An eight gene “signature” or print, can predict the time of relapse-free survival following chemotherapy, a new study suggests in the journal BMC Medicine.

A team of investigators from Academia Sinica and the National Taiwan University College of Medicine pinpointed genes that take part in cellular invasion – a property of several cancer cells – by looking at the National Cancer Institute’s 60 human cancer cell line panel (NCI-60).

The pattern of activation of each of these genes in different cell lines compared with how these cells reacted to 99 different anti-cancer drugs, were used to pinpoint the list of genes which could possibly impact the results of chemotherapy.

While examining this association, Prof Ker-Chau Li, from Academia Sinica and UCLA, commented:

“Our study found eight genes which were involved in invasion, and the relative activation of these genes correlated to chemotherapy outcome, including the receptor for growth factor EGF. We also found that some invasion genes had unique patterns of expression that reflect the differential cell responses to each of the chemotherapy agents – five drugs (paclitaxel, docetaxel, erlotinib, everolimus and dasatinib) had the greatest effect.”

After viewing the gene expression information of these eight genes from cancer cell lines, they discovered that there was a noticeable variation between cells which responded to chemotherapy and those which did not, however some did overlap.

In other clinical studies, examining breast and lung cancer, the patients, whose gene prints put them in the low-risk category, had a longer relapse free survival than the high-risk group.

For example, in a study conducted in 2009 by the European Society for Medical Oncology, researchers revealed a genetic signature that could predict which breast cancer patients will respond well to treatment. By doing so, researchers could predict women who are at a higher risk for negative side effects from chemotherapy.

Prof Pan-Chyr Yang of National Taiwan University added:

“The discovery of prognostic biomarkers for chemotherapy patients remains critical toward improving the efficacy of cancer treatment. The eight-gene signature obtained here may help choice of treatment as part of individualized cancer therapy and our method of gene discovery may be applicable in studying other cancers.”

Written by Kelly Fitzgerald