Abstract 1686: Identification of potential prostate cancer biomarkers associated with TMPRSS2-ERG fusion and PTEN deletions

Abstract Background: ERG gene rearrangements and PTEN genomic deletions have been shown to be associated with specific molecular subtype of prostate cancer (PCA). It has been also suggested that tumors showing those two genetic aberrations are associated with worse prognosis compared to tumors with none of those genetic aberrations. In this study, we investigated gene expression differences between those two classes of tumors to identify potential genetic targets and pathways Material and Methods: 6144 informative genes belonging to 59 HRPCA samples were previously studied using the DASL platform. We used Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), as an effective method for analyzing gene expression data based on their ERG and PTEN status. We used the normal prostate cell line RWPE-1 as well as different prostate cancer cell lines (LNCaP, VCaP, DU145 and PC-3) to validate the results of microarray expression profiling. We screened for the expression of the different proteins by means of real time PCR and western blot studies. Results: MMP1 and LEF1 protein expression was much higher in VCaP cells and almost absent in RWPE-1 cells while MEIS2, CHD5 and Syntenin were expressed differently between cell lines and were not specifically in VCaP which is only cell line that harbor the ERG fusion. Conclusion: In this preliminary study we show that MPP1 and LEF-1 might be associated with the TMPRSS2-ERG fusion since their expression was much higher in VCaP cell line compared to other cell lines. However, further studies are still needed to confirm these results in TMPRSS2-ERG knockdown VCaP cells. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1686. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-1686