that “the only treatments available to patients with CRPC are administration of cytotoxic agents (taxanes) or sipuleucel-T (a vaccine), which only prolong life for 2 to 6 months. Men with CRPC usually succumb to their disease within 2 to 3 years.”

The scientists say that the extracts taken from the marine sponge in Dominica is showing great promise in effectively treating CRPC. And that where current treatments have failed at least in animal studies the extracts have proven to be a “viable method to control the growth of CRPC.”

The findings published in the world renown Journal of Medicinal Chemistry on January 12, 2012 notes “extracts of the marine sponge Niphates digitalis collected in Dominica showed strong activity in a cell-based assay designed to detect antagonists of the androgen receptor (AR) that could act as lead compounds for the development of a new class of drugs to treat castration recurrent prostate cancer (CRPC).”

“Assay-guided fractionation showed that niphatenones A (3) and B (4), two new glycerol ether lipids, were the active components of the extracts.”

Dr. Tadeusz Molinski, of the University of California, San Diego, points out that “the finding by Andersen and coworkers that the simple glycerol ethers niphatenones A and B inhibit androgen receptor (AR)-dependent prostate tumor cell proliferation, but not in PC(prostate cancer)3 cells that lack functional AR in vitro, suggests a specific molecular mechanism for these compounds.”

“These findings may shed light on an unexplained phenomenon – that some glycerolipids are responsible for profound activity in antiproliferation assays – and suggests broader studies of archaeal glycerolipids and related analogs may lead to useful drug leads.”

Work has already started on the synthetic version of the extracts and that too is showing good promise.

The authors of the study are Meimetis LG, Williams DE, Mawji NR, Banuelos CA, Lal AA, Park JJ, Tien AH, Fernandez JG, de Voogd NJ, Sadar MD, Andersen RJ from the Departments of Chemistry and Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences of the University of British Columbia(UBC).

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