2014年2月11日 訊 /生物谷BIOON/ --羅斯維爾帕克癌症研究中心科學家最近研究表明SSeCKS/AKAP12基因能夠抑制前列腺癌轉移,該研究首次在動物模型中證明了該基因對抑制前列腺癌轉移的重要作用,該研究對治療前列腺癌和其他類型實體腫瘤藥物的開發有重要意義。相關研究發表在近期的Cancer Research雜誌上。
該研究由Irwin H. Gelman博士領導的研究團隊完成。科學家發現人類轉移的前列腺癌細胞中通常會出現兩個重要調控基因的關閉,即SSeCKS/AKAP12和Rb。科學家進一步構建了轉基因動物模型來研究這兩個基因的缺失對前列腺癌發病進程的影響。科學家發現這兩個基因的缺失導致相關蛋白數量降低,會引起早期前列腺癌產生。而且,在80%以上的轉基因動物模型中,科學家都發現前列腺附近淋巴結受癌細胞侵害。
Gelman博士稱,我們之前的結果發現SSeCKS/AKAP12抑制前列腺癌細胞的趨化性,我們最新的結果表明SSeCKS/AKAP12基因在防止前列腺癌細胞早期轉移中有重要作用。不僅如此,我們還發現前列腺癌細胞中SSeCKS/AKAP12基因被關閉或缺失的病人比該基因正常的病人具有更高的癌症轉移性。
在惡性前列腺癌病人中,有三分之一的病人出現SSeCKS/AKAP12缺失現象,而如果採用藥物誘導SSeCKS/AKAP12基因激活有可能會治療另外三分之二的病人。Gelman博士帶領研究團隊試圖研究前列腺癌中抑制SSeCKS/AKAP12基因的通路,希望找到能夠抑制該通路的藥物,來提高SSeCKS/AKAP12基因表達量,進而治療惡性前列腺癌。(生物谷Bioon.com)
doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-13-1157
A Transgenic Mouse Model for Early Prostate Metastasis to Lymph Nodes
Hyun-Kyung Ko, Shin Akakura, Jennifer Peresie, David W. Goodrich, Barbara A. Foster and Irwin H. Gelman
The emergence of recurrent, metastatic prostate cancer following the failure of androgen-deprivation therapy represents the lethal phenotype of this disease. However, little is known regarding the genes and pathways that regulate this metastatic process, and moreover, it is unclear whether metastasis is an early or late event. The individual genetic loss of the metastasis suppressor, SSeCKS/Gravin/AKAP12 or Rb, genes that are downregulated or deleted in human prostate cancer, results in prostatic hyperplasia. Here, we show that the combined loss of Akap12 and Rb results in prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN) that fails to progress to malignancy after 18 months. Strikingly, 83% of mice with PIN lesions exhibited metastases to draining lymph nodes, marked by relatively differentiated tumor cells expressing markers of basal (p63, cytokeratin 14) and luminal (cytokeratin 8 and androgen receptor) epithelial cells, although none expressed the basal marker, cytokeratin 5. The finding that PIN lesions contain increased numbers of p63/AR-positive, cytokeratin 5-negative basal cells compared with WT or Akap12?/? prostate lobes suggests that these transitional cells may be the source of the lymph node metastases. Taken together, these data suggest that in the context of Rb loss, Akap12 suppresses the oncogenic proliferation and early metastatic spread of basal-luminal prostate tumor cells.