The inflammatory microenvironment of the aging prostate facilitates cellular proliferation and hypertrophy

Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy (BPH, also known as benign prostatic hyperplasia or benign prostatic enlargement), is one of the most common benign proliferative conditions associated with aging in men and is pathologically characterized by the proliferation of fibroblast/myofibroblast and epithelial cell types in the prostate. Previous studies from our laboratory have shown that the CXC-type chemokines, CXCL5 and CXCL12, are secreted by aging prostate stroma and promote both proliferative and transcriptional responses from prostate epithelial cells. Using array-based gene expression profiling and quantitative reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, we now show that the transcriptome of the aging prostate stroma is characterized by the up-regulation of several genes that encode secreted inflammatory mediators, including secreted CXC-type chemokines (CXCL1, CXCL2, CXCL5, CXCL6, CXCL12), interleukins (IL11, IL33), and transcripts with cytokine homology (CYTL1). At the protein level, ELISA experiments demonstrated that CXCL1, CXCL5, and CXCL6 were secreted by primary prostate stromal fibroblasts explanted from aging prostate stroma. Dose-response assays confirmed that, like CXCL5 and CXCL12, CXCL1 and CXCL6 promote low-level proliferative responses from both prostate stromal fibroblasts and epithelial cells. Taken together, these data suggest that inflammatory mediators are secreted by prostatic stroma consequent to aging, that the levels of these mediators are sufficient to promote low-level increases in the proliferative rate of both epithelial and stromal fibroblast cell types. Moreover, these processes may account for the low-level, but cumulative, proliferation of both epithelial and fibroblastic/myofibroblastic cell types that characterizes the aging-associated development of benign prostatic hypertophy.