Abstract 1015: Molecular dissection of androgen receptor signaling in prostatic endothelial, epithelial, and stromal cells
Authors: Gross Nelson T. , Wang Jianming , Smith Gary , Wu Yue 
Published: August 2019

Introduction and objectives: Androgen receptor (AR) is involved in development prostate cancer (CaP), and is a primary target for treatment of CaP. Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) inhibits AR signaling by reducing AR ligands and/or blocking AR-ligand binding. ADT induces apoptosis of both endothelial cells and epithelial cells of human prostate, with apoptosis of endothelial cells preceding the apoptosis of epithelial cells. Further, the AR response to stimulation by androgen also differs between the 2 cell types. The current understanding of AR signaling was gained predominantly using CaP cell lines and samples prepared from whole tissue specimens. The present study sought to delineate AR signaling specifically in endothelial, epithelial, and stromal cells isolated from fresh clinical prostate tissue specimens and primary xenografts of human prostate tissue. Our results reveal the potentially different roles of AR signaling in different human prostate cell compartments, how AR regulates normal differentiated cell functions, and the biological consequences of ADT.

Methods: Prostate tissue remnants were transplanted to male nude mice that were castrated and implanted with a sustained delivery device to maintain testosterone at human plasma levels. Endothelial and epithelial cells of both fresh prostate tissue and prostate tissue xenografts were isolated sequentially using magnetic beads conjugated with an antibody specific to epithelial cell or endothelial cell surface markers; the remaining cell fraction was defined as stromal cells. Transcriptomes were obtained using RNASeq, and were analyzed for differential expression of AR-regulated genes, AR co-regulators, and androgen metabolism enzymes.

Results: Antibody-mediated cell type-specific enrichment isolated effectively the 3 cell types from the prostate from 16 patients. Among 1263 AR-regulated genes, 399, 313, and 223 were predominantly expressed in epithelial, endothelial or stromal cells, respectively. Among 179 AR co-regulators, 26, 26, and 18 were expressed predominantly in epithelial, endothelial or stromal cells, respectively. Among 128 potential androgen metabolic enzyme genes, 42, 15, and 12 were expressed predominantly in epithelial, endothelial or stromal cells, respectively.

Conclusions: Differences in expression of genes associated with AR-mediated trans-regulation were apparent between the different cell types of prostate, whereas, the difference in expression of androgen metabolism genes was less striking. Therefore, the organ level outcome of ADT can only be understood by determining the response of the different cell types in CaP tissue.

Citation Format: Nelson T. Gross, Jianming Wang, Gary Smith, Yue Wu. Molecular dissection of androgen receptor signaling in prostatic endothelial, epithelial, and stromal cells [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 1015.