Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Role Of Glucocorticoid Signaling In Prostate Cancer Health Disparities, Leanne W. Burnham

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

African-American men are more likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer (PCa) and die from the disease than other ethnic groups. Glucocorticoid signaling is a contributing biological factor to worse PCa prognosis, and is emerging as a key driver of PCa progression in the absence of androgens. The mechanism involves glucocorticoids binding to glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and bypassing the androgen receptor (AR) signaling pathway to activate AR-target genes that promote tumor aggressiveness and therapy-resistance. This is problematic as African-American men have hypersensitive GR signaling and chronically-elevated levels of glucocorticoids linked to cumulative stressful life events. To explore the role of glucocorticoid …