Our previous study revealed that Vav3 oncogene is overexpressed in human prostate cancer, activates androgen receptor, and stimulates growth in prostate cancer cells.
Vav3, a Rho GTPase guanine nucleotide exchange factor, is an AR coactivator that is up-regulated in human prostate cancer compared with benign tissue and in preclinical models of CRPC.
Our results demonstrate that Vav3 plays a crucial role in prostate cancer growth and malignant behavior, thus revealing a novel potential therapeutic target.
We observed a marked increase in the expression of Vav3, a Rho GTPase guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF), during the progression of human prostate cancer LNCaP cells to the androgen-independent derivative, LNCaP-R1.
Because Vav3 may be chronically activated in prostate cancer by growth factor receptors, we examined the effects of a constitutively active (Ca) form of Vav3 on AR transcriptional activity.
Vav3 expression was also detected in other human prostate cancer cell lines (PC-3, DU145, and 22Rv1) and, by immunohistochemistry analysis, was detected in 32% (26 of 82) of surgical specimens of human prostate cancer.