Hepsin tied to progression of prostate cancer

Murine studies indicate that the transmembrane serine protease hepsin appears to be intimately connected with the development and spread of prostate cancer — making it a promising therapeutic target — researchers report in the August issue of Cancer Cell.

As senior investigator Dr. Valeri Vasioukhin told Reuters Health, “We have found that hepsin is causally involved in prostate cancer progression and metastasis.” Moreover, “hepsin is an enzyme and it should be relatively easy to find small molecules that can inhibit this protein.”Dr. Vasioukhin of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle and colleagues note that hepsin is significantly upregulated in human prostate cancer. However, the significance of this had been unknown.To investigate, the researchers studied transgenic mice that had elevated prostate hepsin levels and found that this led to disorganization and disruption of the basement membranes in the prostate.Elevated hepsin in a mouse model of non-metastasizing prostate cancer also caused this effect. There was no impact on cell proliferation, but hepsin overexpression led to cancer progression and metastasis to the liver, lungs and bone.Thus Dr. Vasioukhin concluded, “Specific inhibitors of hepsin may serve as very promising drug candidates. Indeed, if we inhibit hepsin, we may slow down or completely block the prostate cancer progression from the benign and relatively harmless precancerous lesions to aggressive and metastasizing cancer.”(Source: Cancer Cell 2004;6:185-195: Reuters Health: David Douglas: Oncolink: August 2004.)