Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between haplotype-tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the Aurora Kinase A (AURKA) gene and prostate cancer outcomes in patients with clinically localized prostate cancer.
Methods:Four intronic haplotype-tagging SNPs within the AURKA gene were individually selected and examined in regard to their influence on clinical outcomes in 212 patients who underwent radical prostatectomy as first-line treatment. Haplotype-tagging SNPs were selected using the ABI SNP Browser to cover SNPs with an r 2 of 0.90 or greater in the AURKA gene with a minor allele frequency of at least 0.25.
Results:In our study, a log-rank univariate analysis was performed to identify significant associations between probability of recurrence-free survival or disease-free survival and known prognostic indicators as well as AURKA genotypes. The prognostic indicators Gleason grade, surgical margin, extracapsular extension, and disease stage were associated with recurrence-free survival (all p<0.001). Only Gleason grade was associated with disease-free survival (p<0.001). No associations were found for the SNPs rs1468055, rs8117896, rs2064863, and rs1468056 analyzed for either RFS (p=0.7213, p=0.5140, p=0.0714, p=0.4731, respectively) or DFS (p=0.3282, p=0.1909, p=0.4111, p=0.5014, respectively). Clinical data on patient follow-up at Vanderbilt University Medical Center were retrospectively gathered via electronic medical records. The mean follow-up for disease-free survival and assessment of prostate cancer progression were 8.3 ± 2.4-y and 4.4 ± 3.9-y, respectively. The endpoints analyzed were recurrence-free survival (RFS) and diseasefree survival (DFS). Recurrence post-prostatectomy was classified as biochemical (which has been shown to be a poor predictor of overall survival in patients with localized prostate cancer treated with radical prostatectomy) [14], local or distant, and the most advanced recurrence type documented was assigned to each patient. Biochemical recurrence was defined as a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) detection of > 0.1 ng/ ml in at least two consecutive tests. DFS was defined as the length of time between the date of prostatectomy to the date of death or last follow-up.
Conclusions
Genotyping of Aurora Kinase A polymorphisms in prostate cancer samplesProstatectomy specimens were processed and genomic DNA extracted from deparaffinizedspecimens as described previously [15]. Purified genomic DNA was genotyped for the following haplotypetagging SNPs in the AURKA gene: rs1468055, rs8117896, rs2064863, and rs1468056. Haplotype-tagging SNPs (htSNPs) were selected using the ABI SNP Browser to cover SNPs with an r 2 of 0.90 or greater in the AURKA gene with a minor allele frequency (MAF) of at least 0.25. A total of 4 SNPs were selected and genotyped in our patient cohort. Allelic discrimination of these AURKA polymorphisms was performed using Taqman SNP genotyping assays (Applied Biosystems: and C_8947664_10 [rs1468056]). The fina...