Abstract
Background: This communication reports the identification of a new panel of transcriptional changes in inflammation-associated genes observed in response to ionising radiation received by radiotherapy patients.
Methods: Peripheral blood samples were taken with ethical approval and informed consent from a total of 20 patients undergoing external beam radiotherapy for breast, lung, gastrointestinal or genitourinary tumours. Nanostring nCounter analysis of transcriptional changes was carried out in samples prior and 24 h post-delivery of the 1st radiotherapy fraction, just prior to the 5th or 6th fraction, and just before the last fraction.
Results: Statistical analysis with BRB-ArrayTools, GLM MANOVA and nSolver, revealed a radiation responsive panel of genes which varied by patient group (type of cancer) and with time since exposure (as an analogue for dose received), which may be useful as a biomarker of radiation response.
Conclusion: Further validation in a wider group of patients is ongoing, together with work towards a full understanding of patient specific responses in support of personalised approaches to radiation medicine.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 83 |
| Journal | Radiation Oncology |
| Volume | 16 |
| Early online date | 3 May 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 3 May 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information: This work was partly supported by the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Chemical and Radiation Threats and Hazards at Newcastle University in partnership with Public Health England (PHE) and partly funded by the NIHR HPRU in Chemical and Radiation Threats and Hazards a partnership between PHE and Imperial College London. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR, PHE or the Department of Health and Social Care. The multi-panel coding and non-coding transcriptional responses as an indicator of individualized responses to radiation effects in radiation therapy patients, RTGene project, received a pilot Grant from the Opportunity Funds Management Core of the Centers for Medical Countermeasures against Radiation, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Bethesda, MD) (Grant No. U19AI067773) in collaboration with Columbia University (New York, NY). We acknowledge NHS funding to the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at The Royal Marsden and ICR.Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this
licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s).
Citation: Cruz-Garcia, L., Badie, C., Anbalagan, S. et al. An ionising radiation-induced specific transcriptional signature of inflammation-associated genes in whole blood from radiotherapy patients: a pilot study. Radiat Oncol 16, 83 (2021).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13014-021-01807-4
Keywords
- Blood
- Cancer
- Gene expression
- Inflammation
- Ionising radiation
- NCounter
- RT-qPCR
- Radiotherapy
- Transcription
