A stable prostatic bioluminescent cell line to investigate androgen and antiandrogen effects

We developed a new stable prostatic cell line expressing the human androgen receptor (AR) and the AR-responsive reporter gene to generate a powerful tool for investigating androgen action and for rapid screening of agonists and antagonists. The AR-deficient PC-3 cells were stably transfected with pSG(5)-puro-hAR and pMMTV-neo-Luc. After selection with puromycin and neomycin, one highly inducible clone was isolated and named PALM, for PC-3-Androgen receptor-Luciferase-MMTV. The expression of hAR was confirmed by western blot and steroid-binding assays on the whole cells. The transcriptional activity of the clone was measured after incubation of cells with increasing concentrations of synthetic R1881 or natural androgens (DHT and testosterone). The three agonists had the same maximal activity at 0.1 microM and the fold induction was equal to 20. The agonist and antagonist activities of the steroidal antiandrogens (cyproterone acetate and RU2956) and the non-steroidal antiandrogens (nilutamide, bicalutamide, inocoterone and hydroxyflutamide) measured with the PALM cells were in good correlation with the results obtained with transiently transfected cells. The selectivity in steroid transactivation was demonstrated with estradiol, progesterone, cortisol, dexamethasone and aldosterone. Spironolactone and RU486 showed partial agonist and antagonist activities, whereas R5020 presented only a partial antagonist activity. We here demonstrate that this stable transfectant provides an accurate tool for studying wild-type human AR activation and its regulation by androgens and antiandrogens in a human prostatic epithelial cell, which is routinely available and remains androgen-responsive in vitro.