Comprehensive role of prostate‐specific antigen identified with proteomic analysis in prostate cancer

Current treatments including androgen deprivation fail to prevent prostate cancer (PrCa) from progressing to castration‐resistant PrCa (CRPC). Accumulating evidence highlights the relevance of prostate‐specific antigen (PSA) in the development and progression of PrCa. The underlying mechanism whereby PSA functions in PrCa, however, has yet been elucidated. We demonstrated that PSA knockdown attenuated tumorigenesis and metastasis of PrCa C4‐2 cells in vitro and in vivo, whereas promoted the apoptosis in vitro. To illuminate the comprehensive role of PSA in PrCa, we performed an isobaric tag for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ)‐based proteomic analysis to explore the proteomic change induced by PSA knockdown. Among 121 differentially expressed proteins, 67 proteins were up‐regulated, while 54 proteins down‐regulated. Bioinformatics analysis was used to explore the mechanism through which PSA exerts influence on PrCa. Protein‐protein interaction analysis showed that PSA may mediate POTEF, EPHA3, RAD51C, HPGD and MCM4 to promote the initiation and progression of PrCa. We confirmed that PSA knockdown induced the up‐regulation of MCM4 and RAD51C, while it down‐regulated POTEF and EPHA3; meanwhile, MCM4 was higher in PrCa para‐cancerous tissue than in cancerous tissue, suggesting that PSA may facilitate the tumorigenesis by mediating MCM4. Our findings suggest that PSA plays a comprehensive role in the development and progression of PrCa.