Metabolomic Prediction of Human Prostate Cancer Aggressiveness: Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy of Histologically Benign Tissue.

Prostate cancer alters cellular metabolism through events potentially preceding cancer morphological formation. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS)-based metabolomics of histologically-benign tissues from cancerous prostates can predict disease aggressiveness, offering clinically-translatable prognostic information. This retrospective study of 185 patients (2002-2009) included prostate tissues from prostatectomies (n = 365), benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) (n = 15), and biopsy cores from cancer-negative patients (n = 14).

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy: a promising tool for the diagnostics of human prostate cancer?

Background: Prostate cancer (CaP) is one of the topmost diagnosed malignant diseases worldwide. In developed countries, early cancer detection methods have led to an increase of incidence rates over the last decades; however, with great variance of the prognosis. There is no diagnostic tool for an exact prediction of tumor aggressiveness, thus there is a lack of adequate and optimal treatment planning.

A decade in prostate cancer: from NMR to metabolomics.

Over the past 30 years, continuous progress in the application of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) to the detection, diagnosis and characterization of human prostate cancer has turned what began as scientific curiosity into a useful clinical option. In vivo MRSI technology has been integrated into the daily care of prostate cancer patients, and innovations in ex vivo methods have helped to establish NMR-based prostate cancer metabolomics. Metabolomic and multimodality imaging could be the future of the prostate cancer clinic--particularly given the rationale that more accurate interrogation of a disease as complex as human prostate cancer is most likely to be achieved through paradigms involving multiple, instead of single and isolated, parameters.

Characterizing human cancer metabolomics with ex vivo 1H HRMAS MRS.

Publications of proton high resolution magic angle spinning (1H HRMAS) magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and its role in identification of metabolic markers for human cancer reported between 2005 and 2009 are reviewed according the anatomic sites of cancer: lung, breast, prostate, brain, colorectal, and cervical. Limited and insufficient screening options for the general public have indicated a need for more advanced tests that can identify and locate cancer at an early stage. 1H HRMAS MRS is a valuable tool that can elucidate relevant biological metabolite information that is being used to distinguish cancer from benign tissue, and even classify types of tumors.

Metabolomic imaging for human prostate cancer detection.

As current radiological approaches cannot accurately localize prostate cancer in vivo, biopsies are conducted at random within prostates for patients at risk for prostate cancer, leading to high false-negative rates. Metabolomic imaging can map cancer-specific biomolecular profile values onto anatomical structures to direct biopsy. In this preliminary study, we evaluated five whole prostates removed during prostatectomy from biopsy-proven cancer patients on a 7-tesla human whole-body magnetic resonance scanner.

Assessing prostate cancer growth with mRNA of spermine metabolic enzymes.

Statistical data from prostate cancer (PCa) clinics indicates that a large patient population discovered by annual prostate specific antigen (PSA) screening may have a latent form of the disease. However, current medical tests cannot differentiate slow from fast growing PCa, resulting in many unnecessary radical treatments and morbidities. It is thus necessary to find new screening tests that enable us to differentiate between fast- and slow-growing tumors.

Pectin activation of MAP kinase and gene expression is WAK2 dependent.

The angiosperm extracellular matrix, or cell wall, is composed of a complex array of cellulose, hemicellulose, pectins and proteins, the modification and regulated synthesis of which are essential for cell growth and division. The wall associated kinases (WAKs) are receptor-like proteins that have an extracellular domain that bind pectins, the more flexible portion of the extracellular matrix, and are required for cell expansion as they have a role in regulating cellular solute concentrations. We show here that both recombinant WAK1 and WAK2 bind pectin in vitro.