Multifunctional nanoparticles for prostate cancer therapy.

Multifunctional nanoparticles promise significantly better treatment for prostate cancer. This review begins with a molecular and physiological overview of prostate cancer, including current treatments in various stages of disease development. Emerging nanoparticle technology in chemotherapy, hyperthermia therapy and gene therapy will be discussed. We highlight novel advances in nanoparticle technology for prostate cancer and indicate future challenges in the rational design of multifunctional nanoparticles, such as understanding tumor characteristics and the activation of the complement system.

Circumvention and reactivation of the p53 oncogene checkpoint in mouse colon tumors.

The p53 tumor suppressor protein is sequence-normal in azoxymethane (AOM)-induced mouse colon tumors, making them a good model for human colon cancers that retain a wild type p53 gene. Cellular localization and co-immunoprecipitation experiments using a cell line derived from an AOM-induced colon tumor (AJ02-NM(0) cells) pointed to constitutively expressed Mdm2 as being an important negative regulator of p53 in these cells. Although the Mdm2 inhibitory protein p19/ARF was expressed in AJ02-NM(0) cells, its level of expression was not sufficient for p53 activation. We tested the response of AJ02-NM(0) cells to the recently developed Mdm2 inhibitor, Nutlin-3. Nutlin-3 was found to activate p53 DNA binding in AJ02-NM(0) cells, to a level comparable to doxorubicin and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). In addition, Nutlin-3 increased expression of the p53 target genes Bax and PERP to a greater extent than doxorubicin or 5-FU, and triggered a G2/M phase arrest in these cells, compared to a G1 arrest triggered by doxorubicin and 5-FU. The differences in the cellular response may be related to differences in the kinetics of p53 activation and/or its post-translational modification status. In an ex vivo experiment, Nutlin-3 was found to activate p53 target gene expression and apoptosis in AOM-induced tumor tissue, but not in normal adjacent mucosa. Our data indicate that Mdm2 inhibitors may be an effective means of selectively targeting colon cancers that retain a sequence-normal p53 gene while sparing normal tissue and that the AOM model is an appropriate model for the preclinical development of these drugs.

p53 and its co-activator p300 are inversely regulated in the mouse colon in response to carcinogen.

We examined the p53 response following acute exposure of mice to the colon-specific carcinogen azoxymethane (AOM). No overall induction of p53-regulated genes was observed in the mouse colon, and only a small subpopulation of apoptotic colonocytes showed increased Bax staining. In contrast, the liver showed dramatic increases in p53-regulated gene expression. Subdued p53 gene activation in the colon did not appear to result from a lack of p53 stabilization, but did correspond to a drop in the expression of its transcriptional co-activator, p300. We propose that inefficient gene activation by p53 in the colon contributes to the organotrophic effects of AOM.

Role of the alternating reading frame (P19)-p53 pathway in an in vivo murine colon tumor model.

Considering the importance of the oncogene checkpoint function of the alternating reading frame(ARF)-p53 pathway, studies were undertaken to evaluate the status of this pathway in azoxymethane (AOM)-induced mouse colon tumors. A PCR-based analysis of ARF and p53 cDNAs in normal colon tissues and AOM-induced colon tumors failed to detect mutations in either of these two critical tumor suppressor genes. In addition, laser capture microdissection of tumors followed by PCR-based sequencing of exons 5-7 of genomic p53 showed that even the most pleomorphic cancer cells were p53 normal. A marked increase in ARF mRNA and protein levels was observed in colon tumors, indicating activation of the ARF-p53 pathway in these tumors. High levels of ARF protein stabilized p53 protein in the tumors, but the p53 protein showed little biochemical activity. Compared with a mouse colonocyte cell line that expresses high levels of wild-type p53 (YAMC), the p53 protein in tumors had no detectable DNA binding activity nor did it activate p21 expression. In fact, p21 levels were lower in tumor tissue relative to normal mucosa, even though p53 levels were approximately 30-fold higher in tumors relative to control. Within the A/J tumors, we also used a cDNA microarray approach to screen a panel of genes that are transcriptionally up- or down-regulated by functional p53. The expression patterns of these p53-regulated genes were consistent with a lack of functional p53. This work demonstrates that the ARF-p53 oncogene checkpoint can be overcome without p53 mutations and that the mechanism used to overcome this checkpoint involves the suppression of p53 transcriptional activating activity. The AOM colon cancer model may be well suited for studying tumor promotion events that precede p53 disruption.