Intranuclear androgen receptor deployment and protooncogene expression in human diseased prostate

Androgen receptors were quantified in nuclei from human prostate tissue and in nuclear fractions derived by exhaustive digestion with micrococcal nuclease. In nuclei from benign hypertrophic prostate (BPH), the population of androgen receptors solubilized during nucleolysis predominated whereas in carcinoma nuclei the nuclease-resistant population was in excess. This phenomenon was restricted to intranuclear deployment and could not be attributed to recompartmentalization within the cell. Receptor content could not be correlated to the expression of the cellular protooncogenes myc, H-ras, K-ras or sis, in either BPH or carcinoma. However, in both BPH and carcinoma, significant correlation was observed between nuclear androgen receptor content and expression of c-fos. Expression of c-fos was not elevated in carcinoma compared to BPH, whereas expression of c-myc was elevated in carcinoma specimens of all grades of glandular differentiation, and expression of H-ras became increasingly elevated as differentiation was lost.