Next in our series of articles on cancer is Pancreatic cancer, a relatively rare cancer associated with very poor prognosis. The vast majority of tumors originate from ductal cells and a small fraction are endocrine tumors. Over 80% of pancreatic cancers develop at ages above 60 years and most tumors are detected at late stages of the disease when the cancer has spread beyond the pancreas.

There is a great need for biomarkers to facilitate early detection and help establishment of diagnosis. Smoking, obesity, physical inactivity and long-lasting inflammation in the pancreas are some of the factors that lead to an increased risk of pancreatic cancer...Read more

As part of the release Pathology Atlas release, the Human Protein Atlas will each week present a brief and informative summary highlighting genes with prognostic association in different cancer forms. This week, we will focus on Lung cancer one of the deadliest cancers in the world today.

Lung cancer patients have a poor outcome with a 5-year survival rate of 13.6% in men and 19.4% in women. Late diagnosis and lack of effective treatments are considered to contribute to poor prognosis. Smoking is the leading risk factor and is responsible for 70-90% of the lung cancer cases. Lung cancer can be divided into small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)...Read more

In this week's Pathology Atlas blog post, we highlight genes with prognostic association to ovarian cancer , as September is National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month in the US. Ovarian cancer is the fifth most frequent cause of cancer death in women, and 50% of all ovarian cancers are diagnosed in women older than 65 years of age.

Epithelial ovarian carcinoma is one of the most common gynecologic malignancy. There are five subtypes of epithelial ovarian carcinoma, of which high-grade serous carcinoma is the most common...Read more

The Pathology Atlas, recently published in Science presents key proteins associated with different cancer types. This week's news article will focus on breast cancer and proteins related to cancer prognosis.

Breast cancer is the most common invasive cancer form in women worldwide. The cancer can roughly be classified as ductal or lobular breast cancer depending on the origin. The majority of breast cancers develop sporadically, but for 5-10% of patients there is an inherited factor associated with increased breast cancer risk, namely the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Women with abnormal BRCA1 or BRCA2 have higher risk of developing breast cancer...Read more

A new Pathology Atlas is launched today with an analysis of all human genes in all major cancers showing the consequence of their corresponding protein levels for overall patient survival. The difference in expression patterns of individual cancers observed in the study strongly reinforces the need for personalized cancer treatment based on precision medicine. In addition, the systems level approach used to construct the Pathology Atlas demonstrates the power of "big data" to change how medical research is performed.

The dream of personalized treatment for cancer patients takes a major step forward today with the launch by Swedish researchers of the Human Pathology Atlas...Read more

TPX2 was identified in 1997 as a 100 kDa nuclear protein. In cells TPX2, a is a microtubule nucleation factor that translocates from the nucleus - where it resides during interphase - to the mitotic spindle during mitosis.

The mitotic spindle forms when chromosomes are ready to segregate during cell division and not surprisingly this protein is also found in this specific compartment of the cell! TPX2 is required for the correct formation of the kinetochores that is crucial for the attachment of microtubules, enabling the sister chromatids to be pulled apart. Due to its function TPX2 expression is cell-cycle dependent...Read more

Melanoma is a common form of cancer in the skin and among skin cancers it is the most deadly form. Melanoma originates from cells of melanocytic origin and most typically begins as a small intraepidermal tumor (melanoma in situ). As the tumor continues to grow and progress, tumor cells invade the epidermis and eventually spread to regional lymph nodes and subsequently via hematogenic spread to distant organs. Tumor thickness of the primary tumor is the most important determining prognostic factor and thus is early discovery of key importance for survival.

The cancer image of the month shows skin with growth of a cutaneous melanoma...Read more

A team from the Human Protein Atlas is attending the AACR Annual Meeting 2017 in Washington DC right now. This year, the meeting covers topics on research propelling cancer prevention and cures. The Human Protein Atlas is represented by a booth where researchers give a personalized tutorial of the portal to interested visitors. In addition, a demo version of a new Pathology Atlas containing information on prognostic genes and proteins associated with clinical outcome. The Pathology Atlas focuses on 17 major cancer types in humans...Read more

Renal cell cancer is a relatively common form of human cancer. Tumors develop in the kidney and have a tendency to grow into renal veins and metastasize to distant organs without the spread to regional lymph nodes as is common for many other tumor types.

This particular case shows a papillary form of renal cell cancer that grows with papillary excrescences into cyst formations and with areas of necrosis. The tumor has been stained with an antibody (HPA005785) that recognizes the CD44 protein.

CD44 is a cell-surface glycoprotein and a receptor for hyaluronic acid that is involved in cell-cell interactions, cell adhesion and migration...Read more

In two recent publications the group of Fredrik Pontén in Uppsala has identified two very strong, independent biomarkers for the prognostic stratification of breast cancer and renal cell carcinoma.

Renal cell carcinoma is the most common type of cancer affecting the kidney and there is an unmet clinical need for better prognostic and diagnostic tools for it. Diagnosis and subtyping of renal cell carcinoma are achieved through the morphological analysis of tumor sections. The application of immunohistochemistry can reveal important additional clues during the diagnostic work-up...Read more

In a recent publication in JCI Insight researchers from the Human Protein Atlas have described the expression of the currently known cancer-testis antigens (CTAs) in non-small cell lung cancer, and have added 50 new CTAs to this list.

Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer related death in Sweden and worldwide. Most patient present with advanced disease and have a short life expectancy despite modern therapy.

Dijana Djureinovic is a PhD student in the group of Cecilia Lindskog at Science for Life Laboratory. She started her PhD studies two years ago, but worked in the project before that, on antibody validation...Read more

Loss of ASRGL1 expression is an independent biomarker for disease-specific survival in endometrioid endometrial carcinoma

The ASRGL1 protein is a novel, powerful, and independent biomarker for prognosis in endometrial carcinoma.

In a recent study by scientists from the Human Protein Atlas project and collaborators at the University of Bergen and University of Turku, the l-asparaginase (ASRGL1) protein was identified as an endometrial carcinoma biomarker candidate by searches in the HPA-database.

ASRGL1 expression was immunohistochemically evaluated on two large independent endometrial carcinoma cohorts using an extensively validated antibody...Read more

Novel biomarkers for prostate cancer found while defining the prostate specific transcriptome and proteomeTo better understand the function of the prostate and diseases associated with it, it is important to explore the molecular constituents that make up the prostate gland.

In a recent study by scientists from the Human Protein Atlas project and colleagues both gene and protein expression profiles were investigated in prostate tissue and compared to 26 other human tissues. The aim was to identify potential prostate specific biomarkers for potential clinical use...Read more

Majority of differentially expressed genes are down-regulated during malignant transformation in a four-stage model

From primary to malignant - what changes? Bridging transcriptomics and proteomics to reveal the molecular changes during malignant transformation in a four-step cancer cell line model

In order to find out more about the changes that occur when a primary cell is transformed into an aggressive cancer cell, integration of biological information has proven to be successful. By bridging transcriptomics and antibody based proteomics data we showed how the major changes during malignant transformation could be scrutinized...Read more

A prognosis based classification of undifferentiated uterine sarcomas: Identification of mitotic index, hormone receptors and YWHAE-FAM22 translocation status as predictors of survival

Undifferentiated uterine sarcomas (UUS) are rare tumors with a heterologous biology and a poor prognosis.

In a recent study by scientists from the Human Protein Atlas project and colleagues, the relevance of clinicopathology, mitotic index, translocation status (YWHAE-FAM22), and a number of biomarker candidates were examined for correlation with the prognosis of these tumors. The protein biomarkers P53, P16, Ki-67, Cyclin-D1, ER, PR, and ANLN were evaluated by immunohistochemistry...Read more

In a study performed by scientists at Uppsala University, in collaboration with Gothenburg University and the Human Protein Atlas project, the expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) was evaluated in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

To clarify previous inconsistences concerning the prognostic impact of COX-2 expression in NSCLC, the association between COX-2 transcript levels (encoded by the gene PTGS2) and overall survival in nine publicly available gene expression microarray data sets were evaluated as well as the in situ protein expression of COX-2 in tumor and stromal cells in two independent NSCLC cohorts...Read more

Elevated expression of the C-type lectin CD93 in the glioblastoma vasculature regulates cytoskeletal rearrangements that enhance vessel function and reduce host survival

CD93 encodes for a cell-surface glycoprotein and is expressed in myeloid cells and endothelial cells. CD93 has recently been identified as an important gene in primary tumor angiogenesis and the corresponding protein has been shown to have proangiogenic properties. In the present study the role of CD93 in malignant glioma was analyzed. The effect on glioblastoma vessels and tumor growth was studied...Read more