Indian scientists find easier way to detect cancer
Elasticity and number of extracellular vesicles in body fluids could indicate tumour malignancy, finds study
Cancer has been a leading cause of death worldwide for decades
In a collaborative effort, Indian scientists from different institutes have found that sugar-coated pouches in body fluids could help detect cancer – a finding that could significantly reduce both time and effort in detecting cancer, one the leading causes of death worldwide for decades now.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), cancer accounted for about 10 million deaths in 2020, or nearly one in six deaths. Most common cancers are breast, lung, colon and rectum and prostate cancers. About one-third of deaths from cancer are due to tobacco use, high body mass index, alcohol consumption, low fruit and vegetable intake, and lack of physical activity.
Cancer-causing infections, such as human papillomavirus (HPV) and hepatitis, are responsible for about 30% of cancer cases in low- and lower-middle-income countries. However, many cancers can be cured if detected early and treated effectively.
Currently, cancer screenings are available in only select countries, and most hospitals rely on swab tests that not only take time, but also lead to detection of cancer at a late stage.
The team of Indian scientists say that detection of the cancer microenvironment could become much easier with the help of a new molecular biosensor recently developed by them.
According to them, cancer cells secrete small pouches, namely extracellular vesicles (EV) covered with sugar molecules, Hyaluronan (HA), which has a direct link to tumour malignancy and is considered a potential biomarker for early diagnosis of colon cancer.
These EVs are abundant in body fluids (blood, faeces, etc), and all types of cells secrete these EVs into the extracellular matrix. However, cancer cells secrete at least two times more EVs into the body fluids than normal cells. Therefore, these EVs could be isolated non-invasively from a patient’s body for early cancer diagnosis, say the scientists, whose research has been published in leading research magazines.
Dr. Tatini Rakshit laboratory, supported by Inspire faculty grant of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), at Shiv Nadar Institute of Eminence, Delhi, in collaboration with S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences (SNBNCBS), Kolkata, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, and IIT Bhilai, Chhattisgarh has unravelled the contour lengths of HA on a single cancer cell-derived EV surface.
Their study showed that a single cancer cell-derived EV is coated with very short chain HA molecules (contour length less than 500 nanometers) using single molecule techniques and mentioned that these short-chain HA-coated EVs are significantly more elastic than the normal cell-derived EVs.
“This intrinsic elasticity of HA-coated EVs in cancer helps them to withstand multiple external forces during extracellular transportation, uptake, excretion by cells, adhesion to cell surfaces, etc,” said their study.
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