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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Jun 12.
Published in final edited form as: Clin Exp Metastasis. 2012 Aug 7;29(7):645–652. doi: 10.1007/s10585-012-9507-z

Figure 1. Outliers in prostate cancer.

Figure 1

(A) The TMPRSS2-ERG gene fusion is the product of two genes, TMPRSS2 and ERG, located on chromosome 21. Androgen signaling brings these loci into genomic proximity, which enables fusion formation following a disruptive event to the DNA (e.g. radiation). The gene fusion results in overexpression of ERG protein, which drives oncogenic processes in prostate cancer. (B) A schematic of prostate cancer outliers, demonstrating the presence of a driving gene fusion in approximately 50% of patients. The majority of gene fusions in prostate cancer involve ERG. SPINK1 overexpression marks a subset of gene fusion-negative prostate cancers, and SPINK1 has been shown to drive cancer cell invasion. (C) PCA3 is a long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) located in the intron of the PRUNE2 gene on chromosome 9. PCA3 overexpression occurs in >90% of prostate cancer patients.