UICC World Cancer Congress 2006

Objective:Prostate cell lines can provide powerful model systems for the study of human prostate carcinogenesis. However, the human prostate cell lines (PC3, DU145 and LNCaP) studied most extensively by investigators were established from metastatic lesions, and it is unlikely that they accurately reflect the genetic makeup or biological behavior of primary prostate tumors. Cell lines ideal for the study of human prostate primary tumors would be those derived from spontaneously immortalized cells; unfortunately, explanted primary prostate cells survive only short-term in culture, and rarely immortalize spontaneously. We examined whether cell lines generated through telomerase-transduced immortalization of primary human non-malignant and primary tumor prostate epithelium express aspects of the non-malignant or malignant phenotypes, and could serve as appropriate models for non-malignant or transformed human prostate epithelium.

Methods: We examined the phenotypic expression of cell cultures established through the immortalization of non-malignant (RC-165N and RC-170N) and malignant (957E, RC-58T and RC92a) primary human prostate epithelium with telomerase, the gene that prevents cellular senescence.

Results:Examinations of these cell lines for their morphologies and proliferous capacities, for their abilities to grow with or without serum, for their response to androgen stimulation, for their growth above the agar layer, and their ability to form tumors in SCID mice, suggests that they may serve as valid, useful tools for the elucidation of prostate tumorigenesis. The chromosome alterations observed in these immortalized cell lines expressing aspects of the malignant phenotypes imply that these cell lines accurately recapitulate the genetic composition of primary prostate tumors.