Qualitative analysis of Coomassie-blue-stained proteins from normal prostate, benign prostatic hypertrophy, or adenocarcinoma of the prostate, separated by two-dimensional protein electrophoresis.

Samples from nine normal prostates (N), ten benign hypertrophic prostates (BPH), and eight adenocarcinomas of the prostate (ACP), obtained from the National Prostatic Cancer Project were analyzed by two-dimensional (2D)-protein electrophoresis. Qualitative analysis of Coomassie-blue-stained acidic proteins between pI 3.5 and 6.8 yielded these results: The total number of enumerated proteins was 136 (N), 107 (BPH), and 147 (ACP). Ninety-two denoted proteins were deemed common to the three kinds of samples, three were considered present in N and BPH, 7 in BPH and ACP, and 28 in N and ACP. Thirteen, five, and 20 proteins were detected only in N, BPH, or ACP. These proteins cannot be considered "unique" to their respective samples, since amounts of protein that do not exceed the minimum sensitivity of the dye may be present in the other samples. The similarity in the patterns of proteins from these three types of prostate samples is consistent with the following hypothesis: The distribution of proteins from histologically ambiguous prostate samples will correlate more closely with these protein profiles than with those associated with cancers originating from other organs.