Jelena Karanović* and Aleksandra Nikolić
Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
jelena.karanovic [at] imgge.bg.ac.rs
Abstract
While the incidence of late-onset (≥50 years) colon cancer (LOCC) has been decreased worldwide, the number of early-onset (<50 years) colon cancer (EOCC) is increasing. Cluster of differentiation (CD) markers are widely and successfully used for identification of leukocyte population using flow cytometry in order to differentiate phenotypes among blood cancers and to address appropriate treatments. However, the alternations in their expression levels have been observed in non-blood cancers as well, including colon cancer, which enhance their diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic biomarker potential.
The aim of this research was to identify potential CD biomarkers for EOCC and LOCC using open access to expression profiling by high throughput sequencing in order to conduct further experimental exploration.
Transcriptomic data of dataset GSE240623, obtained from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor tissue samples from 13 EOCC and 13 LOCC patients, and their paired-adjacent normal colon tissues, from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database was used. Differentially expressed genes for EOCC and LOCC paired groups were obtained using DESeq2 package in R software with log2 fold change threshold set to 1. Up and downregulated genes were subsequently filtered only by CD markers for both comparisons.
In EOCC patients, CD79B, CD22, CD19, CD79A, CD37 and CD48 were downregulated, while CD276 was upregulated in tumor tissue compared to control tissue. On the other hand, only CD33 was downregulated in LOCC tumor tissue compared to normal colon tissue. Finally, CD27 was downregulated in tumor tissues of both groups, EOCC and LOCC, in comparison to their counterparts. In this study, we have identified nine CD markers that have potential diagnostic, prognostic and/or therapeutic significance for colon cancer and will be further examined in in silico and in vitro study.
Keywords: colon cancer, biomarkers, GEO database, transcriptomic data
Acknowledgement: This work was funded by the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia (Contract No. 451-03-47/2023-01/ 200042).