Pharmiweb: Pioneering research detects Hormone-Upregulated lncRNA within the lymphocyte-specific protein tyrosine kinase (HULLK) discovered in Prostate Cancer
BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Women’s collegiate club water polo coach/Associate Professor, Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology at the University of Virginia, Dr. Dan Gioeli and his research team at the UVA School of Medicine continue to be on the leading edge in the fight against prostate cancer.
The 2019 Atlantic Division Coach of the Year for leading the Wahoos to the division championship, Gioeli and fellow cancer researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine conducted pioneering research in collaboration with Manchester UK based APIS Assay Technologies Ltd to discover that Hormone-Upregulated lncRNA within the lymphocyte-specific protein tyrosine kinase (HULLK) is detectable in non-invasive prostate cancer patient samples.
The breakthrough data provides a potential new approach to address the unmet medical need of early diagnostics for prostate cancer, in combination with avoiding the invasive cancer tissue sample collection from biopsy.
Dr. Gioeli has shown that HULLK could be isolated from urine of prostate cancer patients and therefore provides a major advantage compared to current invasive sample collection.
The data on the detection of HULLK in urine samples from patients with high grade prostate cancer (PCa) was presented by Dr. Gioeli during the 2020 Annual Meeting of the Society for Basic Urologic Research, Inc (SBUR), on Saturday, November 14th.
APIS Assay Technologies and the University of Virginia entered into a Research Agreement in December 2019, after optioning the HULLK technology, which is described in a previous publication from Dr. Gioeli´s Group (Ta et al, Molecular Cancer, 18:113, 2019) demonstrating the potential role of this biomarker in FFPE samples from PCa patients.
HULLK an unannotated lncRNA is within exon six and the 3’UTR of the LCK gene, is dramatically upregulated by androgen in a dose-dependent manner, and this hormone-induced increase is completely blocked by the anti-androgen enzalutamide.
Remarkably, there was a significant positive correlation between HULLK expression and high-grade PCa in three independent cohorts: the University of Virginia, the University of Texas Southwestern, and The Cancer Genome Atlas.
Dr. Gioeli said: “Virtually all patients with metastatic prostate cancer (PCa) will relapse and develop lethal castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC)”. The new data being presented, continues to support the hypothesis on the potential use of HULLK as a biomarker for PCa.
“The latest data, which demonstrates the presence of this biomarker in non-invasive biofluids such as urine, is an exciting step forward” stated Ian Kavanagh, COO, of APIS Assay Technologies. “Our intention at APIS Assay Technologies is to implement HULLK into a clinically relevant signature for early detection of patients with metastatic prostate cancer and provide a guidance for further treatment.”
The overall goal of the collaboration between UVA and APIS is to address the unmet medical need associated with PCa and evaluate the level of HULLK in PCa patients in order to establish the parameters necessary for a clinical trial demonstrating the effectiveness of HULLK as a relevant Biomarker.
Information courtesy Dr. Dan Gioeli
