Epigenetic alterations related to efficacy of neoadjuvant therapy before esophagectomy

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K10124
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Digestive surgery
• Research Institution: National Center for Global Health and Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Yamada Kazuhiko 国立研究開発法人国立国際医療研究センター, その他部局等, 医長 (70401081)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 河村 由紀 国立研究開発法人国立国際医療研究センター, その他, 消化器病態生理研究室長 (10392391)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 癌 / 食道扁平上皮癌 / 化学放射線療法

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is an aggressive form of cancer. Surgery and combined therapies, such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or synchronous chemoradiotherapy, have significantly developed in the past several years. To improve the survival rate of ESCC, identifying new markers to predict efficacy of preoperative chemotherapy and/or irradiation is urgently needed. The aim of this study is to identify differences in gene expression and epigenetic alterations between between responders and non-responders who have received neoadjuvant chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy before esophagectomy for ESCC. We performed integrative transcriptomics by RNA sequencing and methylome sequencing by methyl-DNA immunoprecipitation (MeDIP) analysis. We found genes whose expression levels were different between responders and non-responders; however, there was no difference in their DNA methylation levels between responders and non-responders.

Free Research Field

消化器外科