In recent years it has become apparent that, in addition to their role in promoting blood clotting, platelets take up protein and RNA molecules from tumors, possibly playing a role in tumor growth and metastasis.
The current study was designed to investigate whether tumor RNA carried in platelets could be used to diagnose and classify common types of cancer. The researchers isolated platelets from blood samples taken from 55 healthy donors, 39 individual with early-stage cancer and 189 patients with advanced, metastatic cancer. Patient participants had either non-small-cell lung cancer, colorectal cancer, glioblastoma, pancreatic cancer, hepatobiliary cancer or breast cancer.
After amplifying and sequencing the amount of platelet RNA found in the equivalent of a single drop of blood from each individual, the researchers identified more than 5,000 different platelet RNAs. Comparing RNA profiles of healthy donors with those of cancer patients revealed increased levels of almost 1,500 RNA molecules - many involved in cancer-associated processes - and reductions of almost 800 in samples from cancer patients.
Examination of the levels of around 1,000 RNAs from almost 300 individuals with the team's algorithm that classifies whether not they indicated the presence of cancer did so with 96 percent accuracy. All of the patients with localized tumors and 33 of the 39 with tumors of the central nervous system were accurately diagnosed.
Platelet mRNA profiles were able to identify the particular type of cancer in each patient participant, including distinguishing among three types of gastrointestinal adenocarcinoma - colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer and hepatobiliary cancer.
Platelets from patients with tumors driven by mutations in the KRAS or EGFR proteins, biomarkers that can guide the use of drugs targeting those mutations, proved to have unique RNA profiles as well.
http://www.cell.com/cancer-cell/abstract/S1535-6108(15)00349-9
Edited
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