Gene expression alterations in prostate cancer predicting tumor aggression and preceding development of malignancy.
OBJECTIVE
The incidence of prostate cancer is frequent, occurring in almost one-third of men older than 45 years. Only a fraction of the cases reach the stages displaying clinical significance. Despite the advances in our understanding of prostate carcinogenesis and disease progression, our knowledge of this disease is still fragmented. Identification of the genes and patterns of gene expression will provide a more cohesive picture of prostate cancer biology.


METHODS
In this study, we performed a comprehensive gene expression analysis on 152 human samples including prostate cancer tissues, prostate tissues adjacent to tumor, and organ donor prostate tissues, obtained from men of various ages, using the Affymetrix (Santa Clara, CA) U95a, U95b, and U95c chip sets (37,777 genes and expression sequence tags).


RESULTS
Our results confirm an alteration of gene expression in prostate cancer when comparing with nontumor adjacent prostate tissues. However, our study also indicates that the gene expression pattern in tissues adjacent to cancer is so substantially altered that it resembles a cancer field effect.


CONCLUSIONS
We also found that gene expression patterns can be used to predict the aggressiveness of prostate cancer using a novel model.
Yu
Yan Ping
YP
University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh, 3550 Terrace Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA.
Landsittel
Douglas
D
Jing
Ling
L
Nelson
Joel
J
Ren
Baoguo
B
Liu
Lijun
L
McDonald
Courtney
C
Thomas
Ryan
R
Dhir
Rajiv
R
Finkelstein
Sydney
S
Michalopoulos
George
G
Becich
Michael
M
Luo
Jian-Hua
JH
D000328:Adult; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / Q000235:genetics; D018450:Disease Progression; D015870:Gene Expression / Q000235:genetics*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis / Q000379:methods; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011467:Prostate / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology