Identification of candidate tumor marker genes for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma by NGS-HiCEP method

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K21342
• Project/Area Number (Other): 18H06247 (2018)
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund (2019); Single-year Grants (2018)
• Review Section: 0905:Surgery of the organs maintaining homeostasis and related fields
• Research Institution: National Defense Medical College
• Principal Investigator: Takao Mikiya 防衛医科大学校(医学教育部医学科進学課程及び専門課程、動物実験施設、共同利用研究施設、病院並びに防衛, 外科学, 助教 (70821924)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-08-24 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 膵癌 / 早期診断 / 予後マーカー / 包括的高感度転写産物プロファイリング:HiCEP / 次世代シークエンサー:NGS

Outline of Final Research Achievements

High coverage expression profiling (HiCEP) is an AFLP-based comprehensive gene expression analysis invented in Japan, which can efficiently detect an especially low amount of mRNA with high sensitivity and reliability, and which enables us to analyze mRNA expression much more quantitatively and reproducibly. On the other hand, it requires complicated processes to obtain the sequence information of the detected peaks. In order to solve this problem, we established the gene expression database of human cancers by combining the next-generation sequencing (NGS) with HiCEP method.
We applied the NGS combined HiCEP method to analyze pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma(PDAC) cases in this study, and succeeded in establishing the gene expression database of PDAC and in identifying candidate tumor marker genes.

Free Research Field

肝胆膵外科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

膵癌は他の癌と比較して悪性度が高く、極端に予後不良な「21世紀に残された消化器癌」と言われ、その対策は急務である。膵癌細胞の分子的背景は不明な点が多く、その特性を解析して非侵襲的早期診断や治療効果の向上に繋げる技術開発が求められている。
本研究では膵癌患者の手術検体組織に加えて、手術前後に末梢血検体を採取し、日本発の技術である包括的高感度転写産物プロファイリング(High Coverage Expression Profiling: HiCEP)法を活用し、かつ次世代シークエンサーを組み合わせた新規の高感度解析法により、膵癌に特異的な候補遺伝子を同定できた。今後臨床応用に向けて解析を進めている。