Marker Paul C, Donjacour Annemarie A, Dahiya Rajvir, Cunha Gerald R
Department of Anatomy, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
Dev Biol. 2003 Jan 15;253(2):165-74. doi: 10.1016/s0012-1606(02)00031-3.
The prostate is a male accessory sex gland found only in mammals that functions to produce a major fraction of seminal fluid. Interest in understanding the biology of the prostate is driven both by the fascinating nature of the developmental processes that give rise to the prostate and by the high incidence in humans of prostatic diseases, including prostatic adenocarcinoma and benign prostatic hyperplasia. This review summarizes the current state of knowledge of the cellular and molecular processes that control prostatic development. Insight into the mechanisms that control prostatic development has come from experimental embryological work as well as from the study of mice and humans harboring mutations that alter prostatic development. These studies have demonstrated a requirement for androgens throughout prostatic development and have revealed a series of reciprocal paracrine signals between the developing prostatic epithelium and prostatic mesenchyme. Finally, these studies have identified several specific gene products that are required for prostatic development. While research in recent years has greatly enhanced our understanding of the molecular control of prostatic development, known genes cannot yet explain in molecular terms the complex biological interactions that descriptive and experimental embryological studies have elucidated in the control of prostatic development.
前列腺是仅在哺乳动物中发现的雄性附属性腺，其功能是产生大部分精液。对前列腺生物学的研究兴趣既源于前列腺发育过程的迷人本质，也源于人类前列腺疾病（包括前列腺腺癌和良性前列腺增生）的高发病率。本综述总结了目前关于控制前列腺发育的细胞和分子过程的知识现状。对控制前列腺发育机制的深入了解来自实验胚胎学研究以及对携带改变前列腺发育突变的小鼠和人类的研究。这些研究表明，雄激素在整个前列腺发育过程中都是必需的，并揭示了发育中的前列腺上皮和前列腺间充质之间一系列相互的旁分泌信号。最后，这些研究确定了几种前列腺发育所需的特定基因产物。虽然近年来的研究极大地增进了我们对前列腺发育分子控制的理解，但已知基因尚未能从分子角度解释描述性和实验性胚胎学研究在前列腺发育控制中所阐明的复杂生物学相互作用。
