Signal Surveillance

Detectives that know who's committing a crime, but not how, might install hidden cameras to watch it play out. That’s what a new tool does for prostate growth and cancer development. Researchers knew that androgens – hormones like testosterone – and the receptors they bind to are essential for prostate growth and management, but had been unable to interrogate which cells were acting in what way. The new genetically-engineered mouse model lets researchers tag and track cells with androgen receptors, following their progress through development, puberty, and beyond (pictured, androgen receptor positive cells in green and other cellular markers alongside, such as smooth muscle cells in red in this example). With this tool they confirmed the importance of another key pathway (called Wnt/β-catenin), confirmed the central role of androgen-receptor cells in prostate growth, and have provided a new model to help unpick the details of prostate cancer.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Yao Mawulikplimi Adzavon and colleagues
• Department of Cell Biology, Department of Oncology, and Montefiore Einstein Cancer Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS Genetics, June 2025