Abstract: Objective · To study whether lysine crotonylation can be used as a candidate biomarker for prostate cancer diagnosis, and its correlation with clinical stages and pathologic grades. Methods · Seventy-three cases of tumor and 7 normal prostate tissues were included in the study. The global levels of lysine crotonylation and histone H4 acetylation were detected in each sampleimmunohistochemistry. Statistical comparison and correlation analysis were performed. Results · Compared with normal prostate tissue, the global level of lysine crotonylation was significantly reduced in prostate cancer tissue (P0.001), while histone H4 acetylation levels were close to each other in two groups (P0.704). No statistical difference in the levels of lysine crotonylation or histone H4 acetylation were found in different clinical stages and pathologic grades (P>0.05).There was no correlation between histone H4 acetylation and clinicalstagesorpathologicgradesofprostatecancer.Therewasapositivecorrelationbetweenlysinecrotonylationandthegradingofprostatecancer(r0.493, P0.000). Conclusion · Compared to histone H4 acetylation, lysine crotonylation is a better candidate biomarker to diagnose prostate cancer.

Key words: prostate cancer, lysine crotonylation, histone H4 acetylation, tumor biomarker