Abstract
The prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test has served as a blood marker of prostate cancer (PCa), and for monitoring recurrence/metastasis in patients after therapeutic intervention. However, the applicability/reliability of the PSA test was recently questioned as it is not without challenges, in particular in men who have PCa without an elevated PSA (false negative), or in men who are disease-free with elevated levels of PSA (false positive). Galectin-3 is a tumor-associated protein; present in the seminal fluid and is a substrate for the PSA enzyme e.g., a chymotrypsin-like serine protease. We hypothesized that the cleavage status and level of galectin-3 in the prostate tissue and sera are associated with PCa. Thus, we compared galectin-3 levels obtained from sera of non-cancer urology patients to those of metastatic PCa patients. The data were confirmed by analyzing PCa tissue arrays. Here, we report that galectin-3 levels in the sera of patients with metastatic PCa were uniformly higher as compared to the non-cancer patient controls. The data suggest that galectin-3 serum level may be a useful serum complementary marker to the PSA blood test to be used for initial and follow-up PSA complimentary diagnostic/prognostic tool for recurrence in PCa patients.
Highlights
prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is a glycoprotein enzyme produced by cells of the prostate gland
The cancer-free control patients have lower levels of galectin-3 in the serum. These results suggest that the galectin-3 levels in the blood of metastatic prostate cancer (PCa) patients and cancer-free controls are quite different
We have shown that the serum galectin-3 concentrations were uniformly higher in patients with metastatic PCa as compared to non-cancer control patients and could increase the reliability of the PSA blood test
Summary
PSA is a glycoprotein enzyme produced by cells of the prostate gland. It is one of the proteases expressed at high levels in the prostate. Complete understanding of the role of PSA in the prostate gland is not clear. PSA specific activity within the prostate gland is relatively low; there is a very high quantity of the enzyme, which compensates for low specific activity. Galectin-3 is one of the proteins, which can be cleaved by PSA. It is a unique chimera-type member of the galectin family, which contains a small N-terminal part, collagen-like sequence, and carbohydrate-binding domain similar to other galectins. Galectin-3 is the only member of the galectin family that can form oligomers through intermolecular interactions involving the collagen-like sequence [5,6,7]
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