Induction of apoptosis in prostatic tumor cell line DU145 by staurosporine, a potent inhibitor of protein kinases

✍ Scribed by Zhang, Haichao; Hoang, Thuc; Saeed, Badr; Ng, Shi-Chung

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 721 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0270-4137
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0045(199608)29:2<69::aid-pros1>3.0.co;2-c

✦ Synopsis

We are interested in studying the possibility of modulating prostatic cell growth by manipulating apoptosis. Here we show that 1 pM staurosporine (STS) induces a human androgen-independent prostatic tumor cell line, DU145, to undergo dramatic changes in morphology and results in programmed cell death. Several genes involved in apoptosis were analyzed for expression in STS-treated and untreated DU145 cells. It was observed that these genes were differentially regulated. The expression level of bcZ-2, bcl-xL, Ich-1L remains unchanged in treated and untreated cells. On the other hand, DAD1 and interleukin-1 p-converting enzyme (ICE) were downregulated while bcl-xs and Ich-1s were upregulated. By blocking bcl-2 gene expression using antisense oligonucleotides, it was determined that the anti-bcl-2 oligonucleotides have no effect on the proliferation of DU145 or STS-treated DU145 cells. These results demonstrate that programmed cell death can be induced in an androgen-independent prostatic cancer cell line and BCL-2 was found not to play an important role in preventing STS-induced apoptosis in the DU145 cell line.