Role of adenosine deaminase in prostate cancer progression

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most common cancer and constitutes about 14.7% of total cancer cases. PCa is highly prevalent and more aggressive in African-American (AA) men when compared to European-American (EA) men. PCa tends to be a highly heterogeneous malignancy with a complex biology that is not fully understood. We use metabolomics as a tool to understand the mechanisms behind PCa progression and disparity. A key enzyme in the purine metabolic pathway, Adenosine deaminase (ADA) was found upregulated in PCa. In an attempt to understand the significance of high ADA in PCa, we established ADA overexpression models and performed various in vitro and in vivo studies.