Identification of Androgen Receptor-Specific Enhancer RNAs
Abstract
Androgen receptor is a very important factor to prostate cancer because it can control expression of a large number of genes related to prostate cancer development such as the well-known PSA (prostate specific antigen) gene. Despite intensive investigation in past decades, we still do not fully understand how the androgen receptor regulates these genes. However, this knowledge is critical to the treatment of prostate cancer. It is well known now that our genome makes two types of genes. The first type of genes are so-called classic genes, i.e., protein-coding genes, because they can produce proteins that make up our body; the second type of genes are those that do not produce proteins, also called non-coding genes, including long non-coding RNAs and small RNAs such as microRNAs. However, these non-coding RNAs are very important to protein-coding genes because they can control expression of these protein-coding genes. Amazingly, the number of human long non-coding RNAs is over 50,000 based on updated non-coding RNA databases; this number is even larger than the number of human protein-coding genes (20,000 ~25,000). Thus, long non-coding RNAs are a rich source for biomarker discovery as well as for identification of candidates responsible for aggressiveness of prostate cancer and castration resistance. Recently, a special type of long non-coding RNAs, called enhancer RNAs, has been identified in humans. They are very important to normal functions of our body as well as diseases including cancer. Thus, the overall goal of this application is to determine whether there exist androgen receptor-specific enhancer RNAs. We have designed a series of experiments to test this hypothesis. The success of this study may lead to novel clinical applications such as identification of biomarkers or therapeutic targets for prostate cancer, especially for castration-resistant prostate cancer. Accordingly, this application will directly address the Prostate Cancer Research Program overarching challenge "Distinguish aggressive from indolent disease in men newly diagnosed with prostate cancer" with focus area of "Genetics: Understanding host or tumor genetics and epigenetics responsible for susceptibility, disease progression, and treatment outcomes for clinically relevant prostate cancer."
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 04, 2016
- Source ID
- W81XWH1510120
Entities
People
- Yin-Yuan Mo
Organizations
- United States Army
- University of Mississippi