Human Prostate Cancer Hallmarks Map

Human prostate cancer is a complex heterogeneous disease that mainly affects elder male population of the western world with a high rate of mortality. Acquisitions of diverse sets of hallmark capabilities along with an aberrant functioning of androgen receptor signaling are the central driving forces behind prostatic tumorigenesis and its transition into metastatic castration resistant disease. These hallmark capabilities arise due to an intense orchestration of several crucial factors, including deregulation of vital cell physiological processes, inactivation of tumor suppressive activity and disruption of prostate gland specific cellular homeostasis. The molecular complexity and redundancy of oncoproteins signaling in prostate cancer demands for concurrent inhibition of multiple hallmark associated pathways. By an extensive manual curation of the published biomedical literature, we have developed Human Prostate Cancer Hallmarks Map (HPCHM), an onco-functional atlas of human prostate cancer associated signaling and events. It explores molecular architecture of prostate cancer signaling at various levels, namely key protein components, molecular connectivity map, oncogenic signaling pathway map, pathway based functional connectivity map etc. Here, we briefly represent the systems level understanding of the molecular mechanisms associated with prostate tumorigenesis by considering each and individual molecular and cell biological events of this disease process.