On Friday 20 March, US researcher Dr. Chris Beecher from the University of Michigan gave a well attended lecture about sarcosine, an N-methyl derivative of the amino acid glycine, at the 24th Annual EAU Congress in Stockholm, Sweden.
Dr Beecher is a colleague of lead author Dr. Arun Sreekumar. The research of Sreekumar, Beecher and their team looked at more than 1,000 small molecules in tissues associated with prostate cancer. These findings suggest that not only is sarcosine a marker of cancer aggressiveness, it also has a role in endowing a cancer with malignant properties.
Sreekumar's publication in 'Nature' (457, 12 February 2009: 910-914) has attracted a lot of scientific and also popular attention. The EAU Scientific Congress Office inserted a special breaking news session in the congress programme in order to present the most updated scientific information in Stockholm.
Sarcosine may distinguish slow-growing prostate cancers from those likely to spread and become lethal. Conveniently, sarcosine can be identified in urine, a less invasive test than the blood analysis needed for the standard prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a protein produced by the cells of the prostate gland. PSA is present in small quantities in the serum of healthy men, and is often elevated in the presence of prostate cancer. Quite often men have PSA scores that fall into a grey area. Therefore, invasive biopsy is needed to clarify a diagnosis.