Institute of Experimental Medicine CAS

Published 19. 05. 2022

Josef Horák, M.D., works at the Department of Molecular Biology of Cancer, where he is engaged in research on colon and pancreatic cancer. He received the Award at the recent conference "Genetic Toxicology and Cancer Prevention" in Telč (CZ).

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Whereas in the early stages, the surgery is very efficient, the treatment relies on systemic therapies in the late stages. Cancer cells can survive under extreme conditions and evolve protective mechanisms. Significant efforts are currently being dedicated to identifying patients who will or will not benefit from chemotherapy. In fact, drug resistance is a limiting factor to the efficacy of chemotherapy in CRC treatment. Therefore, the research aimed to map transcriptomic profiles and sources of gene deregulation in 10 metastatic colorectal cancer samples to discover the potential new targets for metastatic colorectal cancer therapy. 

In conclusion, our scientists found more than 6000 differently expressed genes in the metastatic sample compared to the non-malignant colon tissue. Copy number variants appeared to be the significant source of deregulation, followed by methylation. Somatic mutation came out as the only minor source in our cohort.