Microtubule-associated protein tau is associated with the resistance to docetaxel in prostate cancer cell lines

Abstract

Jian Yang,1,2,* Yang Yu,1,* Wei Liu,2 Zhi Li,2 Zhongqing Wei,2 Rongjiang Jiang1,2 1The Second Clinical Medical College of Nanjing Medical University, 2Department of Urology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract: Tau, a microtubule-associated protein, has been investigated primarily in neurons. Recently, tau has been explored to be associated with increased drug resistance in various kinds of cancers. We found that the tau was expressed in prostate cancer cell lines DU145 and PC-3. We also reported that recurrent prostate cancer cells after docetaxel treatment have higher levels of microtubule-associated protein tau. In vitro, inactivation of tau by gene knockdown suppressed cell proliferation and sensitized docetaxel cytotoxicity. Also, our results demonstrated that the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway was upregulated in DU145 docetaxel-resistant cells compared with the DU145-naïve cells. Thus, targeting tau protein and PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway are promising strategies to enhance docetaxel response for the treatment of prostate cancer. Keywords: prostate cancer, microtubule-associated protein tau, docetaxel resistance, tau protein, PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway

Keywords

• prostate cancer
• microtubule-associated Tau protein(MAPT)
• docetaxel resistance
• Tau protein
• PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway