HES5 silenced early in prostate tumourigenesis

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. Massie and colleagues identify promoter methylation of the transcription factor HES5 as an early event in prostate tumourigenesis, confirm that this epigenetic alteration occurs in 86–97% of cases, and that treatment with a demethylating agent increased HES5 expression and downregulated its transcriptional target HES6, consistent with functional silencing of the HES5 gene in prostate cancer. Finally, they identified and tested a transcriptional module involving the AR, ERG, HES1 and HES6 and propose a model for the impact of HES5 silencing on tumourigenesis as a starting point for future functional studies.

Read the full article at Massie et al. (2015) Endocrine-Related Cancer 22 131–144

DOI:10.1530/ERC-14-0454