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Molecular Biomarkers & Diagnosis

ISSN: 2155-9929

Open Access

A Canonical Transforming Growth Factor Beta-Dependent Signaling Pathway is Present in Peripheral Blood Cells of Cancer Patients with Skeletal Metastasis

Abstract

Sunil Kadam, Ann Louise Cleverly, Mark Farmen, Janet Grondin, Yvelina Ivanova Cox and Michael Lahn

Background: Patients with advanced metastatic cancer often have elevated levels of circulating transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) that is thought to stimulate receptor mediated signaling through phosphorylated SMAD transcription factors in peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

Methods: To identify this TGF-β-dependent gene expression profile in cancer patients, we first evaluated a multi-gene expression profile from ex-vivo treated PBMCs with TGF-β1 stimulation. Change in expression, when challenged with a specific TGF-β receptor type kinase inhibitor was then derived to be ligand and inhibitor specific. Once this profile was established, we examined its role in identifying the activation of a canonical TGF-β1 signaling pathway in patient samples.

Results: We discovered a 37 gene sub-set where the expression profile from ex-vivo treated PBMCs was significantly associated with SMAD phosphorylation in cancer patients. We found significant correlation between the ex-vivo derived expression signature and circulating levels of TGF-β1 in patient samples. Additionally, we report association between the expression profile and the presence of several plasma proteins in disease samples that are known to be concomitantly present with TGF-β- dependent pathway activation.

Conclusion: An expression profile for TGF-β1 cytokine mediated-signaling in cancer patients is identified, which may serve as a biomarker to measure the pharmacodynamic effect of TGF-β inhibitors during clinical drug development and as marker of disease diagnosis.

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Citations: 2054

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