Men treated for prostate cancer or hoping to prevent the disease are increasingly made aware of the possible roles of certain dietary fats in fueling the disease. Now a scientist at New Jersey Medical School has suggested that prostate cancer cells’ use of fatty acids could be made the basis for new imaging methods and new ways to treat the disease.

Today in the journal Nature Dr. Y. Lui of the Nuclear Medicine Service, Department of Radiology, New Jersey Medical School, University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark, points out that in most types of cancer tumors use rapid turnover of glucose for energy for the cells to divide and spread. This allows for PET scan imaging. Before a PET scan the patient receives an artificial glucose mixed with a tracer. The tracer is taken up faster by the glucose-avid tumor cells than by normal body cells; locations of cancer cells show up on the scan.

PET scans are less useful f0r patients with prostate cancer. Prostate cancer cells are slow to take up glucose or the analogue used in the PET scan. So what energy source do prostate cancer cells rely on and could this be used both for scans and in treatment? Dr. Lui writes:

Recent studies showed that prostate cancer is associated with changes of fatty acid metabolism. Several enzymes involved in the metabolism of fatty acids have been determined to be altered in prostate cancer relative to normal prostate, which is indicative of an enhanced beta-oxidation pathway in prostate cancer. Increased fatty acid utilization in prostate cancer provides both ATP and acetyl-coenzyme A (CoA); subsequently, increased availability of acetyl-CoA makes acceleration of citrate oxidation possible, which is an important energy source as well . Dominant fatty acid metabolism rather than glycolysis has the potential to be the basis for imaging diagnosis and targeted treatment of prostate cancer.

ATP (Adenosine 5′-triphosphate) transports chemical energy within cells. See this graphic of The general pathways for the production of acetyl CoA from sugars and fats.

Source: Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases advance online publication 9 May 2006 - Abstract of article: Fatty acid oxidation is a dominant bioenergetic pathway in prostate cancer
Keywords:
glycolysis, fatty acid metabolism, beta-oxidation