A Chemical Genomics Approach to Drug Reprofiling in Oncology: Antipsychotic Drug Risperidone as a Potential Adenocarcinoma Treatment

Drug reprofiling is emerging as an effective paradigm for discovery of cancer treatments. Herein, an antipsychotic drug is immobilised using the Magic Tag® chemical genomics tool and screened against a T7 bacteriophage displayed library of polypeptides from Drosophila melanogaster, as a whole genome model, to uncover an interaction with a section of 17-β-HSD10, a proposed prostate cancer target. A computational study and enzyme inhibition assay with full length human 17-β-HSD10 identifies risperidone as a drug reprofiling candidate. When formulated with rumenic acid, risperidone slows proliferation of PC3 prostate cancer cells in vitro and retards PC3 prostate cancer tumour growth in vivo in xenografts in mice, presenting an opportunity to reprofile risperidone as a cancer treatment.