Our objective was to investigate whether inflammatory microenvironment induced by
Trichomonas vaginalis infection can stimulate proliferation of
prostate cancer (
PCa)
cells in vitro and in vivo
mouse experiments. The
production of CXCL1 and CCL2 increased when
cells of the
mouse PCa cells (TRAMP-C2
cell line) were infected with live T. vaginalis. T. vaginalis-
conditioned medium (TCM) prepared from
co-culture of
PCa cells and T. vaginalis increased
PCa cells migration, proliferation and invasion. The
cytokine receptors (CXCR2, CCR2, gp130) were expressed higher on the
PCa cells treated with TCM. Pretreatment of
PCa cells with
antibodies to these
cytokine receptors significantly reduced the proliferation, mobility and invasiveness of
PCa cells, indicating that TCM has its effect through
cytokine-
cytokine receptor signaling. In C57BL/6
mice, the
prostates injected with T. vaginalis mixed
PCa cells were larger than those injected with
PCa cells alone after 4 weeks. Expression of
epithelial-mesenchymal transition markers and
cyclin D1 in the
prostate tissue injected with T. vaginalis mixed
PCa cells increased than those of
PCa cells alone. Collectively, it was suggested that inflammatory reactions by T. vaginalis-stimulated
PCa cells increase the proliferation and invasion of
PCa cells through
cytokine-
cytokine receptor signaling pathways.