NQO1 and P450R in colorectal cancer

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    NQO1 and P450R expression in colorectal cancer

  • IRAS ID

    189184

  • Contact name

    Mark Hull

  • Contact email

    m.a.hull@leeds.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University of Leeds

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    0 years, 3 months, 0 days

  • Research summary

    Summary

    Endoscopic removal of bowel tumours as opposed to traditional surgical resection is a growing area of interest. There is however a risk of tumours growing back after they have been removed endoscopically. This is because there may be a small number of tumour cells left behind after the tumour has been removed. A potential way of reducing the risk of tumours growing back would be to spray on a topical anti-tumour drug called EO9 after the tumour has been removed by the endoscope, which would kill remaining tumour cells.
    For EO9 to work, it needs to be activated by a certain type of protein. If there was more of this kind of protein in tumour tissue than normal tissue, the drug would be activated more against these cells, meaning fewer and less troublesome side effects. Our research group has available 28 tissue samples already removed from patients with bowel cancer stored in our laboratory as part of another approved project. We would like to test these samples to measure the levels of two proteins which could activate the new drug, NQO1 and P450R, in normal tissue and tumour tissue. If our results showed more of these proteins in the cancer tissue, it would strengthen the case to further pursue EO9 as a new bowel tumour drug.

    Results Summary
    This project investigated the presence in bowel cancer tissue of two proteins called NQ01 and P450R, which are important for controlling oxidative stress, but also activate a drug called E09 that could be used for treating cancer selectively if levels of either NQ01 or P450R were higher in cancer tissue than normal bowel.

    We stained human cancer tissue slides using antibodies to NQ01 and P450R and showed that both proteins were present at higher levels in cancer cells but were also detected in neighbouring normal bowel wall.

  • REC name

    West of Scotland REC 4

  • REC reference

    15/WS/0214

  • Date of REC Opinion

    22 Oct 2015

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion