Female ; Humans ; Liver Failure, Acute ; blood ; Liver Neoplasms ; blood ; Liver Transplantation ; Male ; Thrombelastography ; Whole Blood Coagulation Time

OBJECTIVETo find sensitive and specific micro-metastic markers for prostate cancer.

METHODSUsing nested reverse transcription-PCR, we examined the expression of PSA, hK2 and PSMA mRNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 51 patients with prostate cancer, 33 patients with benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) and 32 normal young people.

RESULTSThe expression rates of PSA, hK2 and PSMA mRNA were 52.9%, 43.1% and 64.7%, respectively in prostate cancer group, and 6.2%, 7.7% and 4.6%, respectively in control group (BPH patients and normal young people) with statistical significance (P < 0.01). Although the expression rate of PSA and hK2 mRNA increased with cancer progression, there was no statistical significance among patients in different stages. The expression rate of PSMA mRNA was higher than that of PSA and hK2 mRNA in each clinical stage.

CONCLUSIONPSMA mRNA expression detected by nested RT-PCR is of greater value for the diagnosis, therapy choice and prognostic evaluation of prostate cancer patients.

Aged ; Antigens, Surface ; blood ; Biomarkers, Tumor ; blood ; Glutamate Carboxypeptidase II ; blood ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Neoplasm Invasiveness ; Neoplasm Staging ; Prostate-Specific Antigen ; blood ; Prostatic Hyperplasia ; blood ; pathology ; Prostatic Neoplasms ; blood ; pathology ; Tissue Kallikreins ; blood

OBJECTIVETo investigate the effect of infiltrating mast cells on neuroendocrine differentiation (NED) and docetaxel sensitivity of prostate cancer (PCa) cells in vitro.

METHODSHuman PCa cell lines (LNCaP and C4-2) were co-cultured with human mast cell line (HMC-1) in Transwell chambers. Androgen receptor (AR) was silenced in C4-2 cells using sh-AR lentivirus, and p21 was knocked down and overexpressed by transfecting C4-2 cells with pLKO.1-sh-p21 and pCMV-p21, respectively. The morphological changes of LNCaP and C4-2 cells were observed. MTT assay and colony formation assay were used to assess the proliferation of LNCaP and C4-2 cells. CCK8 assay was used to detect the cell viability of C4-2 cells following docetaxel trreatment. RT-qPCR and Western blotting were performed to determine the mRNA and protein expressions of neuroendocrine markers, AR and p21 in the cells.

RESULTSCo-culture with HMC-1 cells enhanced the neuroendocrine phenotypes, inhibited the proliferation and up-regulated the expression of p21 in LNCaP and C4-2 cells. P21 positively regulated NED through a non-AR-dependent signaling pathway, while p21 knockdown partially reversed NED promoted by the mast cells. PCa cells co-cultured with HMC-1 cells showed increased resistance to docetaxel, and silencing p21 partially reversed docetaxel resistance in PCa cells.

CONCLUSIONInfiltrating mast cells up-regulates p21 to promote NED and increase docetaxel resistance in PCa cells in vitro.