Disease relevance of FGF17

• FGF17 is an autocrine prostatic epithelial growth factor and is upregulated in benign prostatic hyperplasia [1].
• In this study, the clinical significance of FGF17 expression and its in vitro function in prostate cancer cells were tested [2].
• Men with tumours displaying high levels of FGF17 expression had a worse outcome on survival analysis (p = 0.044) and a higher risk of progression with metastases (p < 0.0001) [2].

High impact information on FGF17

• In some cases, marked HOX overexpression was associated with elevated FGF10 and FGF17 [3].
• Furthermore, FGF8 was shown to induce expression of FGF17 in these cell lines [2].
• Among different members of the FGF family, FGF17 and FGF8 share high sequence homology and have similar patterns of expression during embryogenesis [2].
• Immunohistochemistry demonstrated upregulation of FGF17 in CaP compared with BPH (p < 0.0001) and, when comparing high-grade CaP (Gleason sum score 7-10) with BPH, RT-PCR showed a fourfold upregulation of FGF17 mRNA expression (p < 0.0001) [2].
• Expression of FGF17 per epithelial cell was increased 2-fold in BPH [1].

Biological context of FGF17

• Moreover, cell proliferation assays revealed the proliferation activity of FGF-17 on leukemic cells expressing its receptors [4].

Anatomical context of FGF17

• METHODS: Expression of FGF17 in human prostate tissue and primary cultures of prostatic epithelial and stromal cells was determined by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) [1].
• Proliferation assays showed low-dose recombinant (r) FGF17 (1 ng/ml) to be a more potent mitogen than rFGF1 and rFGF8 in prostate cancer cell lines (LNCaP, DU145, and PC3M) (p < 0.001) [2].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of FGF17

• These studies revealed a significant linear correlation between increasing Gleason sum scores and FGF17 expression using both immunohistochemistry (p < 0.0001, rho = 0.99) and RT-PCR (p = 0.008, rho = 0.99) [2].

References