Development of detecting circulating renal cancer cells that have Death Receptor 5 as a surface marker

2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 23791760
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Urology
• Research Institution: Kagawa University
• Principal Investigator: HIRAMA Hiromi 香川大学, 医学部附属病院, 助教 (50552725)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KAKEHI Yoshiyuki 香川大学, 医学部, 教授 (20214273) ; SUGIMOTO Mikio 香川大学, 医学部附属病院, 准教授 (10243768) ; ZHANG Xia 香川大学, 医学部, 助教 (30524061)
• Project Period (FY): 2011 – 2013
• Keywords: 末梢血循環腫瘍細胞 / 腎癌 / Death Receptor 5

Research Abstract

This research was planned with the objective of detecting cancer cells at extremely low volumes circulating in the blood of renal cell carcinoma patients (circulating tumor cells (CTC) in peripheral blood), using fluorescence-labeled antibodies for DR-5, a surface marker of renal cancer cells.
In a preliminary experiment, it was possible to count renal cancer cells as CTC. However, in the peripheral blood of localized and metastatic renal cell carcinoma patients (respectively 15 and 4 patients), the positive detection rate for DR-5 was low, and CTC detection was difficult. Moreover, CTC measurement using the blood in the renal veins that first flowed from the kidneys was performed for 13 patients, but there was significant contamination given that this was subsequent to renal excision, and it was found to be unsuitable for CTC measurement.