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Updated: May 4, 2026
Microarray-based Identification of Individual HERV Loci Expression: Application to Biomarker Discovery in Prostate Cancer
Published on: November 2, 2013
Genetic profiling to determine risk of relapse-free survival in high-risk localized prostate cancer
Christine M Barnett1, Michael C Heinrich, Jeong Lim
1Authors' Affiliations: Knight Cancer Institute; Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine; Knight Diagnostic Laboratories, Oregon Health and Science University; Portland VA Medical Center, Portland, Oregon; and Puget Sound Oncology Consortium, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
Purpose:
The characterization of actionable mutations in human tumors is a prerequisite for the development of individualized, targeted therapy. We examined the prevalence of potentially therapeutically actionable mutations in patients with high-risk clinically localized prostate cancer.
Experimental Design:
Forty-eight samples of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded prostatectomy tissue from a neoadjuvant chemotherapy trial were analyzed. DNA extracted from microdissected tumor was analyzed for 643 common solid tumor mutations in 53 genes using mass spectroscopy-based sequencing. In addition, PTEN loss and erythroblast transformation-specific-related gene (ERC) translocations were examined using immunohistochemistry (IHC) in associated tissue microarrays. Association with relapse during 5 years of follow-up was examined in exploratory analyses of the potential clinical relevance of the genetic alterations.
Results:
Of the 40 tumors evaluable for mutations, 10% had point mutations in potentially actionable cancer genes. Of the 47 tumors evaluable for IHC, 36% had PTEN loss and 40% had ERG rearrangement. Individual mutations were not frequent enough to determine associations with relapse. Using Kaplan-Meier analysis with a log-rank test, the 16 patients who had PTEN loss had a significantly shorter median relapse-free survival, 19 versus 106 months (P = 0.01).
Conclusions:
This study confirms that point mutations in the most common cancer regulatory genes in prostate cancer are rare. However, the PIK3CA/AKT pathway was mutated in 10% of our samples. Although point mutations alone did not have a statistically significant association with relapse, PTEN loss was associated with an increased relapse in high-risk prostate cancer treated with chemotherapy followed by surgery.
