Digitoxin Inhibits Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal-Transition in Hereditary Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer

We have previously reported that the cardenolide drug digitoxin blocks TNFα/NFκB-driven proinflammatory signaling. We therefore hypothesized that digitoxin might break the collaborative process between NFκB and TGFβ by also inhibiting expression of TGFBR2. We therefore tested whether TGFβ-driven EMT and resulting metastases would be suppressed. Digitoxin-treated and vehicle-only treated rats were stratified on the basis of serum IL-6 and serum CINC-1. High serum marker control animals and low serum marker digitoxin-treated animals were used as subjects for differential expression profiling of micropunched primary tumor tissue by mRNA-seq profiling and analysis.