γ‐Tocotrienol and α‐Tocopheryloxyacetic Acid Increase the Effectiveness of Docetaxel Treatment of PC‐3 Prostate Cancer Cells and Docetaxel‐resistant PC‐3 Cells

Abstract

Prostate cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in men, and metastatic prostate cancer is currently incurable. Prostate cancer frequently becomes resistant to standard of care treatments such as docetaxel. Chemotherapeutic resistance is one of the greatest challenges facing successful cancer treatment, but can be ameliorated with combination chemotherapy. Vitamin E analogs, such as γ‐tocotrienol (γ‐T3) and α‐tocopheryloxyacetic acid (α‐TEA), have been proposed and studied as potential chemotherapeutics. We modeled combination therapy using mixture design response surface methodology (MDRSM), a statistical technique designed to optimize mixture compositions, to see if combinations of three chemotherapeutic agents (γ‐T3, α‐TEA, and docetaxel) would be better than docetaxel alone in the treatment of PC‐3 human prostate cancer cells. Response surfaces were generated for cell viability and apoptotic responses and the optimal treatment combination for each response was calculated. We found that a combination of γ‐tocotrienol, α‐TEA, and docetaxel was more effective than docetaxel alone in the treatment of PC‐3 cells, and docetaxel resistant PC‐3 cells.Support or Funding InformationThis work was funded by a generous donation from the Bryant Adams Fund.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.