Phenotypic characterization of androgen receptor-related proliferation in prostatic-carcinoma derived cell-cultures

Our study reviews the central role of androgens for the development of androgen-insensitive growth in prostatic carcinoma using an individual dynamic model which emulates aspects of proliferation control. Our aim is the identification of individually proliferating cells from prostate carcinoma. Short-term cultured cells (n=205) from radical prostatectomy specimens have been used as the major method to skew the correspondence between the androgen-receptor (AR), proliferation-markers (Ki-67, PCNA) and morphological landmarks (nucleoli, AgNOR). These techniques allowed the identification of distinct androgen-insensitive, proliferating cell-clusters and in the future will allow the analysis of genotypic changes in identified proliferating cell clones.