First approach to studies of sulphur electron DOS in prostate cancer cell lines and tissues studied by XANES

Urological cancers comprise approximately one-third of all cancers diagnosed in men worldwide and out of these, prostate cancer is the most common one (WHO World Cancer Report, 2008). Several risk factors such as age, hormone levels, environmental conditions and family history are suspected to play a role in the onset of this disease of otherwise obscure aetiology. It is therefore the medical need that drives multidisciplinary research in this field, carried out by means of various experimental and theoretical techniques.Out of many relevant factors, it is believed that sulphur can take an important part in cancer transformations. We have investigated the prostate cancer cell lines and tissues, along with selected organic and inorganic compounds used as references, by the X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy near the sulphur edge energy region. Particularly, the comparison of the experimental results collected during XANES measurements and theoretical calculations of electron density of states with use of the FEFF8 code and LAPW (linearised augmented plane-wave) method has been performed and in this work the first results of our studies are presented.

► Different forms of sulphur has been found in prostate cancer cells.
► FEFF8 code and LAPW method gave fairly good correspondence with the experiment.
► LAPW is able to reproduce the fine structure of the absorption spectra.
► Calculated DOS showed the influence of core atom on the shape of XANES spectra.