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Updated: Feb 5, 2026

Generation of Prostate Cancer Patient Derived Xenograft Models from Circulating Tumor Cells
Published on: October 20, 2015
tRNA-halves are prognostic biomarkers for patients with prostate cancer
Chenming Zhao1, Yuri Tolkach2, Doris Schmidt3
1University Hospital Bonn, Department of Urology, Bonn, Germany; The second hospital of Hebei Medical University, Department of Urolog, Shijiazhuang, China.
Objective:
Noncoding RNAs play an important role in carcinogenesis; a number of tRNA-halves are expressed in response to androgen stimulation and are involved in prostate cancer (CaP) initiation and progression. In this study, we evaluated the expression profile of androgen-dependent tRNA-halves in CaP.
Materials And Methods:
Total RNA was isolated from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded 58 CaP, and 25 benign prostate hyperplasia tissues. We also studied the expression in serum from 49 localized and 21 metastatic castration-resistant CaP samples. The ligation of a RNA adaptor molecule to the tRNA-halves allowed the specific amplification of 3'/5'-tRNA-halves using quantitative TaqMan reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. The expression levels were correlated with clinicopathological parameters as well as prostate-specific antigen recurrence free survival.
Results:
5'-tRNA-Asp-GUC-half and 3'-tRNA-Asp-GUC-half were up-regulated in CaP tissues compared with benign prostate hyperplasia tissues. An increased expression level of all the 5 candidate tRNA-halves was associated with adverse clinicopathological parameters (pT-stage, pN-stage, prostate-specific antigen, International Society of Urological Pathology /ISUP grade) and a shorter time to biochemical relapse. In serum, 5'-tRNA-Glu-CUC-half was circulating at a higher level in metastatic castration-resistant CaP patients compared to patients with localized CaP.
Conclusions:
The androgen-dependent tRNA-halves can potentially act as biomarkers to monitor and predict the progression of CaP.
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