STUDYING DNA MODIFICATIONS AS MARKERS OF CANCER PROGRESSION. Professor D. E. Neal and Alan Aitchison
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In July 2004, funded by a Prostate Research Campaign UK grant, we embarked on a research project to study changes to DNA as potential markers of prostate cancer development.
Methylation is a key change that can affect many genes and which can prevent their expression. Where a gene is a tumour suppressor the loss of its expression due to methylation can aid cancer development.
We began our studies focusing on a short list of tumour suppressors implicated in prostate, lung and oesophageal cancers. Many these tumour suppressors are reduced in expression in cancers for other reasons including DNA rearrangements and mutation. The advantage of focusing on methylated targets is that they can then be screened for rapidly using small quantities of tissue or even blood samples and used for diagnostic purposes.
The outcome of this one-year pilot project is that we have identified a novel methylation change affecting a tumour suppressor gene in prostate cancer. This change becomes prominent in advanced stages of the cancer and shows a strong inverse correlation with protein expression. It is also characteristic of two patient populations (Dutch and British). We hope to be able to extend this study to larger patient cohorts to really test its power as a cancer marker.
Research summary dated 10 October 2005
Project 2003/01