Abstract
Early diagnosis of cancer and early detection of relapse following surgery are critical for the effective treatment of the disease and for a positive clinical outcome. Identification of novel diagnostic, prognostic and predictive biomarkers will contribute utmost to clinical decision-making. The human tissue kallikrein and kallikrein-related peptidases (KLKs), encoded by the largest contiguous cluster of protease genes in the human genome, are secreted serine proteases with diverse expression patterns and physiological roles. The aberrant expression of KLKs in various malignancies as well as their involvement in many cancer-related processes, such as cell growth regulation, angiogenesis, invasion, and metastasis, has prompted scientists to investigate their potential as cancer biomarkers. Expression of distinct KLKs is associated with clinicopathological parameters of cancer patients. Moreover, several KLKs possess significant favorable or unfavorable prognostic value in various malignancies, with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) being the most widely used biomarker in clinical practice, today. KLKs are also considered as very promising biomarkers for cancer personalized medicine, especially for prediction and monitoring of patients’ response to chemotherapy, therefore opening up new horizons towards effective patient monitoring post-treatment. This review describes the current status of KLKs as tumor biomarkers.
About the authors
Dr. Christos K. Kontos is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Athens. His research interests include the discovery and study of novel cancer biomarkers in the prognosis of colorectal cancer, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, and hematological malignancies, as well as the cloning of alternatively spliced variants of cancer-related genes. So far, he has participated in several demanding research grants and received two annual fellowships for scientific excellence by the National Hellenic Research Foundation. He has published eight original research papers in international peer-reviewed scientific journals and four mini-reviews in the Atlas of Genetics and Cytogenetics in Oncology and Haematology. Recently, he has also deposited 10 original sequences in Genbank.
Dr. Andreas Scorilas holds the position of Associate Professor of Clinical Biochemistry in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Athens. His research team’s interests include the discovery and study of novel cancer biomarkers in the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment monitoring of human malignancies, as well as the development of highly sensitive methodologies in Molecular Diagnostics. He was a major investigator in the discovery and cloning of several cancer-related genes, including the novel apoptotic gene BCL2L12, the novel carcinoembryonic antigen gene CEAL1 as well as three novel members of the Kallikrein gene family. Dr. Scorilas has been honored with several international scientific awards and coordinated numerous demanding research grants. So far, he has more than 190 publications in high impact international scientific journals, accompanied by >4200 citations (h index=36).
©2012 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
