Detection of Biomarkers with Solid-Phase Proximity Ligation Assay in Patients with Colorectal Cancer

Plasma Protein Profiling Reveal Osteoprotegerin as a Marker of Prognostic Impact for Colorectal Cancer

BACKGROUND: Due to difficulties in predicting recurrences in colorectal cancer stages II and III, reliable prognostic biomarkers could be a breakthrough for individualized treatment and follow-up. OBJECTIVE: To find potential prognostic protein biomarkers in colorectal cancer, using the proximity extension assays. METHODS: A panel of 92 oncology-related proteins was analyzed with proximity extension assays, in plasma from a cohort of 261 colorectal cancer patients with stage II-IV. The survival analyses were corrected for disease stage and age, and the recurrence analyses were corrected for disease stage. The significance threshold was adjusted for multiple comparisons. RESULTS: The plasma proteins expression levels had a greater prognostic relevance in disease stage III colorectal cancer than in disease stage II, and for overall survival than for time to recurrence. Osteoprotegerin was the only biomarker candidate in the protein panel that had a statistical significant association with overall survival (P = .00029). None of the proteins were statistically significantly associated with time to recurrence. CONCLUSIONS: Of the 92 analyzed plasma proteins, osteoprotegerin showed the strongest prognostic impact in patients with colorectal cancer, and therefore osteoprotegerin is a potential predictive marker, and it also could be a target for treatments.

International scientific communications in the field of colorectal tumour markers

AIM

To analyze scientometrically the dynamic science internationalization on colorectal tumour markers as reflected in five information portals and to outline the significant journals, scientists and institutions.

METHODS

A retrospective problem-oriented search was performed in Web of Science Core Collection (WoS), MEDLINE, BIOSIS Citation Index (BIOSIS) and Scopus for 1986-2015 as well as in Dervent Innovations Index (Derwent) for 1995-2015. Several specific scientometric parameters of the publication output and citation activity were comparatively analyzed. The following scientometric parameters were analyzed: (1) annual dynamics of publications; (2) scientific institutions; (3) journals; (4) authors; (5) scientific forums; (6) patents - number of patents, names and countries of inventors, and (7) citations (number of citations to publications by single authors received in WoS, BIOSIS Citation Index and Scopus).

RESULTS

There is a trend towards increasing publication output on colorectal tumour markers worldwide along with high citation rates. Authors from 70 countries have published their research results in journals and conference proceedings in 21 languages. There is considerable country stratification similar to that in most systematic investigations. The information provided to end users and scientometricians varies between these data-bases in terms of most parameters due to different journal coverage, indexing systems and editorial policy. The lists of the so-called “core” journals and most productive authors in WoS, BIOSIS, MEDLINE and Scopus along with the list of the most productive authors - inventors in Derwent present a particular interest to the beginners in the field, the institutional and national science managers and the journal editorial board members. The role of the purposeful assessment of scientific forums and patents is emphasized.

CONCLUSION

Our results along with this problem-oriented collection containing the researchers’ names, addresses and publications could contribute to a more effective international collaboration of the coloproctologists from smaller countries and thus improve their visibility on the world information market.

Monitoring of the Immune Dysfunction in Cancer Patients

Immunotherapy shows promising clinical results in patients with different types of cancer, but its full potential is not reached due to immune dysfunction as a result of several suppressive mechanisms that play a role in cancer development and progression. Monitoring of immune dysfunction is a prerequisite for the development of strategies aiming to alleviate cancer-induced immune suppression. At this point, the level at which immune dysfunction occurs has to be established, the underlying mechanism(s) need to be known, as well as the techniques to assess this. While it is relatively easy to measure general signs of immune suppression, it turns out that accurate monitoring of the frequency and function of immune-suppressive cells is still difficult. A lack of truly specific markers, the phenotypic complexity among suppressive cells of the same lineage, but potentially with different functions and functional assays that may not cover every mechanistic aspect of immune suppression are among the reasons complicating proper assessments. Technical innovations in flow and mass cytometry will allow for more complete sets of markers to precisely determine phenotype and associated function. There is, however, a clear need for functional assays that recapitulate more of the mechanisms employed to suppress the immune system.