| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|||||||||
Articles |
To investigate whether the tumor suppressor gene PTEN affects the activity of the androgen receptor (AR), we monitored the expression of the apoptotic gene HA-Bax (inserted in an adenovirus where it is driven by the AR-responsive promoter ARR(2)PB) in the presence or absence of dihydrotestosterone, in PTEN (+) or (-) prostate cancer cell lines, infected with an adenovirus containing wild-type PTEN (Av-CMV-PTEN) or a control LacZ-expressing construct. Our results showed that AR transcriptional activity was antagonized by PTEN expression. This antagonism was not cell line dependent, as it was observed in both LNCaP and LAPC-4 cells, or promoter dependent, as it was observed for a reporter gene (HA-Bax) driven by an exogenous androgen-responsive promoter (the ARR(2)PB promoter), and for a native gene (prostate-specific antigen; PSA) driven by an endogenous AR-responsive promoter. Additional experiments performed with viruses containing constitutively active (Adeno-myrAkt) or dominant negative (Adeno-dnAkt) forms of Akt demonstrated that Akt, a protein kinase whose activation is known to be inhibited by PTEN, mediated the observed antagonism between PTEN and AR transcriptional activity. Recently, two putative Akt phosphorylation sites have been identified in the AR sequence. Site-directed mutagenesis was utilized to convert these two serine into alanine residues. The resulting construct, named CMV-AR S213A&S791A was transfected in AR (-) and PTEN (-) PC-3 cells in the presence or absence of Av-CMV-PTEN and of two reporter plasmids (GRE(2)E1b-Luc and PSA P/E-luc) containing the luciferase gene driven by well-characterized androgen responsive promoters. These experiments demonstrated that, similarly to the wild-type molecule, AR S213A&S791A was transcriptionally inhibited by PTEN, suggesting that Akt does not have an effect on AR transcription by direct phosphorylation, but probably by affecting the availability of a downstream molecule whose main mechanism of action is that of modulating AR transcription. The data presented here suggest that loss of PTEN function may facilitate activation of AR signaling and progression to androgen independence in prostate cancer.
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  H. V. Heemers and D. J. Tindall Androgen Receptor (AR) Coregulators: A Diversity of Functions Converging on and Regulating the AR Transcriptional Complex Endocr. Rev., December 1, 2007; 28(7): 778 - 808. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 L. Xin, M. A. Teitell, D. A. Lawson, A. Kwon, I. K. Mellinghoff, and O. N. Witte Progression of prostate cancer by synergy of AKT with genotropic and nongenotropic actions of the androgen receptor PNAS, May 16, 2006; 103(20): 7789 - 7794. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 S. S. Taneja, S. Ha, N. K. Swenson, H. Y. Huang, P. Lee, J. Melamed, E. Shapiro, M. J. Garabedian, and S. K. Logan Cell-specific Regulation of Androgen Receptor Phosphorylation in Vivo J. Biol. Chem., December 9, 2005; 280(49): 40916 - 40924. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 X. Liao, S. Tang, J. B. Thrasher, T. L. Griebling, and B. Li Small-interfering RNA-induced androgen receptor silencing leads to apoptotic cell death in prostate cancer Mol. Cancer Ther., April 1, 2005; 4(4): 505 - 515. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 R. Foley, D. Hollywood, and M. Lawler Molecular pathology of prostate cancer: the key to identifying new biomarkers of disease Endocr. Relat. Cancer, September 1, 2004; 11(3): 477 - 488. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
