Abstract

We previously analyzed human prostate tissue containing stroma near to tumor and from cancer-negative tissues of volunteers. Over 100 candidate gene expression differences were identified and used to develop a classifier that could detect nearby tumor with an accuracy of 97% based on 364 independent test cases from primarily European American cases. These stromabased gene signatures have the potential to identify cancer patients among those with negative biopsies. In this study, we used prostate tissues from Chinese cases to validate six of these markers. In validation by real-time PCR, four genes demonstrated significantly lower expression in tumor-adjacent stroma compared to normal stroma. Next, we tested whether these expression differences could be extended to the protein level. In IHC assays, all six selected proteins showed lower expression in tumor-adjacent stroma compared to the normal stroma, of which COL4A2, HSPB1 and ITGB3 showed significant differences. These results suggest that biomarkers for diagnosing prostate cancer based on tumor microenvironment may be applicable across multiple racial groups.