BMC Cancer Research article Can p503s, p504s and p510s gene expression in peripheral-blood be useful as a marker of prostatic cancer? Maria Rosaria Cardillo*1, Vincenzo Gentile2, Antonio Ceccariello2, Laura Giacomelli3, Stefano Messinetti3 and Franco Di Silverio2 BioMed Central Open Access Address: 1Department of Experimental Medicine and Pathology (Section of Pathologic Anatomy). University "La Sapienza", Viale Regina Elena, 161 Rome, Italy, 2Department of Urology "U. Bracci", University "La Sapienza", Viale del Policlinico, 156 Rome, Italy and 3Department of Surgical Science, University "La Sapienza" Viale Regina Elena, 161 Rome, Italy Email: Maria Rosaria Cardillo* - mariarosaria.cardillo@uniroma1.it; Vincenzo Gentile - vincenzo.gentile@uniroma1.it; Antonio Ceccariello - a.ceccariello@uniroma1.it; Laura Giacomelli - l.giacomelli@uniroma1.it; Stefano Messinetti - s.messinetti@uniroma1.it; Franco Di Silverio - f.disilverio@uniroma1.it * Corresponding author Published: 05 September 2005 BMC Cancer 2005, 5:111 doi:10.1186/1471-2407-5-111 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/5/111 Received: 28 December 2004 Accepted: 05 September 2005 © 2005 Cardillo et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: The aim of the study was to investigate whether p503S, p504S and p510S gene expression in peripheral-blood be useful as a diagnostic or prognostic marker of prostatic cancer. Methods: Circulating cells were identified by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect p503S, p504S and p510S mRNA in peripheral blood (PB) from 11 patients with treated prostatic carcinoma (CaP), 11 with newly-diagnosed untreated CaP and 20 with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) (controls). Results: RT-PCR amplified P503S in 7 of 11 untreated and 2 of 11 treated patients with CaP and 5 of 20 with BPH; p504S in 7 of 11 untreated and in 9 of 11 treated patients with CaP and 11 of 20 with BPH; whereas it amplified p510S in all subjects with CaP and in 15 of 20 with BPH. Conclusion: These findings suggest that the investigated genes are poorly specific and probably of little use as diagnostic or prognostic prostatic markers in peripheral blood for monitoring disease progression and recurrence. Background Microarray approaches have identified three prostate tis- sue and cancer-prostate-specific genes: p503S, a 241- amino acid protein that encodes human tetraspan NET-1, a member of the tetraspanin/TM4SF family, involved in cancer metastasis) [1], P504S, also referred to as the AMACR gene, encodes human α-methylacyl-CoA race- mase, a 382-amino acid protein involved in the conver- sion of R-stereoisomers of branched-chain fatty acids to S- stereoisomers [2-6] and p510S, identified as the human ABC transporter MOAT-B [7]. All these genes are overex- pressed in prostate tumor or normal prostate tissue or both and are considered clinical biomarkers of prostate cancer (CaP)[8]. The immune response against AMACR has been used as a serum biomarker for CaP [9,10] and the quantification of AMACR transcripts in prostatic secre- tions shown to be predictive of CaP [11]. Attempts to detect AMACR in circulation have been disap- pointing and no molecular studies have yet sought p503S Page 1 of 7 (page number not for citation purposes)