Proteasomal degradation is an essential regulatory mechanism for cellular homeostasis maintenance. The speckle-type POZ adaptor protein (SPOP) is part of the ubiquitin ligase E3 cullin-3 RING-box1 complex, responsible for the ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation of biomolecules involved in cell cycle control, proliferation, response to DNA damage, epigenetic control, and hormone signaling, among others. Changes in SPOP have been associated with the development of different types of cancer, since it can act as a tumor suppressor mainly in prostate, breast, colorectal, lung cancer and liver cancer, due to point mutations and/or reduced expression, or as an oncogene in endometrial cancer, in which function gain has been found, and in kidney cancer by protein overexpression. SPOP is a potential prognostic biomarker and a promising therapeutic target.

In Colombia, prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common cancer for incidence and mortality in men, which turns it into a public health problem. For high-risk communities to better understand the usefulness of basic research about PCa, a strategy of social appropriation of knowledge (SAK) in science and cancer was designed and implemented. A pedagogical activity and two tests (a pre-test and a post-test) were applied to middle education students in four schools in three Colombian cities to identify previous knowledge of biology concepts and cancer perceptions. As for biology concepts, there was a statistically significant increase (p < 0.01) in the total results of all questions in the post-test, especially in items related to the structure of DNA, differences between RNA and DNA, and codon. Similarly, better success rates were observed in questions about replication and mutation, and a statistically significant improvement related to the definition of cancer, cancer prevention, and its association with culture or ethnicity (p < 0.01). The results of the open question show what students learned about or were interested in the most, as evidence of the exchange of knowledge in those cities and the social appropriation of knowledge about PCa in Colombia. These findings show that this type of intervention, in diverse social contexts, is essential to improve understanding and perceptions that link school and scientific knowledge to a real problem, such as health and, in this case, cancer.

Las alteraciones en la metilación de dinucleótidos CpG en regiones promotoras es uno de los mecanismos epigenéticos implicados en cáncer que tiene uso potencial como biomarcador. Su evaluación a partir de tejidos fijados en formalina y embebidos en parafina (FFPE) representa un gran desafío dadas la degradación parcial, el entrecruzamiento y las bajas cantidades del DNA obtenido. En esta nota técnica describimos un protocolo para el estudio del estado de metilación del promotor distal del proto-oncogén K-RAS a partir de varias muestras obtenidas de dos tejidos FFPE de cáncer colorrectal con antigüedad de 11 años. Se empleó un protocolo de conversión con bisulfito alternativo al usual; se usó una DNA polimerasa modificada y una PCR anidada y se optimizó la secuenciación directa del DNA convertido con bisulfito. Este protocolo podría ser aplicado para determinar estados de metilación en otros genes y tipos de cáncer en tejidos FFPE.

Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of cancer with of the highest incidence and mortality worldwide. Current disease prognostic markers do not differentiate aggressive from indolent PCa with sufficient certainty, and characterization by molecular subtypes has been sought to allow a better classification. TMPRSS2‐ERG, SPOP, FOXA1, and IDH1 molecular subtypes have been described, but the association of these subtypes with prognosis in PCa is unclear; their frequency in Colombian patients is also unknown. Formalin‐fixed and paraffin‐embedded samples of radical prostatectomy from 112 patients with PCa were used. The TMPRSS2‐ERG subtype was assessed with fluorescent in situ hybridization. The mutations in SPOP, FOXA1, and IDH1 in hot‐spot regions were evaluated using Sanger sequencing. Fusion was detected in 71 patients (63.4%). No statistically significant differences were found between the state of fusion and the variables analyzed. In the 41 fusion‐negative cases (36.6%), two patients (4.9%) had missense mutations in SPOP (p.F102C and p.F133L), representing a 1.8% of the overall cohort. The low frequency of this subtype in Colombians could be explained by the reported variability in the frequency of these mutations according to the population (5%–20%). No mutations were found in FOXA1 in the cases analyzed. The synonym SNP rs11554137 IDH1105GGT was found in tumor tissue but not in the normal tissue in one case. A larger cohort of Colombian PCa patients is needed for future studies to validate these findings and gain a better understanding of the molecular profile of this cancer in our population and if there are any differences by Colombian regions.