Identification of androgen-regulated genes in human prostate

Abstract

Androgens are essential for the development of the prostate and prostate cancer. We examined androgen-regulated gene expression in the human prostate. Samples from benign and malignant prostate tissue and samples containing prostate tissue obtained from prostate cancer patients three days after surgical castration were further processed as probes for a GeneChip array. The comparison of gene expression profiles in castrated samples and in benign or malignant prostate tissue samples revealed androgen-regulated genes. We further evaluated the genes which were differentially expressed in benign and malignant prostate samples. The androgen-regulated expression of dual specificity phosphatase 1 (DUSP1) was confirmed in the LNCaP prostate cancer cell line, as the expression of DUSP1 increased with androgen treatment over the course of time. The expression of the genes CRISP3, PCA3, OR51E2, HOXC6, AGR3, AMACR and SLC14A1 was affected by castration in addition to differential expression in the benign and malignant prostate. These sample results require further investigation for the role of AGR3 and SLC14A1 in prostate cancer as these associations have not been reported previously.

Figure 1

Response of DUSP1 mRNA in LNCaP cells following treatment with 10 nM synthetic androgen R1881 (solid bars). Statistically significant induction of DUSP1 mRNA was observed after 24 and 48 h compared with the control after 24 and 48 h with P=0.04 and P<0.001, respectively. The values are the means ± standard deviations of four individual samples. DUSP1, dual specificity phosphatase 1.