[Molecular biology in the prostate neoplasia]

Prostate cancer (PC) is one of the main causes of disease and death and represents the second cause of death among men in Brazil. Benign prostate hyperplasia is a progressive and prevalent disease. It is estimated that men present around 50% and 90% of histological evidences of prostate hyperplasia at 50 and 80 years, respectively. While the pathogenesis of prostate neoplasias has been closely related to androgen and their specific nuclear receptor, the molecular mechanisms of cell growth, differentiation and apoptosis processes are still not clearly established. Co-activators and co-repressors could also contribute to prostate carcinogenesis by their binding to nuclear receptors or by interacting with the transcriptional machinery in order to increase the transcription of target genes. AR and type 2 5alpha reductase polymorphisms seem to be associated to the risk for PC. In addition, apoptosis and cellular cycle regulator genes, as well as growth factors, have been reported to be associated with the prostate tumorigenesis. Therefore, changes on the gene expression of normal tissue may be associated to the development of malign phenotype and these genes could be regarded as candidates of prognosis markers. The number of these genes increases every day but the present data needs further studies and correlation with the disease progression.