The article titled “The biology of cancer testis antigens: Putative function, regulation and therapeutic potential” gives an account of Cancer Testis Antigens (CTA) and their presence in human tumors of distinct histological origin. CTA are reliable for the administration of immunotherapeutic approaches due to their restricted patterns . Several clinical trials have already been conducted for the development of CTA-based vaccination therapies. Researchers were able to discover over 70 families of CTA from 140 individuals worldwide. According to the authors, while it is possible to extract a majority of the CTA during the process of spermatogenesis, the core function of these antigens is not known. One of the primary mechanisms responsible for the regulation of CTA is epigenetic events, such as DNA methylation. CTA expression finds its existence in normal, transformed as well as cancer stem cells .
With regards to CTA biology, the article discusses recent information about CTA function, regulation and expression. It provides a brief summary about significant clinical trials that examine CTA as a therapeutic agent. The authors assert that the current regimen of immunotherapy administered to cancer patients pharmacologically modulates the CTA expression profiles present in neoplastic cells . This is carried out by the drugs that hydromethylate the DNA. DHA plays a crucial role in directly acting upon CTA expression as it involves a continuous up-regulation of distinct molecules engaged in antigen presentation machinery . The article signifies the role of CTA expression as an agent that enables cancer cells to become prone to immunogenic and less prone to immune recognition. With regards to the future of CTA expression, the article suggests that there is a necessity to improve the efficacy of CTA-based therapies through possible combinations.
The article titled “‘Sex’ in the cancer cell” asserts that the progress of better diagnostic tools for accurate prognosis of cancer involves searching for biomarkers, which refer to molecules whose existence, absence or alteration in structure or quantity has a strong association specific types of tumor or therapeutic outcomes. The authors give an account of the CT antigen and its role in the testes, such as allowing a germline that consists of cells progressing through meiosis . The article further discusses about CT gene expression in cancerous tumors, thereby signifying its role in breast, ovarian, malignant and renal cancers. The CT activity is not merely confined to the testes as it is expressed in normal tissues and central nervous system. On the other hand, not all CT labels are unsuitable as biomarkers. The subsets of testes in the germline, which are silent in somatic cells, are referred to as meiotic cancer testis genes .
The article suggests that scientists have used bioinformatics pipeline for determining the validation of meiotic cancer testis genes on normal tissues, tumor tissues and cancer cell lines. After conducting a series of results by the scientists, it is evident that there are CT biomarkers for positive hits related to meiotic cancer testis gene expression in the case of ovarian cancer . Since both testes and ovaries undergo the process of meiosis, there is a similar gene expression between the two organs. The article claims that certain meiotic cancer testis genes possess certain properties, which correlate with invasive and metastatic aspects of cancer cells in a better way. Altogether, it is evident that certain prospects of meiotic cancer testis genes not only function as biomarkers, but also possess oncogenic properties that play a major role in targeted drug therapy .
Works Cited
Frattaa, Elisabetta, et al. "The biology of cancer testis antigens: Putative function, regulation and therapeutic potential." Molecular Oncology (2011): 164-182.
Lafta, Inam J., Helen E. Bryant and Alastair S. H. Goldman. "'Sex' in the Cancer Cell." Oncotarget (2014): 5(18), 7984-7985.
