New gene combination may cause deadly prostate cancer

04/07/2008

Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research have found that the partnering of two genes could be responsible for up to 600 British men developing a drug resistant and potentially deadly form of prostate cancer each year.

The international study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, also outlines the discovery of a new prostate cancer gene, ACSL3.

Lead scientist Professor Colin Cooper, from The Institute of Cancer Research's Everyman Centre, said the new study provided an important insight into how a type of prostate cancer, resistant to drug therapy, may develop.

"Most prostate cancers are dependent upon male hormones (androgens) for growth and are treated with drugs which block that hormone and prevent the cancer growing. But when the two genes (C15orf21 and ETV1) fuse together they cannot be controlled by the hormones and therefore the prostate cancer may not respond to conventional therapies.

"In future we will be able to screen men with prostate cancer to see if they are carrying this gene combination and confirm that the cancers are resistant to conventional therapies that involve withdrawal of male hormones. Such cancer would require more aggressive forms of treatment such as surgery and radiotherapy early.

"This research also highlights the need for more research into developing new drug therapies which can treat men with this hormone resistant prostate cancer type."

Professor Cooper, The Grand Charity of Freemasons ' Chair of Molecular Biology at The Institute of Cancer Research, said the discovery of the new gene ACSL3 was also an important step forward in understanding how prostate cancer developed.

"More research into the new gene is needed to understand how common alterations of this gene are," he said.

Prostate cancer has overtaken lung cancer to become the most common cancer in men affecting almost 35,000 men every year in the UK. One man dies of prostate cancer in the UK every hour.

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