Distinctive protein pattern in two-dimensional electrophoretograms of cancerous prostatic tissues

In this report, we describe methods used to analyze the protein composition of sectioned frozen prostatic tissues by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Our results show a high degree of homology in two-dimensional electrophoretograms of proteins extracted from frozen sections of malignant prostate glands. Such homology was not apparent in protein patterns of benign hypertrophic prostatic tissue sections. Typically, 600 discrete proteins were resolved on two-dimensional electrophoretograms and 9 proteins were present in all patterns of prostate adenocarcinomatous tissues. These nine proteins were not observed in any of the protein electrophoretograms developed from nonmalignant prostate tissue. Three proteins were found common to nonmalignant prostate glands but were not present in prostatic adenocarcinoma.