Chemical tools to monitor bladder cancer progression

Abstract

Background

Bladder cancer (BCa) is the most common cancer of the urinary system. Due to its high incidence and recurrence, as well as limited progress in the effective treatment, BCa is a challenge for today's medicine.

Materials and Methods

We used a set of chromogenic substrates to differentiate between the stages of bladder cancer progression (G1 (n = 10), G2 (n = 10), G3 (n = 10)). The proteolytic activity in individual the urine samples was determined by absorbance measurements. Then inhibitors of particular classes of enzymes were used to determine which enzymes dominate at a given stage of the neoplastic disease.

Results

The specific activity of enzymes in the urine of patients with confirmed bladder cancer was determined separately for three (G1, G2, G3) stages of the disease development. What is more, no activity was observed in urine of healthy people (n = 10).

Discussion

Research shows that specific enzymes are associated with the development of specific stages of cancer. We suspect that the differences in the proteolytic activity of urine samples are due to the presence of a different set of enzymes that are directly related to the particular stage of the disease.

Conclusion

We obtained three substrates for monitoring individual stages of bladder cancer development.

Keywords:

• Bladder cancer
• chromogenic substrates
• cancer development

Clinical significance

The method of differentiating the degree of bladder cancer development presented in the publication may be a practical tool during follow-up examinations of patients. The obtained results indicate the potential use in the diagnosis of bladder cancer.

Author contribution

Conceptualization, A.L. and N.G.; methodology, N.G., A.L.; investigation, N.G; resources, L.S.; writing—original draft preparation, N.G. and A.L.; writing—review and editing, N.G. and A.L.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available in PubMed-NCBI database at PubMed (nih.gov)