Scientist-Developed Blood Test for Pancreatic and Colorectal Cancers

Diagnostic tests are an essential tool for many clinicians, notably oncologists. Currently, there are no definitive, singular diagnostic tests for pancreatic cancer. Meanwhile, a colorectal cancer diagnosis is usually made through an invasive test. A recent article published in Nature Biotechnology outlines a newly developed blood test to detect pancreatic and colorectal cancers.

This research, conducted at the Weizmann Institute of Science, aimed to develop a blood test that addressed the drawbacks of many other tests in the late stages of development.

The institution’s press release stated, “More recently, liquid biopsy approaches have begun to rely on epigenetics, or modifications to the cell’s genome that don’t involve mutations in the DNA — for example, chemical tags that attach to the DNA molecule, altering gene expression. These approaches have run into hitches as well, either because they require excessive amounts of blood or because they search for a single epigenetic change that cannot yield sufficiently reliable results.”

Clinicians in this study aimed to develop an advanced liquid biopsy that would require a smaller blood sample, making the process easier for patients and providers. Using previously developed research, the principal investigator of this study advanced imaging of individual molecules.

“We developed a single-molecule multiparametric assay to comprehensively profile the epigenetics of plasma-isolated nucleosomes (EPINUC), DNA methylation, and cancer-specific protein biomarkers. Our system allows for high-resolution detection of six active and repressive histone modifications and their ratios and combinatorial patterns on millions of individual nucleosomes by single-molecule imaging,” stated researchers in the published study.

In the publication, a total of 90 patients were studied. Approximately one-third of the participants were healthy, while the rest had colorectal cancer across all stages. Compared to healthy patients, patients with colorectal cancer had differing epigenetic markings on their nucleosomes.

The clinicians identified six key epigenetic modifications indicative of cancer. Beyond the biological identifications, this publication also used AI algorithms and machine learning to develop an analysis of collected blood samples.

“Our algorithm could tell the difference between the healthy and the patient groups at a record level of certainty for studies of this type — with 92% precision,” said Efrat Shema, PhD, Principal Investigator, in the press release. The scientists call the new technology EPINUC, an acronym for “epigenetics of plasma-isolated nucleosomes.”

This research has multiple implications for the diagnosis of other disorders. As the efficacy of this diagnostic tool is confirmed, advanced, and implemented, clinicians may consider using it for the early detection of hard-to-diagnose cancers.