Systems Analysis of the Prostate Transcriptome in African–American Men Compared with European–American Men

Abstract

Aim: African–Americans (AA) have increased prostate cancer risk and a greater mortality rate than European–Americans (EA). AA exhibit a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency. We examined the global prostate transcriptome in AA and EA, and the effect of vitamin D₃ supplementation. Patients & methods: Twenty-seven male subjects (ten AA and 17 EA), slated to undergo prostatectomy were enrolled in the study. Fourteen subjects received vitamin D₃ (4000 IU daily) and 13 subjects received placebo for 2 months prior to surgery. Results: AA show higher expression of genes associated with immune response and inflammation. Conclusion: Systems level analyses support the concept that Inflammatory processes may contribute to disease progression in AA. These transcripts can be modulated by a short course of vitamin D₃ supplementation.

Keywords::

• African–American
• health disparities
• prostate
• RNA-seq
• transcription
• vitamin D

Supplementary data

To view the supplementary data that accompany this paper please visit the journal website at:www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.2217/pgs-2016-0025

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Drs Thomas E Keane and Sandip M Prasad (Department of Urology, MUSC and VA Medical Center) for critical discussions and help with the recruitment of eligible subjects, and Thomas Nash (MUSC Bioinformatics Core, Center for Genomic Medicine, MUSC) for help with data analysis. We thank Dr Jeremy Davis-Turak and Mr Tim Wesselman, Onramp BioInformatics, Inc. for useful conversations on bioinformatics pipelines.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This research was funded by Veterans Administration (VA) CSR&D Merit Award CX000753 and a Pilot Project grant from the MUSC Center for Genomic Medicine to SG-C and MUSC COM start-up funds to GTH. The authors also acknowledge support from the Genomics Shared Resource, Hollings Cancer Center, Medical University of South Carolina. This shared resource is supported in part by the Hollings Cancer Center, Medical University of South Carolina Support Grant (P30 CA 138313). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by Veterans Administration (VA) CSR&D Merit Award CX000753 and a Pilot Project grant from the MUSC Center for Genomic Medicine to SG-C and MUSC COM start-up funds to GTH. The authors also acknowledge support from the Genomics Shared Resource, Hollings Cancer Center, Medical University of South Carolina. This shared resource is supported in part by the Hollings Cancer Center, Medical University of South Carolina Support Grant (P30 CA 138313). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.