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Updated: Jul 19, 2025
MR Molecular Imaging of Prostate Cancer with a Small Molecular CLT1 Peptide Targeted Contrast Agent
Published on: September 3, 2013
Improved Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) Stimulation Using a Super Additive Effect of Dutasteride and
Aleksandar Kuzmanov1, Souzan Salemi1, Florian A Schmid1
1Laboratory for Urologic Oncology and Stem Cell Therapy, Department of Urology, University Hospital Zürich, University of Zurich, 8091 Zurich, Switzerland.
Abstract:
Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-based imaging improved the detection of primary, recurrent and metastatic prostate cancer. However, in certain patients, a low PSMA surface expression can be a limitation for this promising diagnostic tool. Pharmacological induction of PSMA might be useful to further improve the detection rate of PSMA-based imaging. To achieve this, we tested dutasteride (Duta)-generally used for treatment of benign prostatic enlargement-and lovastatin (Lova)-a compound used to reduce blood lipid concentrations. We aimed to compare the individual effects of Duta and Lova on cell proliferation as well as PSMA expression. In addition, we tested if a combination treatment using lower concentrations of Duta and Lova can further induce PSMA expression. Our results show that a treatment with ≤1 μM Duta and ≥1 μM Lova lead to a significant upregulation of whole and cell surface PSMA expression in LNCaP, C4-2 and VCaP cells. Lower concentrations of Duta and Lova in combination (0.5 μM Duta + 0.5 μM Lova or 0.5 μM Duta + 1 μM Lova) were further capable of enhancing PSMA protein expression compared to a single compound treatment using higher concentrations in all tested cell lines (LNCaP, C4-2 and VCaP).
