Title:
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Identification and validation of new biomarkers for the diagnosis and management of colorectal cancer
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Colorectal cancer is one of the most prevalent malignancies worldwide with
approximately 1 million cases diagnosed each year, and 500 000 deaths. If diagnosed
early over 95% of patients would benefit from curative surgery. Large scale
randomised studies have demonstrated a reduction in mortality with mass screening
programmes. Current methods employed for screening for colorectal cancer involved
the faecal occult blood test. This investigation maintains an average sensitivity for the
diagnosis of colorectal cancer with poor compliance from the population.
This study aimed to investigate and validate new biomarkers for the diagnosis of
colorectal cancer. BORIS is a paralogue of the transcription factor CTCF. BORIS is
found to be expressed normally in spermatocytes in the testis, however aberrant
expression has been found to play a part in tumour development. This study set out to
analyse the role of BORIS as a potential biomarker for colorectal cancer. BORIS
expression in the leukocytes of colorectal cancer patients was assessed via both
Western blotting and immunocytochemistry. Furthermore its expression was
compared III colorectal cancer tissue and matched normal tissue by
immunohistochemistry. Minimal positive expression was demonstrated for BORIS in
A the leukocytes, with only two out of sixty patients showing positive expression by
both methods. Similar findings were noted in the analysis of tissue samples, although
significantly higher immunoreactivity was identified in the colorectal cancer tissue in
comparison with the normal group. This study concluded BORIS has a limited role as
a biomarker for colorectal cancer.
A smaller further study set out to identify significant proteins as possible biomarkers
in the leukocytes of colorectal cancer patients via two dimensional gel
electrophoresis.
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