Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in developed countries. Prostate is under the control of androgens whose effect is mediated by androgen receptor (AR). AR is a transcription factor (TF) and controls gene expression through collaboration with other TFs such as FOXA1 and HOXB13, both overexpressed in majority of prostate cancer tumors. The goal of this project is to understand how these TFs interact and modulate the prostate cancer epigenome and gene expression using samples from prospective hospital biobank. Tumor samples will be stratified on the basis of expression of FOXA1 and HOXB13, their effect on genome structure and gene expression will be analyzed using modern state-of-the-art methods and correlated with disease progression and survival of the patients during five-seven year follow-up period. This translational project will be conducted at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki in collaboration with physicians in the Helsinki Urological Biobank.

2021

2024