Gene expression in primary and metastatic kidney cancer to discover drivers of metastasis and targets for drug development

Background An estimated 63,920 cases of kidney cancer will occur in the USA in 2015, and about 13,860 deaths will occur. The incidences of kidney cancer has steadily increased by 2-4% each year. Currently high dose IL (Interleukin)2, VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) inhibitors, and mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) inhibitors are often used to treat metastatic kidney cancer, but all of the above treatments lead to a median survival between 1-2 years. Therefore, there is a large role for discovering new drugs against new molecules that drive cancer growth. Although the understanding of biology leading to better treatments will likely require analysis of metastatic tumor tissue, most studies have only analyzed the primary tumor. We studied both primary and metastatic tumors from FFPE tissue to identify new kinase genes expressed in metastatic tumors compared to primary kidney tumors. These data may enable the design of new drugs, since it is relatively easier to design kinase inhibitors.