Demonstration of upregulated H2 relaxin mRNA expression during neuroendocrine differentiation of LNCaP prostate cancer cells and production of biologically active mammalian recombinant 6 histidine-tagged H2 relaxin.

Relaxin was recently implicated as a regulator of breast and prostate cancer progression. We characterized upregulated H2 relaxin gene expression during neuroendocrine differentiation of the human prostate cancer model, LNCaP. To examine the impact of relaxin on host cells associated with prostatic adenocarcinomas, we generated recombinant 6 His-tagged relaxin (RLXH) in a mammalian expression system. This immunoreactive and biologically active relaxin preparation was used to screen a variety of cell types for cAMP responsiveness. Of the cell types screened, none was more responsive to RLXH than the well-characterized monocyte/macrophage cell line THP-1.