Prostate cancer (PCa), the most incident cancer in men, is tightly regulated by endocrine signals. A number of different PCa cell lines are commonly used for in vitro experiments, but these are of diverse origin, and have very different cell-proliferation rates and hormone-response capacities. By analyzing the gene-expression pattern of main hormone pathways, we systematically compared six PCa cell lines and parental primary cells. We compared these cell lines (i) with each other and (ii) with PCa tissue samples from 11 patients. We found major differences in the gene-expression levels of androgen, insulin, estrogen, and oxysterol signaling between PCa tissue and cell lines, and between different cell lines. Our systematic characterization gives researchers a solid basis to choose the appropriate PCa cell model for the hormone pathway of interest.

Differentiating human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) into insulin (INS)-producing β-like cells has potential for diabetes research and therapy. Here, we generated a heterozygous fluorescent hiPSC reporter, labeling INS-producing β-like cells. We used CRISPR/Cas9 technology to knock-in a T2A-H2B-Cherry cassette to replace the translational INS stop codon, enabling co-transcription and T2A-peptide mediated co-translational cleavage of INS-T2A and H2B-Cherry. The hiPSC-INS-T2A-H2B-Cherry reporter cells were pluripotent and showed multi-lineage differentiation potential. Cells expressing the β-cell specific hormone INS are identified by nuclear localized H2B-Cherry reporter upon pancreatic endocrine differentiation. Thus, the generated reporter hiPSCs enable live identification of INS hormone-producing β-like cells.