Identification of the specific characteristics of neuroendocrine prostate cancer: Immune status, hub genes and treatment

Castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) marks the advanced phase of prostate malignancy, manifested through two principal subtypes: castration-resistant adenocarcinoma (CRPC-adeno) and neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC). This study aims to identify unique central regulatory genes, assess the immunological landscape, and explore potential therapeutic strategies specifically tailored to NEPC. We discovered 1444 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) distinguishing between the two cancer types and identified 12 critical hub genes. Notably, CHST1, MPPED2, and RIPPLY3 emerged as closely associated with the immune cell infiltration pattern, establishing them as top candidates. Prognostic analysis highlighted the potential critical roles of CHST1 and MPPED2 in prostate cancer development, findings corroborated through in vitro and in vivo assays. Moreover, we validated the functions and expression levels of CHST1, MPPED2, and RIPPLY3 in NEPC using cell lines, animal models and human tissues. In the final step, we found that imatinib might be the drug specific to NEPC, which was further confirmed by in vitro cell assay. Our results revealed the clinical characteristics, molecular features, immune cell infiltration pattern in CRPC-adeno and NEPC, and identified and confirmed CHST1, MPPED2, and RIPPLY3 as the critical genes in the development in prostate cancer and NEPC. We also predicted and validated imatinib as the potential specific drugs to NEPC.