Article Text
Abstract
Background: Recent reports indicate that prostate cancers (CaP) frequently over-express the potential oncogenes, ERG or ETV1. Many cases have chromosomal rearrangements leading to the fusion of the 5′ end of the androgen-regulated serine protease TMPRSS2 (21q22.2) to the 3′ end of either ERG (21q22.3) or ETV1 (7p21.3). The consequence of these rearrangements is aberrant androgen receptor-driven expression of the potential oncogenes, ETV1 or ERG.
Aim: To determine the frequency of rearrangements involving TMPRSS2, ERG, or ETV1 genes in CaP of varying Gleason grades through fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) on CaP tissue microarrays (TMAs).
Methods: Two independent assays, a TMPRSS2 break-apart assay and a three-colour gene fusion FISH assay were applied to TMAs. FISH positive cases were confirmed by reverse transcriptase (RT) PCR and DNA sequence analysis.
Results: A total of 106/196 (54.1%) cases were analysed by FISH. None of the five benign prostatic hyperplasia cases analysed exhibited these gene rearrangements. TMPRSS2:ERG fusion was found more frequently in moderate to poorly differentiated tumours (35/86, 40.7%) than in well differentiated tumours (1/15, 6.7%, p = 0.017). TMPRSS2:ETV1 gene fusions were not detected in any of the cases tested. TMPRSS2:ERG fusion product was verified by RT-PCR followed by DNA sequencing in 7/7 randomly selected positive cases analysed.
Conclusion: This study indicates that TMPRSS2:ERG gene rearrangements in CaP may be used as a diagnostic tool to identify prognostically relevant sub-classifications of these cancers.
- gene fusion
- TMPRSS2:ERG
- prostate cancer
- FISH
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Footnotes
Funding: This work was supported in part by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Strategic Training Program (Grant STP-53912). The Genetic Pathology Evaluation Centre is supported by an educational grant from Sanofi-Aventis, Canada. D Huntsman and M Cox are Michael Smith Health Foundation for Research Scholars. A De Luca is a recipient of the Michael Smith Health Foundation for Research post-doctoral award and J Palmer is supported in part by the British Columbia Foundation for Prostate Cancer Research.
Competing interests: None declared.
- Abbreviations:
- CaP
- prostate cancer
- FISH
- fluorescence in situ hybridisation
- PSA
- prostate specific antigen
- TMA
- tissue microarray
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- Molecular pathology