- Crowell, Preston D;
- Fox, Jonathan J;
- Hashimoto, Takao;
- Diaz, Johnny A;
- Navarro, Héctor I;
- Henry, Gervaise H;
- Feldmar, Blake A;
- Lowe, Matthew G;
- Garcia, Alejandro J;
- Wu, Ye E;
- Sajed, Dipti P;
- Strand, Douglas W;
- Goldstein, Andrew S
Aging is associated with loss of tissue mass and a decline in adult stem cell function in many tissues. In contrast, aging in the prostate is associated with growth-related diseases including benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Surprisingly, the effects of aging on prostate epithelial cells have not been established. Here we find that organoid-forming progenitor activity of mouse prostate basal and luminal cells is maintained with age. This is caused by an age-related expansion of progenitor-like luminal cells that share features with human prostate luminal progenitor cells. The increase in luminal progenitor cells may contribute to greater risk for growth-related disease in the aging prostate. Importantly, we demonstrate expansion of human luminal progenitor cells in BPH. In summary, we define a Trop2+ luminal progenitor subset and identify an age-related shift in the luminal compartment of the mouse and human prostate epithelium.