Reg IV: A Candidate Marker of Metastatic Hormone Refractory Prostate Cancer

In our previous in situ hybridization studies of prostate tissue arrays RegIV was shown to be strongly expressed by a majority of metastatic hormone refractory tumors HRPC and weaker RegIV expression was found in a subset of primary tumors but not expressed by normal tissue. Our goal is to better understand the role of RegIV in prostate cancer progression and to determine its possible use as a diagnostic marker for early and metastatic prostate cancers. We have developed and affinity purified a polyclonal anti-RegIV that has successfully been tested by immunohistochemistry on positive and negative controls. In vitro studies show cells overexpressing RegIV have a growth advantage and we have successfully made two si-RegIV constructs to knock down RegIV RNA and protein expression and in vivo studies are currently in progress.