Access

Letter

Nature Medicine 15, 559–565 (1 May 2009) | doi:10.1038/nm.1944

Copy number analysis indicates monoclonal origin of lethal metastatic prostate cancer

Wennuan Liu , Sari Laitinen , Sofia Khan , Mauno Vihinen , Jeanne Kowalski , Guoqiang Yu , Li Chen , Charles M Ewing , Mario A Eisenberger , Michael A Carducci , William G Nelson , Srinivasan Yegnasubramanian , Jun Luo , Yue Wang , Jianfeng Xu , William B Isaacs , Tapio Visakorpi & G Steven Bova

Many studies have shown that primary prostate cancers are multifocal and are composed of multiple genetically distinct cancer cell clones. Whether or not multiclonal primary prostate cancers typically give rise to multiclonal or monoclonal prostate cancer metastases is largely unknown, although studies at single chromosomal loci are consistent with the latter case.