The following is a summary of “Chromosome 8q arm overexpression is associated with worse prostate cancer prognosis,” published in the February 2023 issue of “Urologic Oncology” by Alshalalfala et al.
In metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, the chromosome 8q arm (chr8q) is the second-most amplified region of the genome after chXq12. In addition, these areas store oncogenes crucial to the development of prostate cancer, including MYC, which is involved in cell cycle progression and immune surveillance. Here, researchers used data from over 7,000 radical prostatectomy specimens to describe the co-expression patterns of chr8q genes and their clinical relevance.
About 2 main prostate cancer cohorts (TCGA, n = 492; MSK-primary, n = 856) and 3 metastatic prostate cancer cohorts (MSK-met, n = 432; MSK-mCSPC, n = 424; SU2CPNAS, n = 444) were queried on cBioPortal for copy number alterations of 336 genes on chr8q21 to chr8q24. The 336 gene expression levels were analyzed using data from the Decipher GRID registry, which included 6,135 radical prostatectomy samples. Patients were divided into the top 10% and top 25% by band expression and compared with the remainder cohort for survival analysis. Investigators used Cox proportional hazards models to ascertain hazard ratios.
There was substantial co-amplification and co-expression of genes located on chromosome 8q. Higher Gleason scores, metastasis risk, and prostate cancer-specific mortality were linked to copy number changes and overexpression of chr8q genes in primary illness. In addition, research findings showed that increased MYC expression was not independently related to lower metastasis-free survival, although increased expression of other chr8q bands was. Finally, researchers created a new model that outperformed Decipher in predicting metastases by merging chr8q data with the popular genomic classifier. The results of this study demonstrate the clinical relevance of chr8q data for better prognostication and risk prediction in localized prostate cancer.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S107814392200360X
