Association of Metals and Proteasome Activity in Erythrocytes of Prostate Cancer Patients and Controls

Information is lacking on the effects toxic environmental metals may have on the 26S proteasome. The proteasome is a primary vehicle for selective degradation of damaged proteins in a cell and due to its role in cell proliferation, inhibition of the proteasome has become a target for cancer therapy. Metals are essential to the proteasome's normal function and have been used within proteasome-inhibiting complexes for cancer therapy. This study evaluated the association of erythrocyte metal levels and proteasome chymotrypsin-like (CT-like) activity in age- and race-matched prostate cancer cases (n?=?61) and controls (n?=?61). Erythrocyte metals were measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). CT-like activity was measured by proteasome activity assay using a fluorogenic peptide substrate. Among cases, significant correlations between individual toxic metals were observed (r(arsenic-cadmium)?=?0.49, p?