ABSTRACT
KHC-4 is a 2-phenyl-4-quinolone analogue that exhibits anticancer activity. Aberrant activation of ß-catenin signaling contributes to prostate cancer development and progression. Therefore, targeting ß-catenin expression could be a useful approach to treating prostate cancer. We found that KHC-4 can inhibit ß-catenin expression and its signaling pathway in DU145 prostate cancer cells. Treatment with KHC-4 decreased total ß-catenin expression and concomitantly decreased ß-catenin levels in both the cytoplasm and nucleus of cells. KHC-4 treatment also inhibited ß-catenin expression and that of its target proteins, PI3K, AKT, GSK3ß and TBX3. We monitored the stability of ß-catenin with the proteasomal inhibitor, MG132, in DU145 cells and found that MG132 reversed KHC-4-induced proteasomal ß-catenin degradation. We verified CDK1/ß-catenin expression in KHC-4 treated DU145 cells. We found that roscovitine treatment reversed cell proliferation by arresting the cell cycle at the G2/M phase and ß-catenin expression caused by KHC-4 treatment. We suggest that KHC-4 inhibits ß-catenin signaling in DU145 prostate cancer cells.