2025 AIChE Annual Meeting

Effects of Benzimidazole Anthelmintics on LNCaP and RM1-PGLS Prostate Cancer Cells

One out of three people statistically suffer from cancer during their lifetime with it being the second leading cause of mortality in America. One out of eight men are diagnosed with prostate cancer, while it is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men (1,2). Chemotherapy is a common treatment but is especially difficult on patients, with many short and long-term side effects (3). The anthelmintic chemical compounds of fenbendazole (FBZ) and mebendazole (MBZ), have been successfully utilized as anti- parasitic medicines for equine and smaller animal veterinary usage. Recently, these compounds have been found to inhibit certain cancers in vitro and MBZ has also shown potential in early clinical studies (4-7). MBZ has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of parasitic infections in humans, while FBZ has not been approved. Even though these compounds are believed to inhibit cancer cell growth and are similar in structure, few studies have compared these drugs in the cancer cell lines of RM1-PGLS and LNCaP to determine which compound has the greatest toxicity on cancer cells. Additionally, the treatment concentrations of the drugs are an active area of development. Therefore, this project focused on comparing the rate that MBZ and FBZ had on reducing prostate cancer cell growth. Cell viability percentages were assessed for drug effectiveness. Preliminary results showed that MBZ had stronger growth inhibition than FBZ at the tested concentrations, for both cell lines.

References:

  1. The American Cancer Society medical and editorial content team, Key Statistics for Prostate Cancer, The American Cancer Society, January 19, 2024
  2. E.A Whitebay, K.A.M Gasem, B.J. Neely, J.D. Ramsey, “In Silico Prediction of Mechanism of Action for Cancer Therapeutics''. Wiley Online Library, 2013.
  3. Cleeland, C., Allen, J., Roberts, S. et al. Reducing the toxicity of cancer therapy: recognizing needs, taking action. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 9, 471–478 (2012).
  4. Son DS, Lee ES, Adunyah SE. The Antitumor Potentials of Benzimidazole Anthelmintics as Repurposing Drugs. Immune Netw. 2020 Aug 4;20(4).
  5. Kim S, Perera SK, Choi SI, Rebhun RB, Seo KW. G2/M arrest and mitotic slippage induced by fenbendazole in canine melanoma cells. Vet Med Sci. 2022 May;8(3):966-981.
  6. Gallia GL, Holdhoff M, Brem H, et al., ...Riggins GJ. Mebendazole and temozolomide in patients with newly diagnosed high-grade gliomas: results of a phase 1 clinical trial. Neurooncol Adv. 2020 Nov 12;3(1).
  7. Dogra N, Kumar A, Mukhopadhyay T. Fenbendazole acts as a moderate microtubule destabilizing agent and causes cancer cell death by modulating multiple cellular pathways. Sci Rep. 2018 Aug 9;8(1).