title: Sarcosine as a potential prostate cancer biomarker--a review.
abstract: Prostate cancer (CaP) is the most common type of tumour disease in men. Early diagnosis of cancer of the prostate is very important, because the sooner the cancer is detected, the better it is treated. According to that fact, there is great interest in the finding of new markers including amino acids, proteins or nucleic acids. Prostate specific antigen (PSA) is commonly used and is the most important biomarker of CaP. This marker can only be detected in blood and its sensitivity is approximately 80%. Moreover, early stages cannot be diagnosed using this protein. Currently, there does not exist a test for diagnosis of early stages of prostate cancer. This fact motivates us to find markers sensitive to the early stages of CaP, which are easily detected in body fluids including urine. A potential is therefore attributed to the non-protein amino acid sarcosine, which is generated by glycine-N-methyltransferase in its biochemical cycle. In this review, we summarize analytical methods for quantification of sarcosine as a CaP marker. Moreover, pathways of the connection of synthesis of sarcosine and CaP development are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Central European Institute of Technology, Brno University of Technology, Technicka 3058/10, CZ-61600 Brno, Czech Republic. cernei.natalia3@gmail.com
authors.forename: Natalia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Cernei
authors.forename: Zbynek
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Heger
authors.forename: Jaromir
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gumulec
authors.forename: Ondrej
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Zitka
authors.forename: Michal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Masarik
authors.forename: Petr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Babula
authors.forename: Tomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Eckschlager
authors.forename: Marie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stiborova
authors.forename: Rene
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kizek
authors.forename: Vojtech
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Adam
mesh_terms: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000032:analysis* / Q000378:metabolism; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D016208:Databases, Factual; D050938:Glycine N-Methyltransferase / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D040081:Protein Array Analysis; D012521:Sarcosine / Q000032:analysis* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D050938:Glycine N-Methyltransferase; D012521:Sarcosine