Published in

American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science Advances, 14(9), 2023

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adc9446

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ETV4 mediates dosage-dependent prostate tumor initiation and cooperates with p53 loss to generate prostate cancer

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The mechanisms underlying ETS -driven prostate cancer initiation and progression remain poorly understood due to a lack of model systems that recapitulate this phenotype. We generated a genetically engineered mouse with prostate-specific expression of the ETS factor, ETV4, at lower and higher protein dosage through mutation of its degron. Lower-level expression of ETV4 caused mild luminal cell expansion without histologic abnormalities, and higher-level expression of stabilized ETV4 caused prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (mPIN) with 100% penetrance within 1 week. Tumor progression was limited by p53-mediated senescence and Trp53 deletion cooperated with stabilized ETV4. The neoplastic cells expressed differentiation markers such as Nkx3.1 recapitulating luminal gene expression features of untreated human prostate cancer. Single-cell and bulk RNA sequencing showed that stabilized ETV4 induced a previously unidentified luminal-derived expression cluster with signatures of cell cycle, senescence, and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. These data suggest that ETS overexpression alone, at sufficient dosage, can initiate prostate neoplasia.