Ricardo Henao, PhD, Duke Center for Applied Genomics & Precision Medicine faculty and assistant professor in Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, collaborating with co-investigators, recently published “Evaluation of an RNAseq-Based Immunogenomic Liquid Biopsy Approach in Early-Stage Prostate Cancer” in Cells.
The primary objective of this study is to detect biomarkers and develop models that enable the identification of clinically significant prostate cancer and to understand the biologic implications of the genes involved. Gene expression levels were used to develop predictive models that correlate to adverse pathologic features.
The markers identified by this approach uncovered specific pathway associations relevant to (prostate) cancer biology. Differential gene expression of circulating immune cells gives insight into the cellular immune response to early tumor development and immune surveillance.
Prostate cancer is a relatively slow growing, heterogenous, oligoclonal epithelial malignancy that commonly affects the prostate of men as a result of germline genetic predispositions, accumulation of mutations of oncogenes and tumor suppression genes and aberrant epigenetic events, as well as immune-evasion and cancer immunoediting.