There is an increasing interest in identifying potent cancer preventive and therapeutic agents against prostate cancer (PCA). In a recent study, we showed that a polyphenolic fraction isolated from grape seeds (hereafter referred to as GSP) that is substantially rich in antioxidant procyanidins exerts exceptionally high preventive effects against tumorigenesis in a murine skin model. In the present study, we investigated the anticarcinogenic effect of GSP against PCA by employing DU145 human prostate carcinoma cells. GSP treatment (10-100 microg/mL doses for 2-6 d) of cells resulted in a highly significant (P < 0.01-0.001) inhibition of cell growth in both dose- and time-dependent manner. Compared with the vehicle, 2 d of GSP treatment resulted in 27, 39, and 76% growth inhibition at 50, 75, and 100 microg/mL doses, respectively, whereas 28-97% and 12-98% inhibition was evident at 10-100 microg/mL doses of GSP after 4 and 6 d of treatment, respectively. These doses of GSP also resulted in dose- and time-dependent cell death (6-50%, P <0.1-0. 001) that was later characterized as apoptotic death. In molecular mechanistic studies, treatment of DU145 cells with GSP at 25-75 microg/mL doses for 24, 48, and 72 h resulted in 77-88%, 65-93%, and 38-98% reduction, respectively (P < 0.001), in phospho-extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase (ERK) 1 and 78%, 19-76%, and 63-71% reduction (P < 0.1-0.001) in phospho-ERK2 levels, respectively. In other studies, similar doses of GSP showed up to 1.9-fold increases in Cip1/p21 and a significant (P < 0.001) decrease in cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4 (up to 90% decrease), CDK2 (up to 50% decrease), and cyclin E (up to 60% decrease). GSP treatment of DU145 cells also resulted in a significant (P < 0.001) G1 arrest in cell-cycle progression in a dose-dependent manner. The growth-inhibitory and cell-death effects of GSP were also observed in another human PCA line, LNCaP. Together, these results suggest that GSP may exert strong anticarcinogenic effect against PCA and that this effect possibly involves modulation of mitogenic signaling and cell-cycle regulators and induction of G1 arrest, cell-growth inhibition, and apoptotic death. Mol. Carcinog. 28:129-138, 2000.
Copyright 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.