Evaluation of ZEB1 gene expression in cancerous and benign tissue of human prostate cancer

Metastatic Prostate cancer is a lethal disease, but unfortunately the molecular mechanisms that underlie the metastasis of this common cancer are still poorly understood. In advanced stages of the cancer, cells cancerous may spread to the other part of the body specially to bones and lymph nodes. One of the important contributing processes in cancer invasion and metastasis is Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT). Overexpression of ZEB1 as a key regulating factor, promotes EMT processes in a variety of cancers. In the present study, to evaluate the expression of ZEB1 and its differences between benign prostate hyperplasia and prostate cancer, 16 patients with BPH and 17 patients with Pca were selected, RNA was extracted and after synthesis of cDNA , ZEB1 expression in mRNA level was analyzed by Real Time PCR. Our results indicated that ZEB1 was overexpressed in Pca samples in comparison to BPH ones (P=0.047). In conclusion our findings suggest that evaluating the expression of ZEB1 is likely to be useful as a prognostic biomarker to diagnose prostate cancer in early stages. Furthermore, due to the critical role of ZEB1 in metastasis promotion of a variety of cancers through regulating other EMT markers, it would be possible to avoid progression and metastasis of prostate cancer by suppressing ZEB1.