Potential role of diosgenin in prostate cancer therapy

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Gautam Sethi

National University of Singapore, Singapore

: J Nurs Patient Care

Abstract

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Constitutive activation of diverse transcription factors including that of NF-κB and STAT3 has been frequently encountered in Prostate Cancer (PCa) and closely linked with its proliferation and metastasis. Hence, identification of novel agents that can target these oncogenic transcription factors has an enormous potential for PCa treatment. We tested diosgenin, a steroidal saponin obtained from a variety of plants including fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum), roots of Wild yam (Dioscorea villosa), Solanum incanum and Solanum xanthocarpum for its ability to suppress NF-κB /STAT3 activation cascade in PCa cells and its efficacy to suppress tumor growth in transgenic mouse model. Overall, our data suggested that diosgenin exerted its anti-tumor and anti-metastatic effects through the suppression of diverse pro-inflammatory transcription factors in PCa.

Biography

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Gautam Sethi has his Postdoctoral training from University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Further he joined Department of Pharmacology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore as an Assistant Professor and was later promoted to Associate Professor. His research focuses to elucidate the mechanism of activation of oncogenic transcription factors such as NF-kB/STAT3 by carcinogens and inflammatory agents and the identification of novel inhibitors of these proteins for prevention of and therapy for cancer. He has more than 150 publications in high impact factor peer reviewed journals and has several international awards to his credit. He currently serves as an Academic Editor for PLOS One, Editorial Board Member of Scientific Reports, Pharmacological Research, BMC Cancer, Frontiers in Pharmacology, Frontiers in Oncology and ad-hoc Reviewer for several other international journals.