Methylseleninic acid downregulates hypoxia-inducible factor-1α in invasive prostate cancer.

Alternative strategies are needed to control growth of advanced and hormone refractory prostate cancer. In this regard, we investigated the efficacy of methylseleninic acid (MSeA), a penultimate precursor to the highly reactive selenium metabolite, methylselenol, to inhibit growth of invasive and hormone refractory rat (PAIII) and human (PC-3 and PC-3M) prostate cancer cells. Our results demonstrate that MSeA inhibits PAIII cell growth in vitro as well as reduces weights of tumors generated by PAIII cells treated ex vivo. A significant reduction in the number of metastatic lung foci by MSeA treatment was also noted in Lobund-Wistar rats. The PAIII cells along with PC-3, DU145 and PC-3M cells undergo apoptosis after MSeA treatments in both normoxia and hypoxia. Treatment of metastatic rat and human prostate cancer cell lines with MSeA decreased hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) levels in a dose-dependent manner. Additionally, HIF-1α transcription activity both in normoxic and hypoxic conditions is reduced after MSeA treatment of prostate cancer cells. Furthermore, VEGF and GLUT1, downstream targets of HIF-1α, were also reduced in prostate cancer cells after MSeA treatment. Our study illustrates the efficacy of MSeA in controlling growth of hormone refractory prostate cancer by downregulating HIF-1α, which is possibly occurring through stabilization or increase in prolyl hydroxylase activity.

Synthesis and antitumor properties of selenocoxib-1 against rat prostate adenocarcinoma cells.

Hormone refractory prostate cancer poses a huge problem and standard of care chemotherapy has not been very successful. We used a novel strategy to combine properties of 2 well-studied class of compounds (selenium and COX-2 inhibitor) and examined the resulting effectiveness against prostate cancer. Bearing in mind that sulfonamide moiety and pyrazole ring is important for the proapoptotic activity of Celecoxib, we synthesized a selenium derivative, Selenocoxib-1, by modifying Celecoxib at position 3 of the pyrazole ring. The PAIII cells derived from a metastatic prostate tumor that arose spontaneously in a Lobund-Wistar (LW) rat were used to examine the efficacy of Selenocoxib-1 in vitro. In addition, human metastatic prostate cancer cells, PC-3M, were tested for antitumor effect of Selenocoxib-1 in vitro. The IC(50) in PAIII and PC-3M cells for Selenocoxib-1 was about 5 microM, while for Celecoxib it was more than 20 microM. Selenocoxib-1 induced apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner in the PAIII cells. COX-2 expression in PAIII cells was downregulated by Celecoxib and Selenocoxib-1 at 20 and 5 microM, respectively; the COX-2 activity was, however, not affected by Selenocoxib-1. Following treatment with Selenocoxib-1, PAIII cells resulted in dose-dependent decrease in HIF-1alpha, p-AKT and Bcl-2 levels. A reduction in weights was observed in subcutaneous tumors produced by PAIII cells pretreated with Selenocoxib-1 as compared to Celecoxib in LW rats. Further, following 1 week Selenocoxib-1 treatment of PAIII tumors resulted in significant reduction of tumor weights. This study demonstrates that Selenocoxib-1 is more effective against prostate cancer than Celecoxib.

In vitro growth inhibition of mouse mammary epithelial tumor cells by methylseleninic acid: involvement of protein kinases.

Methylseleninic acid (MSeA) is a synthetic organoselenium form known to be effective against mammary carcinogenesis in vivo. Using the synchronized mouse mammary epithelial tumor cell (TM6) model, we have previously shown that 5 microM MSeA significantly inhibits cell growth and induces a reversible growth arrest in the G1 phase. In the present study, we examined the effects of MSeA on Rb, cyclin dependent kinase 2 (cdk2), cdk4, cyclin E and cyclin D1. Growth arrest of cells was accompanied by a reduction in total cdk2 kinase and cyclin E-associated cdk2 kinase activities. The p27 levels associated with cdk2 were elevated during the cell cycle. In addition, growth inhibition correlated with a relative increase in the hypophosphorylated form of Rb in MSeA-treated cells and Egr1 was elevated in MSeA-treated cells. The Kinetworks Protein Kinase Screen (KPKS 1.0) was used to examine 75 protein kinases. MSeA treatment resulted in differential expression of several protein-serine/threonine kinases, protein-tyrosine kinases and protein-threonine/tyrosine kinases. Some of these kinases are being reported for the first time as being altered by MSeA. The outcome of these experiments will be of significance since these kinases are known to be involved in survival and/or apoptotic pathways of tumor cells.