Short Report

Short Report

Oncogene (2005) 24, 3847?3852. doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1208518 Published online 7 March 2005
Published online 07 March 2005

Frequent overexpression of ETS-related gene-1 (ERG1) in prostate cancer transcriptome

Gyorgy Petrovics1,7, Aijun Liu1,7, Syed Shaheduzzaman1,7, Bungo Furasato2, Chen Sun1, Yongmei Chen1, Martin Nau3, Lakshmi Ravindranath1, Yidong Chen4, Albert Dobi1, Vasantha Srikantan1, Isabell A Sesterhenn2, David G McLeod1,5, Maryanne Vahey3, Judd W Moul1,5,6 and Shiv Srivastava1

  1. 1Center for Prostate Disease Research (CPDR), Department of Surgery and US Military Cancer Institute, Uniformed Services University, Rockville, MD 20852, USA
  2. 2Department of Genitourinary Pathology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, DC 20306, USA
  3. 3Laboratory of Functional Genomics, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
  4. 4Cancer Genetics Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
  5. 5Urology Service, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC 20307, USA

Correspondence: S Srivastava, E-mail: [email protected]

G Petrovics, E-mail: [email protected]

6Current address: Division of Urologic Surgery, Box 3707, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710

7These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Abstract

Transcription factors encoded by the ETS family of genes are central in integrating signals that regulate cell growth and differentiation, stress responses, and tumorigenesis. This study, analysing laser microdissected paired benign and malignant prostate epithelial cells from prostate cancer (CaP) patients (n=114; 228 specimen) by GeneChip and quantitative real-time RT?PCR, identifies ETS-related gene (ERG), a member of the ETS transcription factor family, as the most frequently overexpressed proto-oncogene in the transcriptome of malignant prostate epithelial cells. Combined quantitative expression analysis of ERG with two other genes commonly overexpressed in CaP, AMACR and DD3, revealed overexpression of at least one of these three genes in virtually all CaP specimen (54 of 55). Comprehensive evaluation of quantitative ERG1 expression with clinicopathological features also suggested that ERG1 expression level in prostate tumor cells relative to benign epithelial cells is indicator of disease-free survival after radical prostatectomy.

Keywords:

ERG1, ETS transcription factor family, prostate cancer, proto-oncogene, overexpression

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