Prostate cancer/ New York- Researchers have found that a drug that fights prostate cancer can also help against Covid and its variants.
At the start of the Covid pandemic, men suffered higher rates of severe disease and death, leading researchers to suspect a link between androgen receptors – which bind to hormones like testosterone – and SARS-CoV-2 viral infection.
This observation led researchers at the University of Michigan to look at a drug to treat prostate cancer called proxalutamide, which works by blocking an enzyme called TMPRSS2 (transmembrane protease, serine 2), which is regulated by androgen receptors, as a potential treatment for Covid.
“We were already studying TMPRSS2 as part of the major gene driver of more than 50 percent of prostate cancers, so it would be worth looking at this because TMPRSS2 is an important host factor for SARS-CoV-2 to enter cells in the lungs,” said Arul Chinnaiyan, professor of pathology and director of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology.”
In the study, published in the journal PNAS, the team added proxalutamide to cells infected with SARS-CoV-2 to monitor their ability to block viral entry.
The compound works by binding to androgen receptors, inhibiting levels of TMPRSS2 and ACE2, and preventing infection.
Proxalutamide worked better than other prostate cancer drugs against several variants of SARS-CoV-2 due to its ability to break the androgen receptor.
Moreover, when Proxalutamide was combined with the US FDA-approved Covid drug Remdesivir, the infection was prevented by 100 per cent.
“This finding underscores the utility of testing existing drugs that can be rapidly evaluated in humans,” said Jonathan Sexton, assistant professor of internal medicine at the varsity.”
Using a mouse model, they showed that the drug reduced inflammation and cell death in the lungs of mice and reduced mortality.
“The idea is that proxalutamide can work as a combined therapy with remdesivir, killing the virus in multiple ways, just like combination therapy for HIV infection works very well,” said Chinnaiyan.”
The drug is currently in Phase 3 clinical trials for prostate cancer and early clinical trials for Covid.
