Natural Killer-like response in rectal cancer
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Natural Killer-like response to chemoradiotherapy in locally advanced rectal cancer predicts tumour regression
IRAS ID
196845
Contact name
Manuel Salto-Tellez
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Queens University Belfast
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 8 months, 2 days
Research summary
We at the Northern Ireland Molecular Pathology Laboratory at Queen's University Belfast have detected a Natural killer-like gene expression signature in our cohort of 48 locally advanced rectal cancer patients which is observed in a tumour regression dependent manner. The genes are shown to be increased after preoperative chemoradiotherapy in patients that respond to therapy but remain unchanged in patients classed as non-responders.
Natural killer cells are immune cells that are known to destroy tumour cells. Therefore determining their presence in a large cohort of post therapeutic rectal cancer patients may indicate their involvement in tumour regression and direct further research into harnessing these immune cells with the intentions of increasing therapeutic efficacy in locally advanced rectal cancer.
We would like to interrogate a tissue microarray of 321 post-therapy rectal resections for natural killer cell markers (CD56+ immunohistochemistry antibodies and a Natural killer Receptor genes using RNA in situ hybridisation). This work will require a total of 5 sections of the whole tissue microarray. This will allow us to interrogate the samples for 4 Natural Killer associated markers and also assess the quality of the material using a positive control stain.The expression of the markers will be scored by the Chief Investigator Professor Manuel Salto-Tellez and subsequent association with the tumour regression grade of each patient will be assessed.
REC name
West Midlands - Solihull Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/WM/0084
Date of REC Opinion
11 Feb 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion