Expression and Function of ETS Genes in Prostate Cancer

Abstract

Prostate cancer is a heterogeneous disease that is very common in elderly men in developed countries. Understanding the molecular and biological processes that contribute to tumor development and progressive growth is a challenging task. The fusion of the genes ERG and TMPRSS2 is the most frequent genomic alteration in prostate cancer. ERG is an oncogene that belongs to the family of ETS transcription factors. At lower frequency other members of this gene family are rearranged and overexpressed in prostate cancer. TMPRSS2 is an androgen-regulated gene that is preferentially expressed in the prostate. Most other ETS fusion partners are similarly regulated and prostate specific. During the last few years novel concepts about the process of gene fusion have emerged and initial experimental results explaining the function of the ETS genes ERG and ETV1 in prostate cancer have been published. In this review we focus on describing most relevant ETS gene fusions and summarize the current knowledge of the role of ETS genes in prostate cancer. Finally, we discuss the clinical relevance of TMRPSS2-ERG and other ETS gene fusions in prostate cancer.