부산대학교 도서관

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is considered a highly specific biochemical marker of the human prostate gland, and it currently is used for prostate cancer diagnosis and monitoring. Recently, PSA production and secretion were found in nondiseased and diseased cells, tissues, and fluids from women. In this study, we characterized the presence of PSA in two human neuroblastoma cell lines with biochemical, ultrastrnctural, and molecular approaches. Using reverse transcriptionPCR, we identified PSA mRNA, and Western blotting revealed a substantial amount of complexed form of PSA protein, which is localized mainly in free ribosomes. Although the role of PSA in human neuroblastoma cell lines is still unknown, our study supports the hypothesis that this serine protease may be involved in controlling the growth of human brain tumor cells, adding more support to the notion that PSA is a widespread kallikrein-like protease with biological functions much more complex than recently thought.
Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) (3) is a single-chain glycoprotein with a molecular mass of 33 kDa and chymotrypsin-like enzymatic activity (1). PSA is a kallikrein-like serine protease crucial to the processing [...]