Bengaluru: The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) jointly with Nimhans and Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Education has identified various diagnostic and prognostic signatures of Glioblastoma (GBM), a type of brain cancer with poor prognosis.
The signatures will not only identify GBM patients and their risk status, but provide new scope of treating it, which is currently restricted to MR Imaging (MRI) and histopathological investigation of the tumour tissue. While these techniques fall short in predicting the true tumour boundary, the aggressiveness of the tumour and responsiveness of patients to therapy, they may help provide the patient with specific treatment and increase the chance of survival.
Professor Kumar Somasundaram of the department of microbiology and cell biology at IISc and his teams have identified diagnostic signatures like a gene expression signature from tumour tissue samples that can distinguish GBM from grade III glioma. They have come up with a set of markers which are secreted in the serum of the patient and can differentiate GBM patients from normal individuals.
A study on the DNA methylation signature of a set of nine genes revealed that the patients classified as high risk by the above 9-gene methylation signature have high activation of an oncogenic pathway. Inhibitor against the central molecule of the above pathway may be considered as a potential therapeutic option for this group of patients. This is how patients can be stratified according to their risk and hence most appropriate therapy could be chosen.
More experiments are needed to te st whether the signature can differentiate GBM patients from patients with other brain-related disorders, following which it can be used as a robust diagnostic signature.