Grant: Project Grant

Diabetes is often closely associated with increased risk to develop a cancer. There are, however, a few exceptions such as prostate cancer. Men with diabetes have reduced odds of developing prostate cancer. Nevertheless, pre-existing diabetes also results in increased aggressivity if prostate cancer develops. A likely cause lies in the action of a long-term chemical reaction induced by sugars on proteins. This chemical reaction can modify proteins, which in turn either alter their functions or reinforce protein networks that provide tissues structure, hereby potentially increasing how stiff a tumour is over time. On one hand, the stiffer a tumour gets, the greater the chances that the disease will be aggressive. On the other hand, some of the modified proteins seem to have anti-cancer properties, thus providing what could be a protective effect. Using a combined tissue engineering and molecular biology approach, we will investigate how these two seemingly opposite mechanisms combine to promote a low occurrence/high aggressivity prostate cancer in the presence of diabetes. The overreaching goal is to identify new therapeutic strategies to lower tumour aggressivity.