Study on use of circulating tumor cells for diagnostics and malignancy analysis of pancreatic cancer

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K10617
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Digestive surgery
• Research Institution: Toyama Industrial Technology Research and Development Center
• Principal Investigator: Ohnaga Takashi 富山県産業技術研究開発センター, その他部局等, 副主幹研究員 (10416133)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 嶋田 裕 京都大学, 薬学研究科, 客員教授 (30216072) ; 藤井 努 富山大学, 大学院医学薬学研究部(医学), 教授 (60566967)
• Research Collaborator: Otsuka Motoyuki
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 血中循環腫瘍細胞 / 膵臓癌 / マイクロ流体デバイス / EGFR / シングルセル / 遺伝子解析

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We studied use of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) for diagnostics and malignancy analysis of pancreatic cancer (PC). Microfluidic devices having surface functions to capture CTCs by antibody had been developed by the authors and were applied to this study. Since CTCs at an early stage of PC was known to be hard to capture targeting EpCAM that is usually employed for CTC isolation, the surface markers suitable for the capture were explored. We found that EGFR was a good target to capture CTC in PC even at the early stage and cetuximab was a suitable antibody. Then, PC cells captured in the microfluidic device were released and put outside, and were genetically analyzed by ddPCR. We successfully detected KRAS mutation that is known to occur in early PC from a single PC cell.

Free Research Field

マイクロ流体デバイス

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

早期膵臓癌の確定診断・治療においては、現状では必要な膵臓へのアクセスや生検は極めて困難だが、本研究の末梢血を用いたCTC 検査による悪性度診断が可能となれば、異常が認められた際には直ちに検査し明確な診断や治療方針決定が可能となる。さらに膵臓の嚢胞や慢性的炎症などが認められるハイリスク患者については、低侵襲なCTC検査は繰り返し実施可能であるため、病状のモニタリングが可能となる。そしてこのような進歩が、膵臓癌による死亡の減少をもたらすことが予想される。また本提案から得られる成果は、胆管癌など他の早期発見が非常に困難な癌に展開可能であり、癌の診断・治療に広く貢献できることが予想される。