Molecular genetics of prostate cancer
- Cory Abate-Shen1,2,4,5 and
- Michael M. Shen1,3,4,5
- 1Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, 2Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, 3Department of Pediatrics, 4Dean and Betty Gallo Prostate Cancer Center, Cancer Institute of New Jersey, UMDNJ–Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Prostate cancer afflicts one man in nine over the age of 65 and represents the most frequently diagnosed cancer in American men (Coffey 1993). Early detection through serum testing for prostate specific antigen (PSA) and improved procedures for surgical intervention and radiation therapy have significantly reduced the number of fatalities; however, there is still no effective cure for men with advanced disease. Therefore, much research has been dedicated to identifying prognostic markers that distinguish indolent versus aggressive forms of prostate cancer. In contrast, significantly less research has been devoted to understanding the molecular mechanisms that underlie normal prostate growth and development or cancer initiation and progression.
In this review, we address recent progress toward the central objectives of understanding parameters of normal versus abnormal prostatic development and of elucidating a molecular pathway for prostate cancer progression. We focus on key regulatory molecules that have been implicated by analysis of patterns of allelic loss in human prostate cancers and/or by reverse genetic approaches in the mouse.
Characteristic features of prostate cancer
Most prostate tumors are adenocarcinomas, sharing numerous common features with other prevalent epithelial cancers, such as breast and colon cancer. Here, we introduce certain salient aspects of prostate cancer that are relevant for investigation of the disease process.
Correlation with aging
A distinguishing feature of prostate cancer is its intimate association with aging; indeed, aging is the single most significant risk factor for prostate cancer. Although pre-neoplastic lesions known as prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN) can be found in men in their twenties and are fairly common in men by their fifties (Sakr et al. 1993), clinically detectable prostate cancer is not generally manifest until the age of 60 or 70. Furthermore, the occurrence of precancerous lesions is significantly more prevalent (∼1 in 3 men) than the incidence of carcinoma (∼1 in 9 men). Therefore, whereas the morphological changes …
