Cancer/Testis Antigens: "Smart" Biomarkers for Diagnosis and Prognosis of Prostate and Other Cancers.

ABSTRACT: A clinical dilemma in the management of prostate cancer (PCa) is to distinguish men with aggressive disease who need definitive treatment from men who may not require immediate intervention. Accurate prediction of disease behavior is critical because radical treatment is associated with high morbidity. Here, we highlight the cancer/testis antigens (CTAs) as potential PCa biomarkers. The CTAs are a group of proteins that are typically restricted to the testis in the normal adult but are aberrantly expressed in several types of cancers. Interestingly, >90% of CTAs are predicted to belong to the realm of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), which do not have unique structures and exist as highly dynamic conformational ensembles, but are known to play important roles in several biological

SUBMITTER: Kulkarni P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5412325 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature