Identification of differentially expressed genes during cyclic adenosine monophosphate–induced neuroendocrine differentiation in the human prostatic adenocarcinoma cell line LNCaP

The LNCaP cell line is a versatile and useful model suitable for the study of human prostate cancer in vitro. It has been determined that the elevation of LNCaP intracellular cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) levels through the addition of membrane-permeable cAMP analogs, phosphodiesterase inhibitors, adenylate cyclase activators, or components of the cAMP signal-transduction pathway can induce reversible neuroendocrine (NE) differentiation. Elucidation of those genes that are differentially expressed between undifferentiated prostate cancer cells and prostate cancer cells that have been induced to differentiate may present new insights into the molecular mechanisms governing NE differentiation, early detection of prostate cancer, and potential targets for gene therapy. In this study, differential display polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to identify 226 differentially expressed PCR products. Twelve of the differential display PCR products were confirmed by Northern blot analysis and were cloned. DNA sequencing and database comparisons were performed. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the use of differential gene expression techniques to analyze gene expression during cAMP-induced NE differentiation in LNCaP cells. Confirmation of NE differentiation reversibility also was accomplished. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.