Association of androgen receptor (AR) copy number gain with ARV7 expression and response to chemotherapy.

Abstract

180 Background: Emerging data suggests that ARV7 mRNA (ARV7+) expression and AR copy number gain/amplification (AR+) are associated with resistance to androgen deprivation therapy. Most studies thus far have evaluated either AR copy number or ARV7 mRNA, but not both markers. It is likely that both markers are indicators of genomic changes that are seen in the prostate cancer cells in response to tumour evolution or treatment. Here we developed a digital droplet PCR (ddPCR) based assay to evaluate plasma ARV7 mRNA expression in the same samples used for AR copy number analysis in castrate resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). This assay was use to evaluate the role of AR+ and ARV7+ in CRPC using..