Functional Characterization of the Protein Product of the Prostate Carcinoma Gene Fusion TMPRSS2:ERG Using the Proteomic and Microarray Analyses

摘要

A recently identified TMPRSS2:ERG gene fusion is present in more than half of the prostate cancer cases and could contribute to the pathogenesis of CaP. The proposed research during the first year of performance was focused at identification of native protein complexes formed by ERG using large-scale immunoprecipitation and MudPIT proteomic analysis. During the performance period, experiments towards this aim were successfully completed. Conditions for semi-preparative purifications of the ERG-CTAP as well as the endogenous ERG were optimized. Several potential candidate ERG-binding proteins present in one or more of the ERG pull-downs but not in the controls. These candidate proteins will be further validated in the repeat MudPIT analyses and in the reciprocal IP experiments using recombinant epitope-tagged constructs and transient transfection. Completion of these experiments will results in identification of the true ERG-interacting proteins.