Identification of novel oncogenic events occurring early in prostate carcinogenesis using purified autologous malignant and non-malignant prostate epithelial cells.

Events occurring early in prostate cancer oncogenesis in these samples were characterized by a predominant downregulation of gene expression along with upregulation of TDRD1, ANGTL4 and CLDN3. No consistent mutations or splice variants were observed, but upregulation of ERG signalling was seen both in the presence and absence of the classic TMPRSS2-ERG rearrangement.