Targeting alternative splicing in prostate oncology.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer seen in aging males in the Western world, and is a major clinical challenge in uro-oncology due to biological heterogeneity. Recent advances in molecular medicine suggest that the genetic composition of a prostate tumor contributes significantly to the complexity of the disease. An important genetic mechanism underlying biological diversity is alternative pre-mRNA splicing, which is thought to affect approximately 95% of transcripts derived from protein-encoding genes. During alternative splicing, coding (exons) and non-coding (introns) regions of pre-messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) transcripts derived from a single gene are rearranged to generate several mRNAs species, which are translated into distinct protein isoforms with differing biological functions. Recent emerging evidence suggests that prostate cancer-specific aberrant and alternative splicing may contribute to the biological heterogeneity of the disease. Furthermore, identification of prostate cancer-specific splice variants may yield novel biomarkers and targets for therapy to improve patient care and clinical outcome.
Institute of Human Genetics, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, United Kingdom.
Phillippa J
PJ
Carling
David J
DJ
Elliott
Craig N
CN
Robson
Hing Y
HY
Leung
Prabhakar
P
Rajan
D017398:Alternative Splicing / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000628:therapy; D020033:Protein Isoforms / Q000235:genetics; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology
D020033:Protein Isoforms; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering