Presentation on Trop2 as a Driver of Metastatic Prostate Cancer with Neuroendocrine Phenotype via PARP1
By Dr Albert Ngo, PhD
Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU) Division of Cancer Research and Training, Cancer Center, and Axis Center, under the leadership of Dr Jay Vadgama hosts a weekly cancer journal club presentation every Monday from 12:00PM-2:00PM PST. This weekly presentation is an excellent opportunity for the presenter to improve his/her critical appraisal skills with respect to peer-reviewed and published scholarly articles.
It is from this perspective that Dr. Albert Ngo, Assistant Professor at the American University of Health Sciences, presented on the following article: “Trop2 is a Driver of Metastatic Prostate Cancer with Neuroendocrine Phenotype via PARP1,” Hsu, En-Chi, et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNSAS), 2020. The guest speaker, Dr Ngo, started off his presentation by providing a brief literature review. For instance, in 2020 a man died of prostate cancer every 16 minutes. Next, Dr. Ngo discussed the major findings from the research article published by Hsu, E.n-Chi, et al. They, among other points, demonstrated that tumor-associated calcium signal transducer 2 (Trop2) is a cell surface glycoprotein which has emerged as a promising therapeutic target due to its overexpression in multiple epithelial cancers. The other major findings of this research article in the PNSAS are the following: (1) Trop2 drives neuroendocrine transdifferentiation, characterized by loss of luminal markers such as AR, expression of neuroendocrine markers, and elevated levels of PARP1; and (2) PARP1 inhibitors may represent a promising therapeutic strategy for metastatic prostate cancer expressing elevated levels of Trop2.
