Authors:
Rebecca E. Graff, Elizabeth Y. Wang, Henrik L. Bengtsson, Jung H. Suh, Adam A. Olshen, Ryan Allen, Erin L. Van Blarigan, Stacey A. Kenfield, Janet E. Cowan, Jeff Simko, June M. Chan
 
 
Affiliations:
University of California, San Francisco, Columbia University, Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
 
 
Abstract Body:
Background: Identifying serum metabolites associated with prostate cancer aggressiveness may elucidate mechanisms underlying disease severity and offer a non-invasive method of predicting prognosis. In this pilot study, we explored associations between select serum metabolites and Gleason score among men with prostate cancer.
 
Methods: Our convenience sample was comprised of 19 men with prostate cancer from a prospective urologic oncology database at the University of California, San Francisco. We selected 10 patients with a Gleason score of 7 (6 with 3+4 and 4 with 4+3) and nine patients with a Gleason score of 9 (6 with 4+5 and 3 with 5+4) based on samples from radical prostatectomy (RP). We tested for the presence of 269 polar metabolites in blood collected at the time of radical prostatectomy (RP). A priori, we selected 18 metabolites with previous suggestive evidence of associations with prostate cancer aggressiveness. We used a trimmed log normalization approach and non-parametric log rank tests to examine these 18 metabolites with respect to tumor grade.
 
Results: Serum serine (t = 3.02, p = 0.01) and ornithine (t = 2.15, p = 0.04) levels were nominally significantly higher in individuals with Gleason 9 prostate cancer than in individuals with Gleason 7 disease. After correcting for multiple testing using the Benjamini-Hochberg method, no associations were statistically significant.
 
Conclusions: Serine and ornithine, both of which are linked to insulin resistance, were suggestively differentially present between individuals with Gleason 7 and Gleason 9 prostate cancer. Future study in larger samples is warranted for validation purposes.
 
 
Funding Acknowledgments:
This work was supported by the National Cancer Institute (R01 CA181802) and the The Cancer League, Inc.
 
 
Corresponding Author Email:
Rebecca.Graff@ucsf.edu
 
 
Conflict of Interest:
Nothing to Disclose

A pilot study of circulating metabolites associated with high-grade prostate cancer