prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA)

Function

• may be involved in the regulation of cell proliferation
• has a cell-proliferation inhibition activity in vitro

Structure

contains 1 UPAR/Ly6 domain

Compartment

cell membrane; lipid-anchor, GPI-anchor

Expression

• highly expressed in prostate (basal, secretory & neuroendocrine epithelium cells)
• also found in bladder (transitional epithelium), placenta (trophoblasts), stomach (neuroendocrine cells), colon (neuroendocrine cells) & kidney (collecting ducts)
• expressed in gastric epithelial cells, mainly in the isthmus (at protein level)
• not detected in normal intestinal epithelium (at protein level)

Pathology

• overexpressed in prostate cancers
  • expression is correlated with tumor stage, grade & androgen-independence
  • highly expressed in prostate cancer bone metastases
• down-regulated in gastric cancer cells

Polymorphism

• genetic variations in PSCA may influence susceptibility to diffuse-type gastric cancer

Notes

• the start codon presents some polymorphism & the initiation Met is a Thr in the genome

More general terms

• glypiated protein
• antigen
• lipoprotein

Database

• OMIM: https://mirror.omim.org/entry/602470
• UniProt: http://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/O43653.html