Prevalence and clinical significance of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) phosphorylation at the serine 2448 is disputed in prostate cancer. A tissue microarray containing 3,261 prostate cancers and 49 normal prostate samples with clinical followup data was analyzed for p Ser2448 -mTOR expression by immunohistochemistry. Moderate to strong p Ser2448 -mTOR staining was found in all (n 5 49) normal prostate tissues, but was lost in 24% or weak in 29% cancers. Moderate and strong staining was found in 36 and 11% of tumors. Loss of p Ser2448 -mTOR staining was significantly linked to advanced stage (p 5 0.0027), high-grade (p 5 0.0045), nodal positive cancers (p 5 0.0483), early tumor recurrence (p < 0.0001, independently from stage and grade, p 5 0.0016), lack of Ets-related gene (ERG) fusion (p < 0.0001), reduced androgen receptor expression (p < 0.0001 each) and increased cell proliferation (p 5 0.0092) in all cancers and in the subset of ERG-fusion-positive cancers. Loss of p Ser2448 -mTOR expression was linked to tumor metastasis (p 5 0.0275) in ERG-fusion-positive cancers only. Molecular subset analysis using pre-existing phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) deletion data revealed that loss of p Ser2448 -mTOR expression is of prognostic relevance and defines a subpopulation of PTEN-deleted and ERG-fusion-positive cancers with a particular poor outcome. The results of our study strongly suggest that loss of p Ser2448 -mTOR expression is a marker for activated AKT/mTOR signaling. Tumors with concomitant PTEN deletion and activated mTOR signaling indicated by loss of p Ser2448 -mTOR expression characterize a small (4%) but clinically significant subset of prostate cancers that might optimally benefit from anti-mTOR therapies.
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