Gene responsible for metastasis of prostate cancer

[cesanon]

Scientist identifies gene responsible for spread of prostate cancer

February 22, 2019 by Caitlin Coyle, Rutgers University

Scientist identifies gene responsible for spread of prostate cancer

Antonina Mitrofanova is a pioneer in the emerging field of biomedical informatics, fighting cancer with big data. Credit: Nick Romanenko

A Rutgers study has found that a specific gene in cancerous prostate tumors indicates when patients are at high-risk for the cancer to spread, suggesting that targeting this gene can help patients live longer.

The study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, identified the NSD2 gene through a computer algorithm developed to determine which cancer genes that spread in a mouse model were most relevant to humans. The researchers were able to turn off the gene in the mice tumor cells, which significantly decreased the cancer's spread.

"Currently, when a patient is diagnosed with prostate cancer, physicians can determine how advanced a tumor is but not whether the patient's cancer will spread," said lead author Antonina Mitrofanova, an assistant professor at Rutgers School of Health Professions and a research member of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. "If we can determine whether a patient's cancer is likely to spread at the time of diagnosis, we can start them on a targeted treatment plan as soon as possible to decrease the likelihood of their cancer spreading."

Mitrofanova and collaborators are researching a potential drug to target NSD2, but she encourages doctors to begin incorporating NSD2 screening so they can start high-risk patients on anti-metastatic treatment as soon as possible.

While the algorithm used in the study focused on prostate cancer, Mitrofanova said it can be applied more broadly to study other cancers to better understand what findings can be translated to people.

According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in American men and the second leading cause of cancer deaths.

More information: NSD2 is a conserved driver of metastatic prostate cancer progression, Nature Communications (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-0751 , nature.com/articles/s41467-...

Provided by: Rutgers University

[pjoshea13]

Bboby had a different link to the story a few months ago:

healthunlocked.com/advanced...

Here's the full-text paper:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

& something published 10 years ago:

febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.co...

-Patrick

[cesanon in reply to pjoshea13]

Patrick, do you have any opinions on this?

[pjoshea13 in reply to cesanon]

I'm not holding my breath. They have a long way to go before FDA approval of a drug.

The earlier study doesn't seem to have made any impact. No BigPharma interest?

I tend to judge the importance of a topic by looking to see how many other researchers want a piece of the action. A few more papers would help spur my enthusiasm.

-Patrick

[cesanon in reply to pjoshea13]

Patrick,

The study is only a few months old, so we will have to see. Perhaps a good sign will be when they add this gene to some of the genetics tests.

[Sisira]

Great ideas! Great research! But still the flag is being carried by the Cancer ( PCa ) .

We need a sure Bullet! That can be used to save all of us.

Sisira

[cesanon]

Nalakrats,

1. Yeah, nothing is likely to come of this to help those of us reading this. Things always seem to be more complicated than they appear to be at first, and they take much longer to bear fruit than we would like. And mostly they often fail to bear fruit.

2. Though perhaps with a human clinical trial, it might become useful in a limited manner.

If you know that it is likely you are going to have metastasis, prior to it showing up on scans, it would seem this might inform doctor recommendations on what path to take and when to start taking that path? But perhaps even that would require more trials.