ANDROGEN REGULATION OF ORNITHINE DECARBOXYLASE IN HUMAN PROSTATIC CELLS IDENTIFIED USING DIFFERENTIAL DISPLAY

Androgens are essential for normal prostate physiology and have a perm issive role in the development and progression of prostate cancer. Usi ng the mRNA differential display technique, ornithine decarboxylase (O DC) was identified to be up-regulated by androgens in human prostatic LNCaP cells. On Northern analysis, the induction of ODC expression by 10 nM androgen was rapid and continued up to 48 h exposure with a maxi mum 6.3-fold up-regulation. The anti-androgen Casodex inhibited the an drogen-induced up-regulation of ODC, whereas the protein synthesis inh ibitor cycloheximide did not. Together these data suggest that regulat ion is mediated through the androgen receptor protein and does require secondary protein synthesis, respectively. The kinetics of induction of ODC were almost identical to those of prostate specific antigen. Ta ken together these data suggest that ODC is directly regulated by andr ogens in LNCaP cells. (C) 1997 Federation of European Biochemical Soci eties.