May Help Explain Tumor Biology and Prognosis Researchers at Jefferson Medical College are finding that certain characteristics of hereditary colorectal cancer tumors may help forecast a patient's prognosis, and in turn help doctors better understand tumor biology. Biomarkers are proteins in tumor cells which may predict response to treatment, as well as allow better tumor classification and insight to tumor biology. The researchers classified hereditary colorectal cancer tumor samples on the basis of MSI, according to whether it was absent, low or high. A high degree of MSI corresponds to a lack of genes responsible for DNA mismatch repair, which is vital to DNA replication.
Faulty repair plays an important role in colon cancer development.
He presents his team's findings May 15 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Atlanta. When mismatch repair genes go awry, the result may be colon cancer. Such genes are part of the intricate molecular machinery that fixes the cell when DNA damage occurs in repetitive DNA sequences. Many individuals in the general population may have MSI, but the key is how to pick them up. We stained for MSH2 and MLH1 proteins, which are mismatch repair gene products.