TMPRSS2:ERG promotes invasiveness and epithelial to mesenchymal transition in prostate cancer model. Homo sapiens

Recently, a frequent chromosomal aberration fusing Androgen regulated TMPRSS2 promoter and the ERG gene (T/ERG) was discovered in prostate cancer. Several studies demonstrated cooperation between the T/ERG and other defective pathways in cancer progression however, the biological mechanism by which the T/ERG operates is yet to be determined. Using immortalized prostate epithelial cells (EP) model we were able to show that EP with the combination of androgen receptor(AR) and T/ERG(EP-AR T/ERG cell line) demonstrate an Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) manifested by a mesenchyme-like morphological appearance and behavior. To further elucidate the mechanism by which T/ERG executes the EMT program at large, we took a genome-wide approach and conducted micro-array based comparison between EP-AR and EP-AR T/ERG cells Overall design: Four biological replicate EP-AR and EP-AR T/ERG cell lines were infected in two different infections, two of each were used for expression analysis.