Increased levels of plasma haemoxygenase-1 in prostate cancer

• Published in: Prostate cancer and prostatic diseases Vol. 14; no. 2; pp. 114 - 117
• Main Authors: Blann, A D, Balakrishnan, B, Ryan, P, Lip, G Y H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.06.2011; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/136/16; 692/53; 692/699/67/589/466; Aged; Angiogenesis; Angiopoietin; Angiopoietin-2 - blood; Biomarkers, Tumor - blood; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Cancer Research; Case-Control Studies; Correlation; Cross-Sectional Studies; Diagnosis; Growth factors; Heat shock proteins; Heme Oxygenase-1 - blood; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Neoplasm Staging; Neovascularization; original-article; Pathogenesis; Perturbation; Physiological aspects; Prostate cancer; Prostate-Specific Antigen - blood; Prostatic Neoplasms - blood; Prostatic Neoplasms - pathology; Vascular endothelial growth factor; Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A - blood; Von Willebrand factor; von Willebrand Factor - analysis; United Kingdom; angiogenesis; VEGF; haemoxygenase-1
• ISSN: 1365-7852; 1476-5608; 1476-5608
• DOI: 10.1038/pcan.2010.56

Angiogenesis, a key component of cancer, may be driven by angiogenic growth factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and angiopoietin-2. Haemoxygenase-1 (HO-1), a haem-degrading enzyme, may have alternative roles in angiogenesis. Levels of plasma HO-1 have not been reported in prostate cancer. We tested the hypothesis of abnormal HO-1 in 30 men with early prostate cancer, compared with 22 men with benign prostate disease (BPD) and 26 men free of prostate disease, and that HO-1 levels would correlate with VEGF, angiopoietin-2, von Willebrand factor (vWf, marking endothelial perturbation) and PSA. Plasma HO-1 was twofold higher in prostate cancer than in the two control groups, while vWf, VEGF and PSA were also raised (all P <0.02). In the subjects free of prostate disease and in the BPD groups, HO-1 correlated significantly with VEGF ( r >0.5, P <0.02) but the correlation in prostate cancer was not significant ( r =0.117, P =0.537). There were no correlations with PSA or the Gleason stage. We conclude that HO-1 is associated with VEGF in health and BPD, but in the presence of prostate cancer, raised levels of both HO-1 and VEGF fail to correlate. This observation may have implications for the pathogenesis of prostate cancer.