Up regulation of the steroid hormone synthesis regulator HSD3B2 is linked to early PSA recurrence in prostate cancer

HSD3B2 plays a crucial role in steroid hormone biosynthesis and is thus of particular interest in hormone dependent tumors such as prostate cancer. To clarify the clinical relevance of HSD3B2 expression in prostate cancer, we analyzed HSD3B2 protein expression by immunohistochemistry on our preexisting tissue microarray with 12.247 annotated cancers. Compared with normal tissue cytoplasmic HSD3B2 staining was stronger in prostate cancers. In 9371 interpretable cancers, HSD3B2 expression was found in 95.5% of cancers and was considered weak in 29.9%, moderate in 40.7% and strong in 24.9%. HSD3B2 up regulation was linked to advanced pathological tumor stage (pT), high Gleason grade, elevated preoperative PSA levels (p < 0.0001 each), lymph node metastasis (p = 0.0019), accelerated cell proliferation (p < 0.0001), androgen receptor (AR) expression (p < 0.0001), and early biochemical recurrence (p < 0.0001). HSD3B2 up regulation was only marginally more frequent in ERG positive (98%) than in ERG negative cancers (94%; p < 0.0001) and was strongly linked to deletions of 5q and 6q (p < 0.0001 each). Multivariate analyses showed that the prognostic impact of HSD3B2 expression was independent of established preoperative, but not of postoperative prognostic parameters. In summary, the results of our study demonstrate that HSD3B2 is strongly up regulated in a fraction of prostate cancers that are characterized by increased AR signaling, adverse tumor phenotype and early biochemical recurrence.