Dynamics of notch expression during murine prostate development and tumorigenesis

Notch signaling has been widely demonstrated to be responsible for cell fate determination during normal development and implicated in human T-cell leukemia and mouse mammary carcinomas. Here we show that Notch signaling may be involved in prostatic development and cancer cell growth. In situ hybridization and reverse transcription-PCR analyses revealed that Notch1 was expressed in prostate epithelial cells during normal development and in prostate cancer cells. Characterization of Notch1-green fluorescent protein transgenic mice, in which the expression of reporter green fluorescent protein is under the control of the Notch1 promoter, indicated that Notch1-expressing cells were associated with the basal epithelial cell population in the prostate. Examination of the transgenic adenocarcinoma of the mouse prostate showed that expression of Notch1 was elevated in malignant prostatic epithelial cells of primary and metastatic tumors. Expression of Notch ligands, however, was low or undetectable in cultured prostate cancer cells or in malignant prostatic epithelial cells in transgenic adenocarcinoma of the mouse prostate. Furthermore, overexpression of a constitutively active form of Notch1 inhibited the proliferation of various prostate cancer cells, including DU145, LNCaP, and PC3 cells. Taken together, our data indicate for the first time that Notch signaling may play a role in murine prostatic development and tumorigenesis.