Biomarkers for non-invasive detection and classifform-control form-control ication of prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is one of the most common death causes worldwide, and one of the most frequently diagnosed tumours in males in Spain. In spite of that, diagnosis tools for their detection are lacking and there are no adequate genetic biomarkers: nowadays, PSA is the most common biomarker, despite the high percentage of false positives and false negatives.

Regarding treatment choice, there are no tools that can determine which treatment is the most effective for each patient. With it, the standard treatment is androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), which causes many hormone resistance cases. Despite existing a good initial response, after 18-24 months of ADT therapy, prostate cancer progresses to the castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) phase, which has 16 to 18 months survival rate.

To overcome that, three new genetic biomarkers PCA3, MRC2, and S100A4 have been identified. They can be used to detect, classify and/or prevent prostate cancer. PCA3 non-coding RNA is specific of prostatic tissue and is overexpressed early in prostate cancers; an overexpression of MRC2 indicates a higher extracellular matrix remodelling rate, which will ease further metastasis; and S1004A gene is overexpressed when cancer is more aggressive and metastasis has already started.

In addition, the detection of these biomarkers can be performed using non-invasive methods, such as liquid biopsy, and would be ideal for the development of kits and devices for the prevention, diagnosis and stratification of prostate cancer.

ADVANTAGES AND BENEFITS

• Tissue and cancer specificity:PCA3 is expressed only in prostatic tissue, overcoming the main disadvantage of PSA, its lack of specificity.
• High accuracy and early detection.PCA3 is overexpressed in more than 95% of primary prostate cancers.
• Custom medicine. Expression levels of PCA3, MRC2, and S100A4 allow to know the type and stage of cancer, easing its classification and the choice of the most adequate treatment.
• Non-invasive. All three biomarkers can be detected using non-invasive methods, such as liquid biopsy.
• Real-time analysis. Since liquid biopsy is a non-invasive process, it allows multiple analysis along tumor process.
• Simple method. The possibility of using a kit or device eases data obtaining to diagnose and predict this type of cancer.

Current development status

Laboratory prototypes

Applications

Oncology

Health

Diagnostic

Biotechnology

Desired business relationship

Patent licensing