Phosphodiesterase sequence variants may predispose to prostate cancer

Rodrigo B de Alexandre, Anelia D Horvath, Eva Szarek, Allison D Manning, Leticia F Leal, Fabio Kardauke, Jonathan A Epstein, Dirce M Carraro, Fernando A Soares, Tatiyana V Apanasovich, Constantine A Stratakis, Fabio R Faucz

We hypothesized that mutations that inactivate phosphodiesterase (PDE) activity and lead to increased cyclic AMP (cAMP) and cyclic GMP (cGMP) levels may be associated with prostate cancer (PCa). We sequenced the entire PDE coding sequences in the DNA of 16 biopsy samples from PCa patients. Novel mutations were confirmed in the somatic or germline state by Sanger sequencing. Data were then compared to the 1000 Genome Project. PDE, CREB and pCREB protein expression was also studied in all samples, in both normal and abnormal tissue, by immunofluorescence. We identified 3 previously described PDE sequence variants that were significantly higher in PCa. Four novel sequence variations, one each in the PDE4B, PDE6C, PDE7B and PDE10A genes, respectively, were also found in the PCa samples. Interestingly, PDE10A and PDE4B novel variants that were present in 19% and 6% of the patients, respectively, were found in the tumor tissue only. In patients carrying PDE defects, there was pCREB accumulation (p<0.001), and an increase of the pCREB/CREB ratio (patients 0.97± 0.03; controls 0.52± 0.03; p-value < 0.001) by immunohistochemical analysis. We conclude that PDE sequence variants may play a role in the predisposition and/or progression to PCa at the germline and/or somatic state, respectively. Larger such studies are needed to confirm these findings.