关键词：前列腺癌；雄激素；细胞（生物学）
摘 要：MicroRNAs are non-coding small RNAs that exert their silencing functions at the posttranscriptional level; they play a fundamental role in regulation of diverse cellular pathways. In addition to microRNAs, the cell also expresses abundantly other non-coding RNAs such as long non-coding RNAs (>200 bases) (lncRNAs), which could account for 4-9% of transcripts in human genome. In this application we proposed to test whether lncRNAs are dysregulated in prostate cancer. We demonstrated that lncRNA GAS5 is a direct target for miR-21. Furthermore, GAS5 can also suppress miR-21. In addition to GAS5, we identified that PCGEM1 is upregulated in prostate cancer, and it interacted with androgen receptor (AR). More importantly, both AR and PCGEM1 were co-localized in prostate cancer cells as well as in the clinical specimens, especially in high grade prostate tumors, suggesting that their interaction may contribute to aggressiveness of prostate cancer and castration resistance. Together, our study suggests that lncRNAs are important players in prostate cancer biology, and further characterization of these lncRNAs will provide a better understanding of prostate cancer biology. As a result, lncRNAs may serve as biomarkers for prostate cancer.