Abstract 1960: Ginger consumption may delay the onset of prostate cancer

Ginger active components are widely known for being a potent antioxidant and recently as a potential anticancer agent. To date, the precise mechanism(s) for the antitumor effect of ginger is not well understood. An active chemical component of ginger, 6-gingerol, was recently shown to inhibit angiogenesis and tumorigenesis. In this study we investigated the role of ginger in prostate cancer growth and proliferation using PCa cell lines from African American (AA) and Caucasian American (CA) men. To that end, MDA-PCa 2b (AA), LnCap (CA) and PC-3 (CA) cells were treated with different concentrations of 6-gingerol or 6-shogaol for 24 hours and cell proliferations were measured by XTT assay. To determine the effect of 6-gingerol in cell signaling, cell lysates were assayed for β-arrestin 1 and 2 expression, MAP kinase and caspase activity by Western Blotting. The data demonstrated that 6-gingerol inhibits cellular proliferation and promotes apoptosis in both AA and CA PCa cell lines. These effects correlated with decrease in β -arrestin 2, not β -arrestin 1, expression and Akt phosphorylation but increased caspase activity. Taken together the data suggests that 6-gingerol inhibits PCa growth and promotes PCa apoptosis via a βarr-2/Akt-dependent mechanism. Since PC-3 cells do not express AR, the data likely indicates that 6-gingerol effect is independent of AR activation and PSA expression. Citation Format: Tonya S. Lane, Ricardo M. Richardson. Ginger consumption may delay the onset of prostate cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 1960. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-1960