Novel Pancreatic Cancer Therapeutic

Background

Pancreatic cancer is the 3rd leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. The overall 5-year survival rate of pancreatic cancer is just 7%. A major contributing factor in this poor survival rate is the advanced stage of many pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDACs) by the time of diagnosis. At these advanced stages, cancer has often spread to other regions of the body, making treatment more difficult and prognosis more poor.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) have found that unprocessed versions of prion proteins (Pro-PrP), which are normally associated with neurological diseases, are overexpressed in about 40% of pancreatic cancer cells. These Pro-PrPs bind to the regulatory protein Filamin A, causing deregulation of cell organization and more aggressive tumor growth. Moreover, the researchers have found that patients with Pro-PrP+ PDACs exhibited highly significant decreases in survival time.

Technology Overview

CWRU’s researchers have developed and patented peptides that competitively bind to Filamin A in place of Pro-PrP. They found that inhibiting the interaction between Pro-PrPs and Filamin A leads to markedly reduced proliferation in PDAC cell lines and reduced cellular motility in melanoma and hepatocarcinoma cell lines . This therapy could be effective in any tumors that express both Pro-PRP and Filamin A, not solely PDAC. The researchers have also found that cell lines for melanoma and hepatocarcinoma are Pro-PRP+/Filamin A+.

Benefits

• Novel target for therapy in Pro-PrP+ tumors
• Targets Pro-PrP pathway that has been shown to lead to more aggressive cancer
• Potential use in multiple cancer types

Applications

Pancreatic Cancer Pharmaceuticals and Inhibitors