Biomarkers in prostate cancer: Multi-sample transcriptomics overcomes heterogeneity and reveals genes with prognostic biomarker potential

Jonas Meier Strømme, first author
Jonas Meier Strømme, first author

Jonas Meier Strømme and colleagues from the Department of Molecular Oncology at the Institute for Cancer Research have performed the first large genome-scale study of the transcriptomic heterogeneity of multifocal prostate cancer. In the study, recently published in the journal Cancer Gene Therapy, the authors demonstrate exceptionally high degree of intra-patient heterogeneity, both in terms of expression of genes, fusion genes, and somatic mutations. They do, however, also nominate specific genes for which the expression levels are similar across distinct tumor foci, and that may provide the same robust information about the cancer regardless of which individual focus is being sampled.

Links:

The original article from Cancer Gene Therapy:
Expressed prognostic biomarkers for primary prostate cancer independent of multifocality and transcriptome heterogeneity.
Strømme JM, Johannessen B, Kidd SG, Bogaard M, Carm KT, Zhang X, Sveen A, Mathelier A, Lothe RA, Axcrona U, Axcrona K, Skotheim RI.
Cancer Gene Ther. 2022 Feb 22. doi: 10.1038/s41417-022-00444-7. Online ahead of print.
PMID: 35194199

Behind the paper, from Nature Portfolio Cancer Community: 
The quest for biomarkers in prostate cancer: Multi-sample transcriptomics overcomes heterogeneity and reveals genes with prognostic biomarker potential
By Bjarne Johannessen, Jonas Meier Strømme and Rolf I. Skotheim

Project description from Rolf I. Skotheim's Genome Biology Group:
Interfocal heterogeneity of prostate cancer

Department of Molecular Biology