Genome-wide screening of blood markers for hypoxic cancer cells within malignant solid tumors

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 21K19445
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 52:General internal medicine and related fields
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: Harada Hiroshi 京都大学, 生命科学研究科, 教授 (80362531)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 小林 稔 京都大学, 生命科学研究科, 特定助教 (40644894)
• Project Period (FY): 2021-07-09 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: がん / 微小環境 / 低酸素 / マーカー

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The oxygen environment in solid tumors is heterogeneous, with hypoxic regions that do not receive sufficient oxygen from blood vessels existing in areas 70 to 100 microns away from the vessels. Since cancer cells in this region have acquired resistance to radiotherapy, it is urgent to establish a simple and accurate method to monitor the amount of hypoxic regions in different tumors in different patients in order to realize personalized medicine for cancer patients.
As a result of searching for proteins expressed and secreted by hypoxia-stimulated cancer cells, four proteins including SPINK1, which we had already discovered, were identified. By selecting cases in which all four genes are highly expressed, we confirmed the possibility of monitoring tumor hypoxic fractions with high accuracy.

Free Research Field

放射線腫瘍生物学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究で見出した4遺伝子の発現・分泌レベルを基に、腫瘍低酸素を高精度に予測するシステムの確立できると期待される。そうしてできた手法をがん患者に適用することによって、癌患者に対する個別化医療が実現されることが期待される。