A RELIABLE SYSTEM FOR THE CULTURE OF HUMAN PROSTATIC CELLS

摘要

Benign prostatic hyperplasia as well as prostate cancer are the most frequent urological diseases in elderly men. The etiology of these diseases remains largely unknown. In order to analyze prolif-erative disorders of the prostate, it is important tostudy the stromal as well as the epithelial components of the gland. In contrast to the short-term culture of prostatic stromal cells (5), in vitro culture of prostatic epithelial cells turned out to be a more difficult approach (7). Recently, several authors reported a successful culture of prostatic epithelial cells using a commercial serum-free keratinocyte medium called KSFM (2,3,8). This medium is an optimized MCDB-153 medium supplemented with amino acids, hormones, and growth factors. Because theexact composition of the medium is partly unknown, KSFM-based culture systems are limited in their applications, in particular when studying growth factors. Based on our previous work (3), we describe here an improved and simplified technique for the isolation and short-term culture of both epithelial and stromal cells of the prostate.