ETS rearrangements in prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is a clinically and molecularly heterogeneous disease. Understanding the biologic underpinning of prostate cancer is necessary to best determine how biology is associated with the risk of disease progression and how this understanding might provide insight into the development of novel therapeutic approaches. The focus of this review is on the recently identified common ETS and non-ETS gene rearrangements in prostate cancer. Although multiple molecular alterations have been detected in prostate cancer, a basic understanding of gene fusion prostate cancer should help explain the clinical and biologic diversity, providing a rationale for a molecular subclassification of the disease.