Prostatic polyamines and polyamine targeting as a new approach to therapy of prostatic cancer

The prostate is a rich factory of polyamine production. In spite of this, the prostate is also able to accumulate polyamines from the circulation. Intracellular polyamine depletion has been observed to enhance the accumulation of diamines such as putrescine. This needs to be taken advantage of either as a means for imaging prostatic tumour spread to the lymph nodes or as a means of targeting toxins to the prostatic tumour. Putrescine is a small molecule that may prove difficult for use for synthesizing stable toxin derivatives that can take advantage of the targeting potential of the polyamine transporter. The cloning and sequencing characterization of the transporter is under way. When the prostatic transporter is identified, it will be possible to understand the role of the transporter in normal and cancerous prostatic cell growth and functioning and should serve to aid our understanding of how we can better optimize agents to use the transporter for delivery of antitumour agents.