Prostate Cancer Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Prostate Cancer, including details on symptoms, genetics, screening, treatment, information.

Prostate cancer: potential targets of anti-proliferative and apoptotic signaling pathways.

Uzgare AR, Isaacs JT

Anti-Cancer Drug Discovery/Development Program, The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, 1650 Orleans Street, CRB 1M44, Baltimore, MD 21231-1000, USA. auzgare@jhu.edu

Prostate cancers are genetically and phenotypically heterogenous. The heterogeneous nature of prostate cancer may be a consequence of mutations in different cell types (basal stem, transit amplifying or luminal cells) resulting in different malignant maturation pathways. One consistent characterization of these cancers, however, is their eventual progression to a hormonal refractory state. The development of effective novel therapeutic strategies requires an understanding of the mechanisms for the development of such a refractory state. Targeting proliferative and survival pathways provides a rationale for drug design and development for hormone refractory prostate cancer. Prostate cancer cells, however, develop an enhanced redundancy in downstream survival signaling. Hence, new combinational therapies must be developed with the understanding that compensatory mechanisms evolve under selective pressure.

Published 7 February 2005 in Int J Biochem Cell Biol, 37(4): 707-14.
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