Trotman lab/Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Menadione interrupted the survival processes of cancer cells in mice. And it holds promise in the fight against myotubular myopathy.
There is a new hope to combat a kind of silent killer: the prostate cancer.
The promise came from an experiment with mice and is based on menadiona, also known as vitamin K3 – a synthetic form of vitamin K.
Menadione is essential for blood clotting, bone health and regulation of cellular metabolism.
In this study, menadione was the basis of a pro-oxidant dietary therapy that showed promise in reduction of prostate cancer in mice.
The explains that the supplement (common in green leafy vegetables) interrupted the survival processes of cancer cells.
Researchers found that menadione kills prostate cancer cells by run out a lipid called PI(3)P, which functions as an identification tag.
Without this lipid, cells stop recycling incoming materials and end up explode.
In other words, cancer progression was significantly reduced in mice.
The next phase will be to carry out pilot studies in humans with prostate cancer.
The surprise for scientists themselves is that menadione apparently can also be effective against miopatia miotubular.
It is a congenital genetic disease that affects skeletal and respiratory muscles; a rare condition that prevents muscle growth in men, usually in children.
But with this study, depleting PI(3)P with menadione can double the lifespan of mice that have myotubular myopathy.
