ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Prostate cancer consists of multifactorial and multifocal events, generating differential gene expression in tumor cells. METHODS: The molecular profile of 14 gene expression was analyzed through cDNA array in blood samples of patients with prostate cancer (PCa) and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). RESULTS: Messenger RNA from patient's blood showed significant differences between PCa and BPH groups only for the NOS3 gene, with an occurrence chance for PCa5.8-fold higher than BPH disease. CONCLUSION: The NOS3 gene expression in the patient's blood may be used as a putative biomarker for prostate cancer.
Subject(s)
Gene Expression Profiling , Prostatic Hyperplasia/blood , Prostatic Hyperplasia/genetics , Prostatic Neoplasms/blood , Prostatic Neoplasms/genetics , Adult , Gene Expression , Genes, Neoplasm/genetics , Humans , Male , Nitric Oxide Synthase Type III/blood , Nitric Oxide Synthase Type III/genetics , Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis , RNA, Messenger/blood , RNA, Messenger/geneticsABSTRACT
We used the multiplex semi-quantitative reverse-transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) to investigate kallikrein 2 and 3 (KLK2 and KLK3) mRNA levels in prostate tissue from 42 prostate cancer patients, 33 of whom were also assessed for peripheral blood KLK2 expression by qualitative semi-nested RT-PCR. We found that KLK2 was an important tissue biomarker for distinguishing between prostate cancer patients and those with benign prostatic hyperplasia, particularly when KLK2 expression was > 60 percent of that of the beta2-microglobulin constitutive gene. Patients with an average relative expression value > 0.6 (cutoff value) had an eleven-fold higher chance of having prostate cancer. When one or two tissues samples were evaluated for KLK2 expression using the cutoff value the estimated chance of having prostate cancer was increased by seven times for one positive sample and 45 times for two positive samples. There was no significant correlation between KLK3 gene expression and prostate cancer diagnosis. Logistic regression for blood and tissue KLK2 expression successfully detected 92 percent of the prostate cancer cases. The detection of KLK2 in blood showed a sensitivity of 59 percent and a specificity of 82 percent. This study indicates that the KLK2 gene may be a useful molecular marker for the diagnosis of prostate cancer and that analysis of KLK2 expression in blood and tissues could provide a novel approach for the clinical investigation of this type of cancer.
