Tag Archives: gene

In prostate cancer prognosis, telomere length may matter

"Doctors are looking for new ways to accurately predict prostate cancer patients’ prognoses, because the current methods that use disease stage, Gleason score, and PSA are not perfect," says Alan Meeker, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Kimmel Cancer Center. "Telomere shortening is common in cancer, but the degree of shortening varies from one cancer cell to another within each patient, and this variability may give us a better idea of how prostate cancers behave." In the study, described in the October issue of Cancer Discovery, the scientists studied tissue samples from 596 men surgically treated for prostate cancer thought to be confined to the prostate and who were participants in a long-term follow-up study on men’s health. …

MicroRNAs have diagnostic and prognostic potential in urinary bladder cancer

German researchers have identified four biomarkers that correctly determine malignancy of urinary bladder cancers and contribute to the accurate prediction of patient outcomes. Their results are published in the September issue of The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics. Current prognosticators of bladder cancer, such as tumor grade, stage, size, and number of foci, have limited usefulness for clinicians since they do not accurately reflect clinical outcomes…

Sparing the body, breast cancer treatment via nipple injection

“Local delivery of therapeutic agents into the breast, through intra-nipple injection, could diminish the side effects typically observed with systemic chemotherapy—where the toxic drugs pass through all of the tissues of the body,” said Dr. Silva Krause, one of the researchers behind the experiment, “It also prevents drug breakdown by the liver, for example, which can rapidly reduce effective drug levels.” According to Silva, she and her colleagues have already begun experimentation in applying the method. “The authors have utilized this technique to inject a new nanoparticle-based therapeutic that inhibits a specific gene that drives breast cancer formation,” said Silva, “This targeted treatment was shown to prevent cancer progression in mice that spontaneously develop mammary tumors, [and] is currently in review in Science Translational Medicine.” In order to better communicate their procedure, Silva and her colleagues decided to publish with JoVE. …

Discovery goes from the lab to the patient

"This approval marks more than a decade of work with my fellow researchers and highlights the growing importance of genomic and genetic tests in the oncology clinic," said Perou. "This test is the result of data coming from modern, cutting-edge genomic technologies, and thus it is exciting to see the bench to bedside story fulfilled." A team of UNC researchers and collaborating researchers from three other institutions — Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Utah and the BC Cancer Agency — designed this test that categorizes breast tumors into one of four main subtypes by looking at the expression of 50 genes. The four types are luminal A, luminal B, HER2-enriched and basal-like. …

Cancer cells propagated from early prostate cancer

The scientists’ findings, suggesting that potentially lethal castration-resistant prostate carcinoma cells already exist in some cancer patients at the very early stages of their disease, will be published by PLOS ONE on September 25, 2013. The work describes the isolation and propagation of the earliest prostate cancer cells yet identified in human prostate cancer biopsy samples, allowing the detailed molecular characterization of these very early-stage cancer cells, including analysis of gene expression and mutations. …

Malignant brain tumours can be transformed into benign forms

The research team of Prof. Bożena Kamińska from the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw developed — so far only in animal model — a method of converting malignant gliomas (brain tumours) into benign forms. Since the cells of benign gliomas are subdued and sometimes even eliminated by the host’s immune system, the prospects for survival of sick animals significantly increase…

Proteins that deliver leucine to prostate cancer cells are therapeutic targets

To investigate the function of LATs in prostate cancer, Qian Wang, Ph.D., of the Origins of Cancer Laboratory, Centenary Institute, Sydney, Australia, and colleagues studied LAT3 expression in tissue samples from prostate cancer patients, analyzed the function of LATs in cancer cells in vitro, used microarray data to determine which genes and pathways are associated with LAT function, and assessed the role of LAT1 and LAT3 in tumor formation, growth, and metastasis in mice. The researchers found that LAT3 was expressed at all stages of prostate cancer and that inhibition of LAT proteins inhibits nutrient signaling pathways and over 100 metastasis-related genes, including E2F transcription factors, resulting in cell cycle inhibition. In mice injected with prostate cancer cells, tumor formation, metastasis, and cell cycle progression were all inhibited when the LAT1 or LAT3 gene was knocked out. The authors conclude that "Targeting LAT transporters, thereby inhibiting leucine uptake, may offer a new therapeutic opportunity for metastatic CRPC, affecting tumor growth and metastasis through inhibition of M-phase cell cycle and mTORC1 signaling pathways." Wang et al…

First randomized trial of targeted cancer medicine in all tumor types

Dr Christophe Le Tourneau, Head of the Phase I Programme at the Institut Curie, Paris, France, will tell the congress that the SHIVA trial is the first randomised trial to look at patient outcomes after treatments were chosen according to the individual molecular profiles of each person’s tumour. It is also the first trial to do this for all tumour types. About 40% of all those taking part in the trial have molecular abnormalities that can be targeted by existing drugs, he will say…