Fungal Compound GaliellalactoneTo Combat Prostate Cancer?

Fungal Compound GaliellalactoneTo Combat Prostate Cancer?

According to the news article

Fungal Compound To Combat Prostate Cancer?
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The fungal compound galiellalactone from the mushroom Galiella rufa
seems to be a promising candidate for the treatment of aggresive
prostate cancer. Excerpts:

"... In 2006 in Europe, an estimated 345,900 prostate cancer
cases were diagnosed. In Sweden with nearly 10,000 new cases of
prostate cancer per year, this is the most common form of
cancer among men in Sweden. The disease often develops slowly,
but the proportion of more aggressive forms of prostate cancer
is growing. The fungal compound galiellalactone could be used
against tumors that cannot be treated with surgery or radiation
and does not respond to hormone treatment.

"In our trials this compound has curbed the growth of prostate
cancer cells both in animal experiments and in laboratory
experiments," says the researcher Rebecka Hellsten. The
research team she belongs to was recently granted SEK 1.3
million from the Holger K. Christiansen Foundation in Denmark.
The team consists of Dr. Rebecka Hellsten and Professor Anders
Bjartell from the Section for Urological Cancer Research at the
University Hospital in Malmö and Professor Olov Sterner and Dr.
Martin Johansson from the Section for Organic Chemistry at Lund
University.

Olov Sterner and his associates do research on organic
molecules from plants, fungi, and marine organisms, and how
they can be used in the development of drugs or industrially
useful substances. They have developed a synthetic method for
producing the fungal compound and will now attempt to tweak the
substance to make it even more effective against tumor cells.

The mushroom the substance originates from is called Galiella
rufa, which grows in clusters on old wood in eastern North
America. The fungi are bowl-shaped, dark on the outside,
reddish yellow on the inside, and a few centimeters across. It
was discovered that this particular mushroom can be used to
fight prostate cancer in connection with a study run by a
German research team, when they were testing extracts from
various species of fungi to find substances that could disrupt
a certain signaling pathway in human cells. ..."


--
Matti Narkia