Whole blood RNA expression profiles in ovarian cancer patients with or without residual tumors after primary cytoreductive surgery

Abstract

Abstract. Significant improvements in the treatment results of ovarian cancer have been achieved during the last decades, but further improvements require additional methods identifying signs of the disease and its biological behavior, preferably by a simple blood test. We hypothesized that peripheral blood leukocytes may express genes that carry such clinical information. Therefore, we studied the relative gene expressions of 168 cancer-and metastasis-specific genes in blood samples from ovarian cancer patients with different prognoses after primary cytoreductive surgery. Total RNA was extracted from whole blood and the relative gene expression profile of 168 genes were analyzed using real-time qPCR assays. Two groups of patients were analyzed; one group with residual tumor mass after primary surgery, and one group where the tumor was macroscopically radically resected, resulting in no visible tumor mass left behind. The group with the remaining tumor mass after surgery showed significantly different gene expression profiles compared to the group with no remaining tumor mass. Differences were noted for the metastasis associated 1 family, member 2 gene (MTA2), the TNF, α-catenin, interleukin 1β, the KiSS-1 metastasis suppressor and the matrix metallo proteinase 10 genes. All genes were downregulated with a fold-change between 1.15 to 1.57; there were no upregulated genes. Thus, a signature of genes involved in metastasis, invasion and inflammation was found to be significantly downregulated in native unstimulated blood leukocytes from ovarian cancer patients with a poor prognosis. Preoperatively it may serve as a guide to the biology of the tumor and postoperatively in the optimization of adjuvant treatment of ovarian cancer patients.

Whole genome expression profiling of blood cells in ovarian cancer patients -Prognostic impact of theCYP1B1,MTSS1,NCALD, andNOP14genes

“…The mRNA species from leukocytes is thought to reflect more general and systemic reactions and tumor cell mRNA species would reflect specific tumor characteristics. In our pilot study, we corroborated that two groups of ovarian cancer patients with or without residual tumor mass after primary surgery showed differences in gene expression profiles in blood cells which seemed to agree with such a contention since most of the genes that differed belonged to rather cancer-specific pathways [11]. In the present study, we therefore tested the hypothesis that patients with different tumor stage and cell differentiation can be distinguished from each other by performing a whole transcriptome profile in whole blood cell mRNA of ovarian cancer patients.…”

Expression of MALAT1 in the peripheral whole blood of patients with lung cancer

“…genes that are involved in cancer metastasis and invasion were significantly downregulated in the native unstimulated blood leukocytes from ovarian cancer patients with a poor prognosis (4). Two previous studies showed that the distinct whole-blood RNA expression signatures identified can predict the severity of castration-resistant prostate cancer (19,20).…”

Similar Source of Differential Blood mRNAs in Lung Cancer and Pulmonary Inflammatory Diseases: Calls for Improved Strategy for Identifying Cancer-Specific Biomarkers

“…It is assumed that peripheral leukocytes are the dominating source of the mRNA in PWB samples [7]; however, the differential mRNA signals observed in PWB samples from cancer patients compared to healthy controls may reflect changes in the subsets in peripheral blood cells. Many studies have found that, in PWB of patients with cancer, the proportion of blood cells originated from the myeloid progenitor (referred to as myeloid cells for simplicity) increases, while the proportion of blood cells originated from the lymphocyte progenitor (referred to as lymphoid cells for simplicity) decreases [8]–[13].…”