Targeted Zinc Delivery: A Novel Treatment for Prostate Cancer

摘要

During the tenure of the award we showed that direct intratumoral injection of zinc killed tumors derived from PC-3 cells. We also demonstrated that direct injection of zinc containing liposomes with attached transferrin as a targeting molecule slowed the growth of PC-3 malignant tumors in mice. These data strongly support the zinc containing targeted liposomes zinc as a therapeutic agent for treatment of prostate cancer. The results clearly showed that zinc reduced tumor size and prolonged survival. These data lend strong preliminary evidence that zinc treatment is efficacious and that liposomes would be an efficacious carrier. Importantly, there was minimal accumulation of zinc in other organs,suggesting the potential for minimal side effects with zinc treatments typical of other cancer chemotherapeutics. The in vivo studies were carried out on tumors derived from PC-3 cells. However, zinc killed many different prostate tumors, e.g. PC-3, LNCap-FGC, LNCaPr, and DU145 cells. Taken together these data suggest that targeted zinc liposomes may provide a new therapeutic for the treatment of prostate cancer.