Investigation of EPS8 and kank1 gene expressions in peripheral blood of pancreatic cancer patients

Pancreatic cancer is a disease that cannot be diagnosed at an early stage and has no effective treatment. The only curative option is surgical resection, overall survival is short. CA19-9 is the only FDA-approved biomarker used in the management of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. There is no screening test used for the early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in routine practice. Therefore, studies should be conducted to search for new therapeutic targets and to identify useful prognostic markers. It has been shown that EPS8 and KANK1 gene expression levels determined in published in silico studies and literature review are extremely important in pancreatic cancer. While the EPS8 gene is not expressed in normal pancreatic cells, its expression is extremely high in pancreatic tumor cells. Also, both genes are associated with the cytoskeletal system. The cytoskeleton plays an important role in cancer development and metastasis. For this purpose, the expression levels of EPS8 and KANK1 genes in 68 patients with pancreatic cancer and 71 healthy individuals were examined in the thesis study and it was investigated whether they could be biomarkers for early diagnosis. The expressions of these two genes were determined by qPCR method from RNA obtained from peripheral blood of the participants and the results were analyzed with SPSSv28. As a result; in the peripheral blood of pancreatic cancer patients; EPS8 expression level increased 1.62 times and KANK1 expression level 2.88 times compared to healthy controls, which was statistically significant (p < 0.05). In addition, it was determined that there was a significant relationship between EPS8 expression level in the peripheral blood and the survival status of the patients. (p = 0.027). A statistically significant correlation was found between KANK1 expression level and pancreatic cancer patients with a family history of prostate cancer. (p = 0.048). In summary, in the ROC analysis showing whether EPS8 and KANK1 genes can be used as non-invasive biomarkers for pancreatic cancer in peripheral blood, both genes were found to be statistically significant biomarkers.