The CIC-ERF co-deletion underlies fusion independent activation of ETS family member, ETV1, to drive prostate cancer progression.

Methods: To characterize the expression profile of ERF-CIC deleted prostate cells, we performed single-cell RNA-sequencing of PNT2 ERF knock down and CIC knockout cell line. Results: We found that CIC and ERF loss were significantly associated with the ETV1-regulated gene set but was anti-correlated with the TMPRSS2-ERG fusion signature gene set. The enrichment gene signature of ERF-CIC dual loss was similar to ERF loss alone and ETV1-regulated gene set signature. Conclusions: Our results provide relevant insights about a new subtype of prostate cancer with ERF and CIC codeletion RNA sequencing of CIC-ERF codeletion in PNT2, CICKO and ERF KD in PNT2 cells