| THE
EXPRESSION OF CLASS III PAX GENES IN PROSTATE CANCER
Mr Christopher Ogden, Mr Bijan Khoubehi, Mr Daron Smith Northwick Park Hospital |
Increasingly it looks as though there is a role for the genes that control development in the early phase of cancer development.
The Pax family of genes are essential for controlling the earliest phases of embryonic development and are suspected of being involved in cancer development as they are often associated with cells that are dividing quickly.
The researchers looked at the numbers of Pax genes associated with benign and malignant prostate tissue. The results are complex; one of the genes “Pax2” shows an inverse relationship with the stage of the prostate cancer but did not seem to be associated with the Gleason score (“badness”) of the tumour.
Further work is needed in this area but the results suggest that the Pax gene may have a role in the development of prostate cancer.
Research summarised by Prostate Research Campaign UK.
Project 1999/01