Prostate-specific antigen in the breast

¹ Unit of Metabolic Medicine, Imperial College School of Medicine at St Mary's, Norfolk Place, London W2 1PG, UK

Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) is a serine protease and is a single chain glycoprotein of around 33kDa molecular weight (see reviews by Peehl 1995 , Duffy 1996 and Lilja 1997). It was first described in seminal plasma (Hara et al. 1971) and was later isolated from the prostate (Wang et al. 1979). PSA is a product of the epithelial cells of the prostate and is secreted into the seminal fluid. It is believed that the main biological role of this protease in semen is to digest the protein semenogellin on ejaculation (Lilja 1985) which will liquify the seminal fluid and allow increased sperm motility. However it should be noted that PSA is present in such high concentrations in semen that even after considerable dilution it could possibly have proteolytic effects on substrates in the female reproductive tract.

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