Tumor-educated platelets of pancreatic cancer cases from the viewpoint of EMT status

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K09194
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 55020:Digestive surgery-related
• Research Institution: Nagoya University
• Principal Investigator: HATTORI Norifumi 名古屋大学, 医学部附属病院, 病院講師 (70744051)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 小寺 泰弘 名古屋大学, 医学系研究科, 教授 (10345879) ; 山田 豪 名古屋大学, 医学系研究科, 講師 (30467287) ; 園原 史訓 名古屋大学, 医学部附属病院, 病院助教 (30745534) ; 林 真路 名古屋大学, 医学部附属病院, 病院講師 (70755503)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 膵癌 / 血小板 / バイオマーカー

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In recent years, the concept of tumor-educated platelets (TEP) has been reported. Although platelets do not have nuclei and RNA themselves, they could be stimulated by the surrounding environment of cancer cells and uptake tumor-originated RNAs. Since tumor-educated platelets are abundant in the blood and reflect hemostasis, inflammation, immune system, and crosstalk with tumors, we tried to collect them and find potential blood molecular biological biomarkers among them in pancreatic cancer cases and detected some candidate genes by high-throughput RNA-sequencing.
Among them, we focused on the expression levels of TEP linked-gene A, and applied it to 63 another TEP samples of pancreatic cancer cases. The expression of gene A was significantly higher in cases of early distant metastasis recurrence within 1 year. It may contribute the screening test of early distant metastatic cases.

Free Research Field

消化器外科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

膵癌に対する手術介入は、疾患を根治できる唯一の方法であるが、病勢進行例への適応は、かえってADLの悪化や早期再発の原因となる。その見極めは、現存の血清マーカーや画像診断、病理診断では限界があり、選別が重要な課題である。本研究はそれに対し、新規TEPマーカーを提示することで一つの解決法を提示できる可能性がある。