UCLA Cancer Researchers Shake Loose Hidden Biomarker

Using a common chemotherapy agent, researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center and the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine found a way to move an important biomarker expressed in prostate cancer, shaking it loose from one location in a cell – where it could not be accessed by blood – to another, easier to target area. The discovery, outlined in the cover article of May 11 edition of the peer-reviewed journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, could have important implications for using immunotherapy to treat prostate cancer, said Ayyappan K. Rajasekaran, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher and senior author of the article. The method discovered by the research team places the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) in a location on the cell that would allow blood-borne immunotherapies to access the biomarker, transforming it from a hidden target into an exposed one.