Asian Scientist (Aug. 7, 2013) – A team of scientists in Singapore have discovered a new biomarker which can help oncologists predict how well cancer patients respond to therapies that target a specific cancer-linked protein.
Precision cancer therapy offers the promise of being able to identify patients who are most likely to benefit from currently available cancer drugs.
However, to put this into practice, biomarkers to pinpoint those patients who are likely to have more favorable responses to cancer drugs are required.
In this study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the researchers report that high levels of a cancer-linked protein called PRL-3 are associated with hyperactivation of another well-known cancer protein known as EGFR in various cancers.
This makes PRL-3 a prime biomarker candidate for identifying cancer patients who will benefit from EGFR-targeting therapies that are already being used in the clinic.
As further evidence for the usefulness of PRL-3 as a biomarker, the researchers looked at existing clinical data from colorectal cancer patients who were treated with the anti-EGFR antibody cetuximab.
Their analysis confirmed that patients who suffered from cancers displaying abnormally high levels of PRL-3 were the ones who responded better to cetuximab.
The researchers also revealed an unexpected synergy linking PRL-3 and EGFR, showing that PRL-3 is responsible for EGFR hyperactivation.
This causes cancer cells with high levels of PRL-3 to become “addicted” to EGFR hyperactivation: it cannot survive if EGFR activity is shut down.
“This unexpected synergy has revealed a vulnerable spot of aggressive cancers and brought new hope of treating PRL-3 driven cancers successfully,” said Associate Professor Qi Zeng, the senior author of the study.
“The addiction phenomenon we observed in cancer cells is akin to depriving alcohol from an alcoholic, thereby inducing the severe ‘withdrawal effects’.”
With the identification of this biomarker, the researchers hope to deliver more effective and precise cancer therapy with existing anti-EGFR therapies.
The article can be found at: Al-aidaroos et al. (2013) Metastasis-Associated PRL-3 Induces EGFR Activation And Addiction In Cancer Cells.
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