The Role of HOX Proteins in Androgen-Independent Prostate Cancer

Abstract

Our preliminary data demonstrated that HOXC8 and HOXC6 overexpression inhibits androgen receptor (AR)-mediated signaling in human prostate cancer (PCa) cells. Based on these findings, coupled together with previous reports demonstrating that homeodomain-containing proteins interact with and inhibit the histone-acetyltransferase (HAT) activity of the steroid receptor coactivators CBP and p3001, we hypothesized that HOXC8 inhibits AR-mediated signaling through inhibition of CBP/p300 HAT activity. In support of this hypothesis, we have recently shown that increased expression of CBP relieves HOXC8 induced inhibition of AR-mediated transcription in a dose dependent manner. Further, we have demonstrated by chromatin immunoprecipitation that hormone-induced histone acetylation at the androgen-responsive MMTV promoter in inhibited upon overexpression of HOXC8. We have created a series of PCa cell lines (LNCaP, DU-145, PC-3-AR and ALVA-31) stably overexpressing HOXC8. We wanted to demonstrate that HOXC8 inhibition of AR-mediated signaling is upheld in cells stably overexpressing HOXC8, not just in transient experiments. We have demonstrated that PSA induction is inhibited in LNCaP-HOXC8 when compared with LNCaP empty vector control cells. We have also performed various tumorigenicity assays in these HOXC8 overexpressing cells, such as cell proliferation, migration, invasion and anchorage independent growth. However thus far we have been unable to detect any significant difference between the HOXC8 overexpressing cell lines and control cell lines in these experiments. Because HOXC8 overexpression may be involved in early tumorigenesis, we believe that it will be important to perform similar tumorigenicity assays in cells lines derived from non-transformed normal prostate epithelial cells. We have therefore recently created cell lines stably overexpressing HOXC8 using RWPE-I and PWR-IE prostate epithelial derived cell lines.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 2006
Accession Number
ADA470623

Entities

People

  • Sunshine Daddario

Organizations

  • University of Colorado Health

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acetylation
  • Androgen Receptors
  • Androgens
  • Biomedical Research
  • Cell Line
  • Cells
  • Chromosome Structures
  • Department Of Defense
  • Electronic Mail
  • Epithelial Cells
  • Hormones
  • Inhibition
  • Migration
  • Neoplasms
  • Prostate
  • Prostate Cancer
  • Proteins

Fields of Study

  • Biology

Readers

  • Breast cancer cell signaling and growth regulation.
  • Molecular Biology and Genetics
  • Prostate Cancer Biology.