Closing in on New Treatments for Prostate Cancer

Title and journal

Oncofetal Protein Glypican-3 Is a Biomarker and Critical Regulator of Function for Neuroendocrine Cells in Prostate Cancer.
Published February 8, 2023, in the Journal of Pathology

What did the study find?  

PhD candidate William Butler discovered that a particular protein, called glypican-3, is expressed on the surface of prostate cancer cells that resist hormonal treatments, and that the protein is critical to their function. The study is the first to identify this protein in prostate cancer, though it has been seen before in liver cancer.

Why is it important?  

Glypican-3 is an "oncofetal" protein, which means that the protein is expressed before birth, but in adults, the protein is turned off, said Jiaoti Huang, PhD, Chair of the Duke Department of Pathology and senior author of the study. So the protein is not expressed in normal cells.  "That gives us a much better opportunity to target these neuroendocrine prostate cancer cells without having to worry about side effects," he said.

Who funded It?

The Movember Foundation

Next steps?

Huang's team is collaborating with a company, CDI Laboratories, that has created antibodies that bind to glypican-3. Next the researchers will choose an antibody with the right properties to combine with a toxic drug, to create a therapy that would seek out and kill resistant neuroendocrine cells in prostate cancer. Once an effective "antibody-drug conjugate" is in hand, Huang's lab will test it for effectiveness in cancer cell lines and in animal models.