Abstract
Colorectal cancer (CRC) mortality rates dropped by half in the past three decades, but CRC continues to demonstrate racial disparities in incidence and survival. It is believed that unfavorable socioeconomic conditions may lead to an inflammatory phenotype. Furthermore, epigenetic events play a major role in regulating inflammatory genes that have been linked to CRC health disparities. The objective of the study was to identify gene(s) that are dysregulated in CRC using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, and, furthermore, to characterize those genetic event(s) that are associated with CRC health disparities. The Engrailed-2 (En2) gene encodes for a homeobox-containing transcription factor regulating embryonic brain development. The data indicate that Nanog, IL-8, and EN2 were upregulated in colorectal cancer. EN2 was highly expressed in CRC stem cells and cell lines but its expression was very low or absent in normal cells. EN2 gene was highly expressed in CRC tissues derived from African American patients compared to those from Caucasian Americans. The expression of EN2 significantly increased with patients' age. There was no difference in EN2 expression between males and females of CRC patients. Higher expression of EN2 was correlated with poor survival of CRC patients with greater IL-8 expression. EN2 may act as a novel prognostic biomarker for CRC. Our data indicate that CRC disparities may be associated with epigenetic factors regulating the inflammatory environment.
Citation Format: Y.M. Ma, S.K. Roy, R.K. Srivastava, S. Shankar. Epigenetics and inflammatory environment may contribute to racial disparities in colorectal cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eleventh AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2018 Nov 2-5; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(6 Suppl):Abstract nr C066.
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