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The Sonic Hedgehog Pathway Stimulates Prostate Tumor Growth by Paracrine Signaling and Recaptures Embryonic Gene Expression in Tumor Myofibroblasts

Aubie Shaw¹, Jerry Gipp² & Wade Bushman¹

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1. University of Wisconsin-Madison, The McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, Surgery, Carbone Cancer Center
2. University of Wisconsin-Madison, The McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, Carbone Cancer Center

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Document Type:

Manuscript

Date:

Received 24 August 2009 17:35 UTC; Posted 26 August 2009

Subjects:

Cancer, Developmental Biology

Tags:

• Hedgehog
• prostate cancer
• reactive stroma
• myofibroblast
• paracrine
• tumor microenvironment

Abstract:

The Hedgehog (Hh) pathway contributes to prostate cancer growth and progression. The presence of robust Shh expression in both normal prostate and localized cancer challenged us to explain the unique growth promoting effect in cancer. We show here that paracrine Hh signaling exerts a non-cell autonomous effect on xenograft tumor growth and that Hh pathway activation in myofibroblasts alone is sufficient to stimulate tumor growth. Nine genes regulated by Hh in the mesenchyme of the developing prostate were found to be regulated in the stroma of Hh over-expressing xenograft tumors. Correlation analysis of gene expression in matched specimens of benign and malignant human prostate tissue revealed a partial 5 gene fingerprint of Hh-regulated expression in stroma of all cancers and the complete 9 gene fingerprint in the subset of tumors exhibiting a reactive stroma. No expression fingerprint was observed in benign tissues. We conclude that changes in the prostate stroma due to association with cancer result in an altered transcriptional response to Hh that mimics the growth promoting actions of the fetal mesenchyme. Patients with an abundance of myofibroblasts in biopsy tissue may comprise a sub-group that will exhibit a particularly good response to anti-Hedgehog therapy.

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This document is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

How to cite this document:

Shaw, Aubie, Gipp, Jerry, and Bushman, Wade. The Sonic Hedgehog Pathway Stimulates Prostate Tumor Growth by Paracrine Signaling and Recaptures Embryonic Gene Expression in Tumor Myofibroblasts. Available from Nature Precedings <http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2009.3682.1> (2009)

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