Tumour biomarkers: homeostasis as a novel prognostic indicator

Abstract

The term ‘personalized medicine’ refers to a medical procedure that consists in the grouping of patients based on their predicted individual response to therapy or risk of disease. In oncologic patients, a ‘tailored’ therapeutic approach may potentially improve their survival and well-being by not only reducing the tumour, but also enhancing therapeutic response and minimizing the adverse effects. Diagnostic tests are often used to select appropriate and optimal therapies that rely both on patient genome and other molecular/cellular analysis. Several studies have shown that lifestyle and environmental factors can influence the epigenome and that epigenetic events may be involved in carcinogenesis. Thus, in addition to traditional biomarkers, epigenetic factors are raising considerable interest, because they could potentially be used as an excellent tool for cancer diagnosis and prognosis. In this review, we summarize the role of conventional cancer genetic biomarkers and their association with epigenomics. Furthermore, we will focus on the so-called ‘homeostatic biomarkers’ that result from the physiological response to cancer, emphasizing the concept that an altered ‘new’ homeostasis influence not only tumour environment, but also the whole organism.

Metabolomic profiling of human lung tumor tissues – nucleotide metabolism as a candidate for therapeutic interventions and biomarkers

“…The most common type of LC is non‐small‐cell LC (NSCLC), which represents 85% of all LCs. The most important histological subtypes include adenocarcinoma (AC), squamous cell lung carcinoma (SCC) and large‐cell carcinoma, of which AC and SCC represent ~ 90% of all cases (Falco et al ., ). Generally, diagnosis takes place after the first symptoms have already appeared, which normally happens at an advanced stage.…”

“…The most common type of LC is non-small-cell LC (NSCLC), which represents 85% of all LCs. The most important histological subtypes include adenocarcinoma (AC), squamous cell lung carcinoma (SCC) and large-cell carcinoma, of which AC and SCC represent~90% of all cases (Falco et al, 2016). Generally, diagnosis takes Abbreviations AC, adenocarcinoma; ADSL, adenylosuccinate lyase; ATIC, 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide ribonucleotide formyltransferase/IMP cyclohydrolase ; LC, lung cancer; NSCLC, non-small-cell lung cancer.…”

“…In contrast, to date only a very limited number of works have directly analyzed metabolic differences in tissues. The first approach was performed by Fan et al (2009), who analyzed 13 C-glucose-labeled tissue extracts from 12 patients to show an alteration in the Krebs cycle activity and the pyruvate carboxylation. Later, Rocha et al (2010) analyzed the differences between tumor and non-involved adjacent lung tissues of 12 samples and proved a clear increase in phosphocholine, lactate and glycerophosphocholine levels in tumors, whereas there was a decrease in inosine/adenosine, acetate, myo-inositol and glucose.…”

Exploratory study on classification of lung cancer subtypes through a combined K-nearest neighbor classifier in breathomics

“…Sensitivity and specificity represent true positive rate and true negative rate, respectively as written in Eqs. (1) and (2). Where FN is defined as a false negative and FP as a false positive, TP and TN are defined as a true positive and a true negative, respectively.…”

Human salivary microRNAs in Cancer

“…Detection of cancer in the early stages is paramount for determining the prognosis, therapeutic interventions, survival rates and recurrence of the disease 1 . Numerous researchers have focused on finding specific biomarkers of disease in body fluids such as blood, urine or cerebrospinal fluid 2 - 4 .…”