Research for the development of novel immunotherapy for anaplastic thyroid carcinoma

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K08950
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 55010:General surgery and pediatric surgery-related
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: Iguchi Akiko (間中研子) 筑波大学, 医学医療系, 講師 (50575644)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 甲状腺未分化癌 / シングルセル遺伝子解析 / 免疫チェックポイント分子

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma is a difficult-to-treat cancer with an extremely poor prognosis, and the development of novel therapies is expected. In this study, we perform single-cell gene analysis of anaplastic thyroid carcinoma and analyze the characteristics of immune cells to search for new targets for cancer immunotherapy. Since anaplastic thyroid carcinoma is thought to arise by undifferentiated transformation from differentiated carcinoma, we search for genes involved in undifferentiated transformation by single-cell gene analysis.
Fresh tissues were collected from surgical specimens of anaplastic, poorly differentiated and differentiated thyroid carcinomas, and single-cell RNA sequencing was performed on 8 of the samples. Various bioinformatics analyses are currently underway. We are also searching for driver gene mutations such as BRAF V600E in each sample and analyzing the correlation between clinical data and single-cell gene analysis.

Free Research Field

腫瘍免疫学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

甲状腺未分化癌は希少であるが極めて予後不良で治療困難な癌であり、新規治療の登場が期待され、他の癌種同様に免疫チェックポイント阻害療法の効果が注目されている。本研究では甲状腺未分化癌のシングルセル網羅的遺伝子解析により癌免疫療法の標的を探索するもので、新規治療の開発に繋がるものである。また甲状腺未分化癌は分化型乳頭癌・濾胞癌から未分化転化して発生するといわれており、本研究で甲状腺癌の未分化転化に関与する遺伝子の探索を行うことにより、これまで不明であった未分化転化の機序の解明にも繋がるものである。