Cholesterol and prostate cancer

AbstractCholesterol is a neutral lipid that accumulates in liquid‐ordered, detergent‐resistant membrane domains called lipid rafts. Lipid rafts serve as membrane platforms for signal transduction mechanisms that mediate cell growth, survival, and a variety of other processes relevant to cancer. A number of studies, going back many years, demonstrate that cholesterol accumulates in solid tumors and that cholesterol homeostasis breaks down in the prostate with aging and with the transition to the malignant state. This review summarizes the established links between cholesterol and prostate cancer (PCa), with a focus on how accumulation of cholesterol within the lipid raft component of the plasma membrane may stimulate signaling pathways that promote progression to hormone refractory disease. We propose that increases in cholesterol in prostate tumor cell membranes, resulting from increases in circulating levels or from dysregulation of endogenous synthesis, results in the coalescence of raft domains. This would have the effect of sequestering positive regulators of oncogenic signaling within rafts, while maintaining negative regulators in the liquid‐disordered membrane fraction. This