Prostate Expression Databases

Introduction: The phenotype of a cell or tissue is defined as "the appearance or other characteristics of an organism (organ or cell), resulting from the interaction of its genetic constitution with the environment". Since these characteristics and interactions are primarily reflected by the transcript and protein complements of a cell or tissue, it follows that the profile of expressed genes, either at the transcript level (transcriptome) or protein level (proteome), could serve to define a phenotype in exquisite detail. Accordingly, we have focused efforts toward defining the transcriptome and proteome of the prostate gland in order to characterize the phenotype of functional attributes that reflect normal development and pathological processes.

Databases: This site is an interactive repository of prostate gene expression information maintained by the Nelson Laboratory at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Available gene expression data includes Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs), microarray files, and quantitative mass spectrometry protein measurements.

Prostate Expression Database (PEDB): The PEDB is comprised of ESTs from 44 prostate cDNA libraries either constructed and sequenced in the Nelson lab or acquired from public sequence repositories (NCBI CGAP). The PEDB archives microarray data delineating the prostate androgen-response program and alterations that associate with prostate neoplasia.

Mouse Prostate Expression Database (mPEDB): The mPEDB is comprised of ESTs from 16 cDNA libraries constructed from mouse prostate tissues of various developmental stages and anatomic regions. The mPEDB contains the cDNA annotations and sequences used for constructing a custom mouse prostate microarray, and archives microarray data from prostate developmental stages and mouse models of prostate carcinoma.