Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UNIPROT:O76050 (neu)
 3,969 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Malignant gastrointestinal tumors are still worldwide a very common cause of death from cancer. Even though the surgical techniques and the neoadjuvant/adjuvant therapies have improved over the last years and multimodal concepts in cancer treatment have been established, these types of tumors remain a challenge. Therefore predictive/prognostic markers need to be established, to be able to tailor chemotherapies and therefore improve efficacy of neoadjuvant/adjuvant treatment. Over the last years potential predictive/prognostic factors have been characterized by molecular-biological technologies: the tumor suppressor gene p53, the cell-cycle regulatory proteins p21 and p27, the marker of proliferation Ki-67, the epidermal growth factor receptor, HER2/neu, angiogenetic factors (the vascular endothelial growth factor, cyclooxygenase 2, thymidine phosphorylase), enzymes involved in the DNA-repair-system (ERCC1), enzymes involved in the 5-fluorouracil-metabolism (thymidylate synthase, dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase) or other genetic alterations, like the loss of heterozygosity or the microsatellite instability. The results of the mainly retrospective studies are promising but prospective studies are needed to validate those markers in the therapy of gastrointestinal tumors. The goal is that we will be able to predict when and with what to treat.
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PMID:[Predictive and prognostic factors in the neoadjuvant/adjuvant therapy of gastrointestinal tumors: wishful thinking or reality?]. 1661 82

The potential of gene expression profiles to predict the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with advanced adenocarcinoma of the esophagus was analyzed. Paraffin-embedded endoscopic esophageal tumor biopsies of 38 patients with advanced esophageal adenocarcinoma (Barrett's adenocarcinoma) were included. All patients underwent two cycles of cisplatin and fluorouracil (5-FU) therapy with or without additional paclitaxel (taxol) followed by abdominothoracal esophagectomy. RNA expression levels of 5-FU-metabolism associated genes thymidylate synthase (TS), thymidine phosphorylase (TP), dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD), methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), MAP7, ELF3, as well as of platinum and taxane associated related genes caldesmon, excision cross-complementing genes (ERCC1 and ERCC4) HER2-neu, DNA damage-inducible gene 45 (GADD45) and multidrug resistance genes (MDR1, MRP1) were determined using real-time RT-PCR. Expression levels were correlated with the histopathological response to chemotherapy assessed in surgically resected specimens. Responding patients showed significantly higher pretherapeutic expression levels of MTHFR (p = 0.012), Caldesmon (p = 0.016), MRP1 (p = 0.007) and MDR1 (p = 0.025). In addition, patients with high pretherapeutic MTHFR and MRP1 levels had a survival benefit after surgery (p = 0.013 and p = 0.015, respectively). Additionally, intratumoral heterogeneity of gene expression of selected genes (TP, DPD, MTHFR, HER2-neu, Caldesmon, ERCC4, MRP1) was additionally verified in 9 untreated Barrett's adenocarcinoma by examination of 5 distinct tumor areas and was observed in 12.7% (5.6%-23.5%, CI 95%) of all cases analyzed. Our results indicate that determination of mRNA levels of a few genes may be useful for the prediction of the success of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in individual cancer patients with advanced adenocarcinoma of the esophagus.
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PMID:[Prediction of response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in Barrett's carcinoma by quantitative gene expression analysis]. 1689 54

Cancer pharmacogenetics is a popular and evolving field in medicine with applications in various types of tumours helping clinicians to apply a more personalized medicine by providing information of prognostic, predictive and therapeutic value. Such evidence of pharmacogenetic applications is been already available in colon cancer (e.g. KRAS status, mismatch repair genes status, UGT1A1 polymorphisms), lung cancer (EGFR mutations, ERCC1 mutations), breast cancer (HER2/neu overexpression) and many others. In all these tumors, the genetic information is rendering the management of the involved patients safer and more effective. Interesting abstracts and announcements from the perspective of pharmacogenomics in pancreatic cancer included Abstract #4611 which suggested the use of a novel genomic study able to detect specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with prognostic value, Abstract #4615 which showed that the known proteins alpha1-antitrypsin and alpha1-antichymotrypsin may be predictive of response to gemcitabine and survival, and Abstract #11097 which suggested that human R protein (HuR) expression may be a useful predictive biomarker of gemcitabine treatment. The authors also present here a few other abstracts of pharmacogenomic interest which had negative findings, but believed to be of clinical importance.
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PMID:Pharmacogenetics in pancreatic cancer. Highlights from the 45th ASCO annual meeting. Orlando, FL, USA. May 29-June 2, 2009. 1958 34