Acquisition of a tumorigenic phenotype by a rat ventral prostate epithelial cell line expressing a transfected activated neu oncogene.
The neu oncogene has been demonstrated to be a potent transforming gene in rodent fibroblasts. The overexpression of the human erbB-2/neu oncogene has been implicated in the development and/or prognosis of several human carcinomas including that of the prostate. To assess the transforming potential of the activated rat neu oncogene in prostatic epithelial carcinogenesis, this laboratory has transfected a cloned non-tumorigenic, rat ventral prostate epithelial cell line, NbE-1.4, with an activated, point-mutated neu oncogene. Transfection of NbE-1.4 cells with the activated neu oncogene expression vector, pSV-neu-T (neu-T), resulted in an altered cell morphology, an increase in soft agar colony-forming efficiency, and conversion to a tumorigenic phenotype. Although the parental NbE-1.4 cells expressed endogenous c-neu mRNA, a reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction assay determined that the neu-T-transfected clones expressed only the point-mutated neu-T mRNA. The suppression of the c-neu transcripts occurred regardless of the neu-T mRNA level expressed in these cell clones. These data provide evidence to show that low-level expression of an activated neu oncogene alone was insufficient to transform rat prostate epithelial cells. Rather, overexpression of an activated neu oncogene correlated well with the acquisition of a tumorigenic phenotype by the NbE-1.4 epithelial cell line.
Urology Research Laboratory, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston 77030.
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Chung
D016475:3T3 Cells; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D002460:Cell Line; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / Q000235:genetics*; D004848:Epithelium / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009838:Oligodeoxyribonucleotides; D009857:Oncogenes; D010641:Phenotype; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D011467:Prostate / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology*; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D011519:Proto-Oncogenes; D051381:Rats; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D014162:Transfection
D009838:Oligodeoxyribonucleotides; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases