RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Effective cancer treatment still challenges medicine since the strategies employed so far are not sufficiently safe and capable of specifically eliminating tumor cells. Prostate cancer (PCa) is a highly incident malignant neoplasm, and the outcome of patients, especially those with advanced castration-resistant PCa (CRPC), depends directly on the efficacy of the therapeutic agents, such as docetaxel (DOC). OBJECTIVES: This study investigated the synergistic potentiation of 4-nerolidylcatechol (4-NC) with DOC in inhibiting androgen-independent PCa cells. METHODS: The cytotoxic effect of 4-NC was evaluated against non-tumorigenic (RWPE-01) and PCa cell lines (LNCaP and PC-3), and the antiproliferative potential of 4-NC was assessed by flow cytometry and colony formation. The Chou-Talalay method was applied to detect the synergistic effect of 4-NC and DOC, and the mechanism of anticancer activities of this combination was investigated by analyzing players in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). RESULTS: 4-NC significantly reduced the viability of PC-3 cells in a dose-dependent manner, decreasing colony formation and proliferation. The combination of 4-NC and DOC was synergistic in the androgen-independent cells and allowed the reduction of DOC concentration, with increased cytotoxicity and induction of apoptosis when compared to compounds alone. Furthermore, when 4- NC was co-administered with DOC, higher expression levels of proteins associated with the epithelial phenotype were observed, controlling EMT in PC-3 cells. CONCLUSION: Collectively, these data demonstrated, for the first time, that the combination of 4-NC with reduced doses of DOC could be especially valuable in the suppression of oncogenic mechanisms of androgen-independent PCa cells.