Section of Anatomy, Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy.
Division of Radiotherapy and Radiobiology, Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of L'Aquila, L'Aquila, Italy.
Andrology. 2020 Mar;8(2):427-433. doi: 10.1111/andr.12695. Epub 2019 Aug 21.
Type 5 phosphodiesterase (PDE5) expression in the normal and pathological prostate is controversial.
This study aimed at identifying the cell type/s, if any, expressing PDE5 in human healthy or pathological prostate sections in order to further validate the rationale of PDE5 inhibitor (PDE5i) treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and their safety in the treatment of erectile dysfunction following prostate cancer (PCa) surgery.
By immunohistochemical analysis, we studied PDE5 expression in tissue microarrays containing sections obtained from healthy, BPH, and PCa samples.
Our results showed that PDE5 is barely expressed in the epithelial or stromal compartment of normal human prostates, but it is highly expressed in the stromal compartment of BPH sections. We also found that a low but significant number of PCa samples (22%) expressed PDE5 in the epithelial cancer cells but not in stromal cells and that such expression was not correlated with the tumor aggressiveness, according to their Gleason score.
PDE5 overexpression in the stromal compartment of BPH samples supports the rationale of PDE5 as a target in lower urinary tract symptoms of BPH. PDE5 expression in a significant percentage of PCa samples but the lack of correlation with the Gleason score suggests that this enzyme is not correlated with tumor aggressiveness; however, a role of PDE5 in the minimal residual disease of PCa cannot be excluded.
5 型磷酸二酯酶（PDE5）在正常和病理性前列腺中的表达存在争议。
本研究旨在确定人正常和病理性前列腺组织中表达 PDE5 的细胞类型，如果有的话，以进一步验证 PDE5 抑制剂（PDE5i）治疗良性前列腺增生（BPH）的合理性及其在前列腺癌（PCa）手术后治疗勃起功能障碍的安全性。
通过免疫组织化学分析，我们研究了组织微阵列中 PDE5 在健康、BPH 和 PCa 样本中的表达。
我们的结果表明，PDE5 在正常前列腺的上皮或基质部分几乎不表达，但在 BPH 组织的基质部分高度表达。我们还发现，少数但有统计学意义的 PCa 样本（22%）在上皮癌细胞中表达 PDE5，但不在基质细胞中表达，并且这种表达与肿瘤侵袭性（根据其 Gleason 评分）无关。
PDE5 在 BPH 样本基质部分的过度表达支持 PDE5 作为下尿路症状 BPH 的靶点的合理性。PDE5 在相当比例的 PCa 样本中的表达，但与 Gleason 评分无关，提示该酶与肿瘤侵袭性无关；然而，不能排除 PDE5 在 PCa 微小残留疾病中的作用。
