Determination of PTEN expression levels by western blotting in prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of death in men from cancer following lung carcinoma. PTEN has been cloned as a tumor suppressor gene and displays tyrosine and lipid phosphatase activity. Deletion of the gene encoding PTEN has been implicated in the development of various human tumors such as glioblastoma, endometrium, bladder and prostate cancer. In this study Western-Blotting was performed to detect PTEN expression levels of patients with BPH, organ confined prostate cancer (OCPCa) and advanced prostate cancer (APCa), and to control samples obtained from OCPCa patients by radical prostatectomy from regions with no pathological finding. Total proteins were extracted from prostate samples of 76 patients obtained through TURP or radical prostatectomy. After Western-Blotting densitometric analysis were performed to determine PTEN expression levels. Densitometric analysis of Western Blotting results exhibited no statistically important divergence between BPH and OCPCa patients in terms of PTEN expression but only APCa patients displayed such a disparity. As a result determining PTEN expression levels by Western-Blot might be useful to determine prostate cancer progression and may give physicians better opportunity to choose and employ various new treatment modalities before the advanced form of prostate carcinoma develops.Key Words : PTEN, BPH, Prostate Cancer, Western-Blot