Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy found in men. There are 2 stages of prostate cancer: androgen-dependent and androgen-independent. The only treatment available to treat androgen-independent prostate cancer is the FDA-approved chemotherapy drug docetaxel. Patients initially respond to docetaxel and later become resistant to it. Docetaxel kills most of the cancer cells, but some cells are resistant to docetaxel. These resistant cells survive, they express cancer stem cell markers on them and are responsible for the relapse of cancer. In this project, we are studying if the chemicals in natural products like ginger, turmeric, herb (ashwagandha), grapefruit, lemon peel, etc. can interact with the overexpressed proteins( responsible for their survival and growth) in these docetaxel resistant cells by making use of molecular docking, a bioinformatics modeling technique. We have found proteins (MIC-1 and Bcl-2) that get overexpressed when androgen independent prostate cancer cells become resistant to docetaxel by making use of Oncomine (research premium edition) and research papers. We are working with prominent chemicals in natural products like Withaferin A in ashwagandha, curcumin in turmeric, 10-Gingerol/Shigoals in ginger, etc. We have some preliminary data making use of the online molecular docking tool Patch Dock and we are going to analyze the interactions using a molecular visualization system called Pymol. If we find possible interactions, then it will be a significant finding as these interactions will indicate the potential of the natural products to kill the docetaxel-resistant prostate cancer stem cells. Natural products are well tolerated by the human body and they will be a great substitute for chemotherapy which is toxic for the human body.
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