Institute of Biomedical Technology, University of Tampere, and Centre for Laboratory Medicine, Tampere University Hospital, Biokatu 8, 33520 Tampere, Finland.
Mol Cell Endocrinol. 2012 Sep 5;360(1-2):25-37. doi: 10.1016/j.mce.2011.07.007. Epub 2011 Jul 18.
Prostate cancer is the most frequent male malignancy diagnosed in western countries and androgens are known to mediate key physiological processes in prostate tissue. Since endogenous androgens have long been considered to be risk factors for prostate cancer, genes involved in androgen biosynthesis and metabolism have been extensively studied. In this review, association of androgen pathway genes, their polymorphic sites and risk of prostate cancer in different ethnic backgrounds is addressed together with their use to predict susceptibility and clinical outcomes of prostate cancer patients. The effect of the polymorphisms seems vary in different patients, populations and ethnic backgrounds. To date it is evident that the association between androgen pathway gene polymorphisms and prostate cancer risk is complex and many of the results are characterized by irreproducibility, which can be attributed to a variety of biological, statistical and technical reasons. In the future, with increasing knowledge, developing technologies and new genomic biomarkers it likely becomes possible to better estimate the risk of prostate cancer, and distinguish indolent disease from aggressive based on molecular profiling, and the analysis of gene-gene and gene-environment interactions.
前列腺癌是西方国家最常见的男性恶性肿瘤，雄激素被认为是前列腺组织中关键生理过程的介质。由于内源性雄激素一直被认为是前列腺癌的危险因素，因此雄激素生物合成和代谢相关的基因已被广泛研究。在这篇综述中，我们探讨了雄激素通路基因及其多态性位点与不同种族背景下前列腺癌风险的相关性，以及它们在预测前列腺癌患者易感性和临床结局中的应用。多态性的影响似乎因不同的患者、人群和种族背景而异。迄今为止，很明显，雄激素通路基因多态性与前列腺癌风险之间的关联是复杂的，许多结果的特征是不可复制性，这可能归因于多种生物学、统计学和技术原因。未来，随着知识的不断增加、技术的发展和新的基因组生物标志物的出现，我们很可能能够更好地估计前列腺癌的风险，并根据分子谱分析以及基因-基因和基因-环境相互作用的分析，将惰性疾病与侵袭性疾病区分开来。
