Abstract

CIRCULATING MITOCHONDRIAL DNA’S PREDICTIVE SIGNIFICANCE IN PANCREATIC CANCER

Nitin Kumar Singh*, Vivek Kumar, Dharmendra Kumar, Shikha Singh, Nalini Dwivedi, Shruti Singh Bhadauria, Siddhartha Kumar Mishra*, Varsha Gupta*, Ajeet Kumar, Firoz Ahmad

ABSTRACT

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the fourteenth most common malignancy, is a major contributor to cancer-related death with the utmost case fatality rate among all malignancies. Regardless of how sophisticated their microenvironment is in comparison to normal cells; functional mitochondria are crucial to the evolution of PDAC. Mitochondria aid in the ability of tumor cells to create ATP as energy while maintaining the optimal redox potential and allocating resources for biosynthetic processes that are essential for cell growth, survival, and proliferation. Through inter-metabolic interaction, polyclonal tumor cells with various metabolic characteristics may contribute to carcinogenesis. Mutations in the mitochondrial genome are common in cancer cells, although they do not impair metabolism; rather, they affect bioenergetics. Because pancreatic cancer is a powerful and frequently fatal disease, it is important to thoroughly investigate prognostic indicators to improve therapeutic management
approaches. Even while much is known about the genetic makeup of pancreatic cancer, there still much to learn about the prognostic significance of circulating mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Essential cellular organelles that provide energy, mitochondria have become important participants in the biology of cancer. To improve risk assessment and guide individualized treatment plans, this research attempts to clarify the possible prognostic relevance of circulating mt DNA in pancreatic cancer.

Keywords: pancreatic cancer, mitochondria, tumor microenvironment, anticancer.