Project description:Chromosomal abnormalities that give rise to elevated expression levels of the ETS genes ETV1, ETV4, ETV5, or ERG are prevalent in prostate cancer, but the function of these transcription factors in carcinogenesis is not clear. Previous work implicates ERG, ETV1, and ETV5 as regulators of invasive growth but not transformation in cell lines. Here we show that the PC3 prostate cancer cell line provides a model system to study the over-expression of ETV4. Anchorage independent growth assays and microarray analysis indicate that high ETV4 expression is critical for the transformation phenotype of PC3 cells. However, genes up-regulated upon ETV4 over-expression were very similar to genes up-regulated by ETV1 over-expression in the RWPE-1 normal prostate cell line. Together these data indicate that the ETV4 dependent transformation phenotype observed in PC3 cells is due to the genetic background of the cell line, rather than a distinct characteristic of ETV4. Furthermore, these findings suggest that the function of ETS genes in prostate cancer may differ based on other genetic alterations in a tumor. Two sets of two color experiments. First is PC3 cells expressing one of two independent ETV4 shRNAs versus PC3 cells expressing a control shRNA (luciferase). Second is RWPE-1 cells expressing 3xFlag tagged ETV4 versus RWPE-1 cells with a control (empty) vector.
Project description:Chromosomal abnormalities that give rise to elevated expression levels of the ETS genes ETV1, ETV4, ETV5, or ERG are prevalent in prostate cancer, but the function of these transcription factors in carcinogenesis is not clear. Previous work implicates ERG, ETV1, and ETV5 as regulators of invasive growth but not transformation in cell lines. Here we show that the PC3 prostate cancer cell line provides a model system to study the over-expression of ETV4. Anchorage independent growth assays and microarray analysis indicate that high ETV4 expression is critical for the transformation phenotype of PC3 cells. However, genes up-regulated upon ETV4 over-expression were very similar to genes up-regulated by ETV1 over-expression in the RWPE-1 normal prostate cell line. Together these data indicate that the ETV4 dependent transformation phenotype observed in PC3 cells is due to the genetic background of the cell line, rather than a distinct characteristic of ETV4. Furthermore, these findings suggest that the function of ETS genes in prostate cancer may differ based on other genetic alterations in a tumor.
Project description:Chromosomal translocations or upregulations involving ETS transcription factor are frequent events in prostate cancer pathogenesis and significantly co-occurrence with p53 or PTEN loss. Caused by the low stabilities of ETS proteins in cytosol, mouse models with aberrant expression of wild type ETS transcription factors had subtle phenotypes and only drive prostate cancer progression in the setting of Pten loss. Here we show that prostate specific aberrant expression of mutated ETV4 (V70P71D72-AAA, ETV4-AAA), which is resistence to COP1 mediated protein degradation, results in more stabilized ETV4 protein in mouse prostate. We found that ETV4-AAA mice develop marked prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (mPin) and p53-dependent cell senescence within 2 weeks, but without tumor development when aged. Interestingly, ETV4-AAA positive cells reduce dramatically in a PTEN loss background, which means that there is no cooperation between ETV4-AAA and PTEN loss. Aberrant ETV4-AAA expression promotes progression of mPin to prostatic adenocarcinoma in a Tp53 deficiency or haploinsufficiency background. In contrast to PTEN loss induced mouse prostate cancers which loss NKX3.1 expression and resistant to castration therapy, these ETV4-AAA tumor cells well maintain AR and NKX3.1 expression and are sensitive to castration therapy.
Project description:ETS transcription factors have recently emerged as important elements in the pathogenesis of prostate cancer (PCa). ETS gene rearrangements leading to over-expression of ETS factors, like ERG, ETV1 and ETV4, are found in about 50% of prostate tumors. While the oncogenic potential of translocated ETS has been demonstrated in several contexts, the impact of endogenously expressed ETS factors on prostate tumorigenesis has been largely overlooked. Here we show that the epithelial-specific ETS factor ESE3, which is normally expressed in basal prostate epithelial (PrE) cells and frequently down-regulated in prostate tumors, serves as gatekeeper to maintain cell differentiation and its down-regulation leads to the acquisition of mesenchymal, stem cell (SC) and tumorigenic properties. ESE3 exerts this function by regulating critical genes involved in the epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and cell “stemness” and maintaining the equilibrium between cell differentiation and proliferation. Loss of ESE3 may be an important step in prostate tumorigenesis. Keywords: prostate epithelial cells, prostate cancer, gene expression profiling, ETS genes, EMT, cancer stem cells