Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy among males in the United States. Very few molecular prognostic markers are available to assist in clinical management and classify patients for clinical trials. Whereas for other cancers large-scale screening of tissues for oncogene rearrangement or abnormal expression have identified genes that may play a pathogenic role in those cancers, no oncogenes have been found to be associated with for prostate cancer. Our experiments are aimed at identifying molecular markers and activated oncogenes that indicate poor prognosis in prostate cancer. We have identified several growth factor genes that are expressed in hormone-independent, but not hormone-dependent cell lines. Cell lines manifest phenotypic differences which characterize malignant progression in clinical cancer. Molecular markers that correlate with malignant progression in vitro will be tested for expression in tumor specimens. We will perform PCR analysis of prostate tumor tissue cDNA to screen for the expression of these factors in fresh tissues. We will perform immunohistochemistry on paraffin-- embedded tumor tissue to look for erbB-2 and vimentin expression in prostate cancer cells. We will analyze prostate tumor DNA to detect mutations or rearrangements of three oncogenes, p53, lyt- 10, and hox- 11. Marker expression and immunohistochemical analysis will be correlated with pathologic findings and histologic grade of the tumor specimens. Although we will readily test material supplied to us through the cooperative network, we actively accrue freshly frozen surgical material to a prostate tissue bank which is cross-indexed to demographic information and pathology records and blocks. The tumor bank is comprised of specimens from both black (35%) and white (65%) men. Identification of specimens by racial origin will allow us to explore any racial differences in the relevance of molecular markers or oncogene activation.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
Research Project--Cooperative Agreements (U01)
Project #
5U01CA057178-02
Application #
3549859
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (SRC (48))
Project Start
1992-07-23
Project End
1996-06-30
Budget Start
1993-07-21
Budget End
1994-06-30
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
1993
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Georgetown University
Department
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
049515844
City
Washington
State
DC
Country
United States
Zip Code
20057
Truica, C I; Byers, S; Gelmann, E P (2000) Beta-catenin affects androgen receptor transcriptional activity and ligand specificity. Cancer Res 60:4709-13
Bowen, C; Voeller, H J; Kikly, K et al. (1999) Synthesis of procaspases-3 and -7 during apoptosis in prostate cancer cells. Cell Death Differ 6:394-401
Kimura, K; Bowen, C; Spiegel, S et al. (1999) Tumor necrosis factor-alpha sensitizes prostate cancer cells to gamma-irradiation-induced apoptosis. Cancer Res 59:1606-14
Bowen, C; Spiegel, S; Gelmann, E P (1998) Radiation-induced apoptosis mediated by retinoblastoma protein. Cancer Res 58:3275-81
Cardillo, M; Berchem, G; Tarkington, M A et al. (1997) Resistance to apoptosis and up regulation of Bcl-2 in benign prostatic hyperplasia after androgen deprivation. J Urol 158:212-6
Gumerlock, P H; Chi, S G; Shi, X B et al. (1997) p53 abnormalities in primary prostate cancer: single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis of complementary DNA in comparison with genomic DNA. The Cooperative Prostate Network. J Natl Cancer Inst 89:66-71
Voeller, H J; Augustus, M; Madike, V et al. (1997) Coding region of NKX3.1, a prostate-specific homeobox gene on 8p21, is not mutated in human prostate cancers. Cancer Res 57:4455-9
Gelmann, E P (1996) Androgen receptor mutations in prostate cancer. Cancer Treat Res 87:285-302
Voeller, H J; Sugars, L Y; Pretlow, T et al. (1994) p53 oncogene mutations in human prostate cancer specimens. J Urol 151:492-5
Carroll, A G; Voeller, H J; Sugars, L et al. (1993) p53 oncogene mutations in three human prostate cancer cell lines. Prostate 23:123-34