Epigenetics-related genes in prostate cancer: expression profile in prostate cancer tissues, androgen-sensitive and -insensitive cell lines

Epigenetic changes have been suggested to drive prostate cancer (PCa) developmentand progression. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to identify novel epigenetics-relatedgenes in PCa tissues, and to examine their expression in metastatic PCa cell lines.We analyzed the expression of epigenetics-related genes via a clustering analysisbased on gene function in moderately and poorly differentiated PCa glands comparedto normal glands of the peripheral zone (prostate proper) from PCa patients usingWhole Human Genome Oligo Microarrays. Our analysis identified 12 epigenetics-relatedgenes with a more than 2-fold increase or decrease in expression and a p-value<0.01. In modera-tely differentiated tumors compared to normal glands of theperipheral zone, we found the genes, TDRD1, IGF2, DICER1, ADARB1, HILS1, GLMNand TRIM27, to be upregulated, whereas TNRC6A and DGCR8 were found to be downregulated.In poorly differentiated tumors, we found TDRD1, ADARB and RBM3 to be upregulated,whereas DGCR8, PIWIL2 and BC069781 were downregulated. Our analysis of the expressionlevel for each gene in the metastatic androgen-sensitive VCaP and LNCaP, and -insensitivePC3 and DU-145 PCa cell lines revealed differences in expression among the celllines which may reflect the different biological properties of each cell line,and the potential role of each gene at different metastatic sites. The novel epigenetics-relatedgenes that we identified in primary PCa tissues may provide further insight intothe role that epigenetic changes play in PCa. Moreover, some of the genes thatwe identified may play important roles in primary PCa and metastasis, in primaryPCa only, or in metastasis only. Follow-up studies are required to investigatethe functional role and the role that the expression of these genes play in theoutcome and progression of PCa using tissue microarrays.