Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to analyze the relationship between tumor thymidylate synthase (TS) mRNA expression levels and raltitrexed/pemetrexed/5-FU sensitivity.
Patients and methods
We collected freshly removed colorectal tumor specimens from 50 patients. Chemosensitivities to anticancer drugs were evaluated by histoculture drug response assay. We adopted quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction for TS mRNA detection and immunohistochemical staining for assessing TS expression in tumor tissues.
Results
There is a significant relationship between TS mRNA expression levels and in vitro chemosensitivity of freshly removed colorectal tumor specimens to pemetrexed (P < 0.001)/raltitrexed (P = 0.004)/5-FU (P = 0.007).
Conclusions
TS mRNA expression levels can predict pemetrexed and raltitrexed sensitivity in colorectal cancer.
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Acknowledgments
The study was supported by Drum Tower Hospital (Nanjing, China), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number: 81172094; Grant sponsor: Natural Science), the Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant Numbers: BK2011095, WS005).
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The authors declare no conflict of interests.
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Qun Zhang and Jie Shen have contributed equally to this work.
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Zhang, Q., Shen, J., Wang, H. et al. TS mRNA levels can predict pemetrexed and raltitrexed sensitivity in colorectal cancer. Cancer Chemother Pharmacol 73, 325–333 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00280-013-2354-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00280-013-2354-z