Identification of Possible Molecular Markers to Predict the Malignant Tendency of the Prostate Intraepithelial Neoplasia (PIN) Lesions.

摘要

This one year Exploration-Hypothesis Development Award is aimed to identify the possible molecular markers to predict the malignant tendency of the Prostate Intraepthelial Neoplasia (PIN) lesion. During the past year, our main effort has been made to establish reliable methods to micro-dissect the PIN cells, to extract RNA, and to use this RNA to perform microquantity differential display to analyze the differential expression patterns between the cancer precursor PINs and the benign PIN lesions. Altogether, we have assessed about 5000 functional genes and found 53 differentially-expressed bands. With the limited time schedule, we have tried to recover 11 genes and successfully obtained 7 sequences. We have examined the expression status of these 7 candidates in a large number of PINs and in an archival set of prostate tissues. While we continue to assess their potential of predicting malignant tendency of PINs, we have also found that one of them (osteopontin) is an important prognostic factor for prostate cancer.