IBS GRANADA scientists determine the predictive role of two biomarkers to select those patients with metastatic colon cancer who will benefit from chemotherapy
From left to right, Coral del Val, Igor Zwir, Belen García, Alberto Mesa, María Angel García and Juan Antonio Marchal.
Research has shown for the first time how high levels of the genetic element nc886 in the blood are related to a positive response to chemotherapy treatment.
The results have been published in the prestigious scientific journal "Cancers"
This study is the result of a multidisciplinary work where translational researchers, bioinformatics and clinical researchers belonging to the University of Granada and Jaén and the Virgen de las Nieves University Hospital in Granada (Oncologists, Digestologists, Anatomo-pathologists), all of them members of the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada (ibs.GRANADA), as well as Torrecárdenas University Hospital in Almería, join forces to take another step forward in the field of Personalized Medicine or Precision Medicine in Oncology. In this work led by doctors Maria Angel Garcia Chaves, Juan Antonio Marchal Corrales e Igor zwir, demonstrate for the first time, how a algorithm based on Artificial Intelligence it is useful for classifying patients with metastatic colon cancer who are going to respond to chemotherapy based on two molecular genetic and proteomic biomarkers that will allow us to get closer and closer to Cancer Precision Medicine. This work has been published in the prestigious scientific journal “cancers".
The researcher María Ángel García Chaves, member of the research group "Advanced therapies: differentiation, regeneration and cancer (IBS-TEC-16)” of the ibs.GRANADA, was awarded by the Royal National Academy of Pharmacy in 2016, for a work that described the mechanism of action of the PKR protein kinase and its translation to clinical research, where the foundations of this study were laid. study. Since then, María Ángel leads this work, in which they determine the expression and location of a cellular stress response protein kinase (PKR) implicated in the effect of conventional chemotherapy of colon cancer and your modulator, the genetic element “non-coding 886” in samples of blood, colon tumor tissue and their respective healthy tissue, in patients with metastatic colon cancer treated with chemotherapy based on the use of drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU).
Although the number of patients analyzed has not been very large, this algorithm has been able to classify groups of patients (“biclusters”) with a certain evolution to treatment based on the complex molecular and clinical data obtained. In fact, we have determined how groups of patients with low levels of expression of nc886 both in the tumor and in the blood (plasma) have corresponded to a worse response of the patients to the treatment. In addition, we have been able to determine a group of patients whose absence of PKR expression in the nucleolus of tumor cells, has corresponded to a better response to treatment. Likewise, intermediate levels of expression of both biomarkers in healthy tissue have identified the group of patients that has shown the best response to treatment and greater survival.
This study, therefore, increasingly opens the possibility that Oncologists can more accurately predict appropriate therapy, depending on the molecular characteristics of each patient, being aware that we must continue research so that we have more and more useful biomarkers that improve the classification of patients, and the efficacy of treatments.
The study has been financed by the Carlos III Health Institute thanks to the Technological Development project DTS15/0074 and the integrated project of excellence for accredited institutes PIE16-00045, the Health Council of the Junta de Andalucía and the “Cátedra Dres. Galera and Requena for cancer stem cell research” at the UGR.
Bibliographic reference:
Uncovering Tumor Heterogeneity through PKR and nc886 Analysis in Metastatic Colon Cancer Patients Treated with 5-FU-Based Chemotherapy.
Ortega-García MB, Mesa A, Moya ELJ, Rueda B, Lopez-Ordoño G, García JÁ, Conde V, Redondo-Cerezo E, Lopez-Hidalgo JL, Jiménez G, Peran M, Martínez-González LJ, Del Val C, Zwir I, Marchal JA*, Garcia MA*.
Cancers (Basel). 2020 Feb 7; 12 (2) .pii: E379. doi: 10.3390 / cancers12020379.
Contact:
Maria Angel Garcia Chaves
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology III and Immunology
Faculty of Medicine of the University of Granada
Phone: 958243524
Email: mangelgarcia@ugr.es
Juan Antonio Marchal Corrales
Department of Human Anatomy and Embryology.
Faculty of Medicine of the University of Granada
Phones: 958241000 Ext. 20080 - 958249321
E-mail: jmarchal@ugr.es