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Summary: Wayne State University researchers have received a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to study the role of cytochrome c in prostate cancer. The team aims to investigate how cytochrome c contributes to the switch from aerobic to glycolytic metabolism (Warburg effect) and evasion of apoptosis in cancer. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men, and African American men have the highest incidence rates. The team will explore the hypothesis that cytochrome c acetylation is a determinant of prostate cancer health disparities.
A team of researchers from Wayne State University was awarded a $1.4 million, three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Defense for the study, “Cytochrome c acetylation drives prostate cancer aggressiveness and Warburg effect.”
The study, led by Maik Hüttemann, Ph.D., professor of molecular medicine and genetics, and biochemistry, microbiology and immunology at Wayne State University’s School of Medicine, aims to establish the role of the protein cytochrome c, which the team proposes is central in two hallmarks of cancer: switching from aerobic to glycolytic metabolism – also known as the Warburg effect – and evasion of apoptosis.
According to the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, in 2023 it was estimated that more than 288,000 men would be diagnosed with prostate cancer and 34,700 would die in the United States, making it the second most common cancer in men. In the past decade, diagnoses of prostate cancer increased from 3.9% to 8.2%, with African American men having the highest incidence and mortality rates of the disease compared to white, Hispanic and Asian men. Cytochrome c was previously suggested to be a molecular determinant of prostate cancer health disparities, and this study will further explore this hypothesis.
The research team proposes that cytochrome c transitions from a non-acetylated form in a normal prostate to a K53-acetylated cytochrome c in cancer.
What we are proposing is that this transition causes switching from aerobic metabolism to Warburg metabolism because the modification renders cytochrome c less effective in