Abstract. Hormone therapy is the most commonly used treatment for prostate cancer, but for androgen-independent cancer, few effective treatment methods are available. Therefore, the requirement to develop novel and effective anti-prostate cancer drugs is extremely urgent. Angiogenin has been suggested as a molecular target for prostate cancer treatment; its overexpression contributes to androgen-dependent prostate cancer growth and castration-resistant growth of androgen-independent prostate cancer. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether neamine, a low toxicity angiogenin nuclear translocation inhibitor, has preferential anti-prostate cancer activity compared with cis-platinum (DDP) and the mechanisms involved. Immunofluorescence and MTT assays were used to observe the effect of neamine on the nuclear translocation of angiogenin and cell proliferation, and a PC-3 cell transplanted tumor model was used to investigate the in vivo activity of neamine and DDP. Immunohistochemistry was performed to observe the expression of angiogenin, cluster of differentiation (CD)31 and Ki-67. It was found that neamine blocked nuclear translocation of angiogenin effectively and inhibited angiogenin-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cell and PC-3 cell proliferation in a dose-dependent manner. Neamine exerted a comparative antitumor effect, but lower toxicity (weight loss), in the PC-3 xenograft models treated with DDP. Neamine consistently reduced the expression of angiogenin and CD31 significantly, but no difference was found in Ki-67 expression compared with DDP. These data suggested that neamine may be a promising agent for prostate cancer treatment.
IntroductionProstate cancer is the most prevalent malignancy and the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality in men worldwide (1). A total of 233,000 new cases and 29,480 associated mortalities are projected to occur in the United States in 2014 (2). Current therapy strategies for prostate cancer mainly include radical prostatectomy, external beam radiation, cryotherapy, chemotherapy or hormonal therapy. Among these, hormonal therapy is the most commonly used method, while for androgen-independent cancer, few effective treatment methods are available (3). Therefore, the requirement to develop novel and effective anti-prostate cancer drugs is extremely urgent.Angiogenesis is an essential step for the formation, progression and metastasis of numerous types of cancer, including prostate cancer (4). Previous studies have reported that the level of several angiogenic factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) (5), transforming growth factor-β (6), fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) (7) and cyclooxygenase-2 (8), are upregulated in prostate cancer. An increasing number of studies are now focusing on angiogenin, a 14.4-kDa angiogenic ribonuclease, which was firstly isolated from the conditioned medium of human colon adenocarcinoma HT-29 cells based on its angiogenic activity, and which plays a controlling role in tumor angiogenesis (9). Angioge...