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Sandy Srinivas, MD
Sandy Srinivas, MD
Posted: Friday, September 30, 2022
Researchers at the Center for Biomedical Research at Tuskegee University, Alabama, have conducted two studies that examine whether tumor biology of prostate cancers may be influenced by African ancestry. First, they discovered a potential connection between African genetic ancestry and mutation in the tumor suppressor gene SPOP. Second, they discovered that genetic variants were similar between prostate tumors in Nigerian and African American men and that the frequency of BRCA1 mutations increased with higher proportions of African genetic ancestry. Clayton Yates, PhD, the senior author on both studies, presented these findings at the 2022 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial and Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved. The results of the second study were also published in Cancer Research Communications.
For the first study, the researchers sequenced tumors from 72 patients from the United States. They discovered that most of the African American patients were more likely to experience mutations in SPOP, a gene previously linked to aggressive prostate cancers and mutated in about 10% to 15% of all prostate cancers. These genetic markers were consistent with those in the tumors of patients of African descent, particularly the Bantu and Yoruba subpopulations.
In the second study, the researchers compared DNA sequences from tumors of Nigerian, African American, and European American patients. The researchers sequenced 45 advanced-stage tumors from treatment-naive patients and 11 nontumor prostate samples from Nigerian patients. These sequences were compared with those from African American and European American patients in The Cancer Genome Atlas database. The study revealed similar genetic variants in the BRCA1 gene of Nigerian and African American patients. According to the study authors, the results of this study may introduce treatment changes (particularly those targeting BRCA) to the treatment of prostate cancer in patients of African descent.
Disclosure: For full disclosures of the study authors, visit ascopost.com.
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