A gene signature of 8 genes could identify the risk of recurrence and progression in Dukes' B colon cancer patients

The benefit of postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with Dukes' B colorectal cancer is still uncertain and its routine use is not recommended. The five-year relapse rate is approximately 25-40% and the identification of patients at high risk of recurrence would represent an important strategy for the use of adjuvant chemotherapy. We retrospectively analyzed gene expression profiles in frozen tumor specimens from patients with Dukes' B colorectal cancer by using high density oligonucleotide microarrays. Our results show a subset of 48 genes differentially expressed with an associated probability <0.001 in the t-test. Another statistical procedure based on the Fisher criterion resulted in 11 genes able to separate both groups. We selected the 8 genes present in both subsets. The differential expression of five genes (CHD2, RPS5, ZNF148, BRI3 and MGC23401) in colon cancer progression was confirmed by real-time PCR in an independent set of patients of Dukes' B and C stages.