Josh Atkins: Identifying Proteomic Risk Factors
Josh Atkins, Senior Cancer Genomic Epidemiologist at the Nuffield Department of Population Health of Oxford University, made the following post on X:
“TL:DR: on our paper -> Identifying proteomic risk factors for cancer using prospective and exome analysis of 1463 circulating proteins and risk of 19 cancers in the UK Biobank led by Keren Papier, Karl Smith-Byrne, Ruth Travis and myself Oxford Population Health.
Using the invaluable UK Biobank and the Olink Proteomics data, we investigated 1,463 proteins across 19 common cancers, finding 618 protein-cancer associations…. (Thanks Trishna Desai for this great figure 1)
When we stratified out into < 3 yrs to diagnosis, 3-7 yrs and > 7 yrs (median time do diagnosis in this group was 12 yrs). In the >7 yrs group we identified 107 protein-cancer associations…..
We identified 182 proteins that differed <3 years before diagnosis –> providing a potential marker for immediate cancer
Out of the 618, we wanted to see if any were targets of drugs currently available – we found 38 drugs including Pembrolizumab for PDCD1. This work was done by the very talented Chibuzor Ogamba.
Out of the 618 – we wanted to identify if there was any genetic evidence to support these associations -> We used cis-pQTL but also created exome scores (projected into the full ukbb exome data). We found strong evidence for one cis hit and 28 proteins using the exome-scores
We found 4 proteins-cancer associations that had evidence from all analysis performed
In a non-scientific summary -> we have shown proteins in the blood associated with changes before cancer diagnosis and in some cases greater than a decade out. Many of these are also driven by genetics that are associated with cancer risk. Paving the way for precision prevention.
A shout out to Science and Innovation at Cancer Research UK and everyone that donates/volunteers to them. Without funding this kind of work isn’t possible. Also to everyone that donated samples in the UK Biobank. The research community cannot thank you enough for bulding this wonderful resource.”
Source: Josh Atkins/X
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