Presentation: 2025 ND EPSCoR Annual conference
October 21, 2025, NDSU Memorial Union, Fargo, North Dakota
Rhodiola crenulata triggers intrinsic apoptotic cascades via caspase-9 signaling in 3D in vitro models of bone-metastatic prostate cancer
Quyen
Hoang
Doctoral Student
North Dakota State University
Co authors: Preetham Ravi, PhD, Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, North Dakota State University, Siva Venkata Chaitanya Panduru, Doctoral student, Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, North Dakota State University, Dinesh R. Katti, PI, Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, North Dakota State University, Kalidas Shetty, PI, Department of Microbiological Sciences, North Dakota State University, Kalpana S. Katti, PI, Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, North Dakota State University
Session
Concurrent Presentation Session B, Group 1
Prairie Rose Room
Prostate cancer is the second most common malignancy and the fifth leading cause of cancer-related death in men worldwide. Bone is the predominant site of advanced prostate cancer, involved in nearly 90% of deaths. Treatment resistance, driven by protective signals and mechanical properties of the bone metastatic microenvironment, contributes to this high mortality. However, the scarcity of reliable models and effective therapies makes the situation even worse. To address these issues, we developed a 3D in vitro model that mimics bone-metastatic prostate cancer and established a traditional medicine approach using Rhodiola crenulata plant extract. Our 3D systems are created by incorporating human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) and prostate cancer cell lines (PCa and PC-3) into a nanoclay-based bone-mimetic scaffold for preclinical treatment testing. In this study, we used this model to examine the anticancer efficacy of a phenolic-rich extract from R. crenulata. Prostate cancer cells in these 3D scaffolds exhibited higher IC50 values and increased Bcl-2 expression compared to 2D cultures, indicating their enhanced resistance, similar to in vivo tumors. Additional mechanistic analyses demonstrated that elevated ROS generation was the primary cause of triggering the intrinsic apoptotic pathway mediated by caspase-9 upregulation. Importantly, exceeding 99% of hMSC-derived bone stromal cells were still viable even at higher extract doses, indicating that R. crenulata extract selectively targets cancer cells while being entirely safe for normal cells. Altogether, these findings show that our 3D nanoclay-based scaffold effectively recapitulates key features of the bone metastatic microenvironments, and R. crenulata extract is a potential treatment for advanced prostate cancer