# Registered report: the androgen receptor induces a distinct transcriptional program in castration-resistant prostate cancer in man

## TL;DR

This study aims to replicate findings from a 2013 paper showing how the androgen receptor affects gene expression in prostate cancer that resists castration.

## Contribution

The study contributes by attempting to reproduce key results on AR-induced gene expression in prostate cancer xenografts.

## Key findings

- The original study identified 16 core genes downregulated with castration and re-emerged with resistance.
- AR binding sites in xenografts were distinct from those in cultured cells.
- The replication aims to confirm these findings in a different experimental setup.

## Abstract

The Prostate Cancer Foundation-Movember Foundation Reproducibility Initiative (PCFMFRI) seeks to address growing concerns about reproducibility in scientific research by conducting replications of recent papers in the field of prostate cancer. This Registered Report describes the proposed replication plan of key experiments from “The Androgen Receptor Induces a Distinct Transcriptional Program in Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer in Man” by Sharma and colleagues (2013), published in Cancer Cell in 2013. Of thousands of targets for the androgen receptor (AR), the authors elucidated a subset of 16 core genes that were consistently downregulated with castration and re-emerged with castration resistance. These 16 AR binding sites were distinct from those observed in cells in culture. The authors suggested that cellular context can have dramatic effects on downstream transcriptional regulation of AR binding sites. The present study will attempt to replicate Fig. 7C by comparing gene expression of the 16 core genes identified by Sharma and colleagues in xenograft tumor tissue compared to androgen treated LNCaP cells in vitro. The Prostate Cancer Foundation-Movember Foundation Reproducibility Initiative is a collaboration between the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the Movember Initiative, and Science Exchange, and the results of the replications will be published by PeerJ.