Target Discovery and Validation Reviews and Protocols

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Target Discovery and Validation in Pancreatic Cancer
Robert M. Beaty, Mads Gronborg, Jonathan R. Pollack,
and Anirban Maitra
Summary
Pancreatic cancer is a lethal disease and rational strategies for early detection and targeted
therapies are urgently required to alleviate the dismal prognosis of this neoplasm. The use of
global RNA and protein expression-profiling technologies, such as DNA microarrays, serial
analysis of gene expression, and mass spectrometric analysis of proteins, have led to identification
of cellular targets with considerable potential for clinical application and patient care. These
studies underscore the importance of pursuing large-scale profiling of human cancers not only for
furthering our understanding of the pathogenesis of these malignancies but also for developing
strategies to improve patient outcomes.
Key Words: Bioinformatics; DNA microarrays; pancreatic cancer; proteomics; target discovery;
serial analysis of gene expression; SAGE.
1. Introduction
1.1. Pancreatic Cancer
Infiltrating ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas, more commonly known as
“pancreatic cancer” is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths in the United
States (1). It is estimated that in 2006, approx 213,000 individuals worldwide will
be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and approx 213,000 will die from this cancer
(2). It is an almost uniformly fatal disease, with an overall 5-yr survival rate of less
than 5%. The majority (~80%) of patients present with locally advanced or with
metastatic malignancies, rendering the cancers surgically unresectable. Unfortunately,
even patients who undergo surgical resection eventually succumb to
metastatic disease, including those cases where the primary lesion was extremely
small at diagnosis (3). The implication is that pancreatic cancer must metastasize
distantly, before clinical presentation, in virtually all cases. A small number of
From: Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 360, Target Discovery and Validation Reviews and Protocols
Volume I, Emerging Strategies for Targets and Biomarker Discovery
Edited by: M. Sioud © Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJ
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