Human prostate cancer: a direct role for oestrogens

We have studied the response to oestrogen and expression of oestrogen receptors in responsive LNCaP and androgen non-responsive PC3 human prostate cancer cell lines. Growth of LNCaP cells is significantly stimulated by physiological concentrations of oestradiol; this growth increase appears to be comparable to that induced by either testosterone or dihydrotestosterone. In contrast, oestradiol significantly inhibits the proliferation of PC3 cells. We also present novel evidence for functional oestrogen binding in LNCaP cells. This evidence was first obtained by means of radioligand binding assays and was further corroborated using: (a) immunocytochemical analysis of oestrogen and progesterone receptors; (b) reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction of oestrogen receptor mRNAs; and (c) immunofluorescence of the 27 kDa heat shock protein (Hsp27), which has been reported to be a marker of functional oestrogen receptors. There appeared to be significantly and consistently lower levels of oestrogen receptor expressed in PC3 cells than in LNCaP cells. The observation that oestradiol-induced growth of LNCaP cells is completely reversed by the pure anti-oestrogen ICI 182,780 clearly implies that the biological response of these cells to oestradiol is mediated mainly via its own receptor. On the other hand, use of a neutralizing antibody against transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta 1 results in a remarkable increase in the growth of PC3 cells; this effect is almost completely abolished after the addition of oestradiol. This suggests that the oestradiol-induced growth inhibition may be mediated by TGF-beta 1. These results suggest that the current model for hormone-dependence of human prostatic carcinoma should be revised. This is of special concern, because recent data indicate that prostate cancer has become the most prevalent cancer and the second principal cause of cancer death in western countries.