The Role of YYI in Prostate Cancer

We have successfully generated Lentiviruses vector carrying yy1 siRNA to knock down YY1 or YY1 overexpression cassette. In the cell culture studies the siRNA YY1 could efficiently knockdown the endogenous YY1 of Pten- mouse prostate epithelial cells MPECs while the YY1 cDNA could be overexpressed in Pten MPECs. Before conducting in vivo studies we wanted to test the effect of YY1 expression to the cell proliferation in vitro using the three dimensional 3-D collagen culture system which mimics the in vivo prostate cell growth environment. We observed that the overexpression of YY1 enhanced the cell growth and formation of branching structure of Pten cells in the 3-D culture system. We used these cells in the renal grafting experiments to study the effect of YY1 expression to the prostate cancer formation in vivo. The renal grafts have been collected and further studies are in the process.