University of Florida scientists have pioneered a new molecular approach to detecting cancer cells that eventually could allow clinicians to discover many malignancies earlier, according to an article published July 27 in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
According to the researchers, a definitive diagnosis of cancer normally requires a visual examination of the tumor, which is an invasive and time-consuming process and is not suitable for early detection. Sometimes clinicians can identify cancers using antibodies such as the prostate-specific antigen test for prostate cancer, but they are available for only a few types of cancer.
Lead author Weihong Tan, PhD, said that scientists know that cancer tissue has a unique molecular fingerprint that can distinguish it from healthy tissue. Attempts to target cancer cells via these fingerprints, as opposed to the more common visual examination or antibodies methods, have been difficult because there are few molecular tools that recognize the fingerprints.
The research team sought to create these tools in the form of short strands of chemically synthesized DNA called "aptamers," which exploit the differences on the surface of cells to facilitate discernment of cancerous ones.
Researchers found that they could design sets of aptamers that would recognize at the molecular level leukemia cells that had been mixed in with normal bone marrow cells. The aptamers also successfully distinguished leukemia T-cells from lymphoma B-cells. Both results indicate that the aptamer method could be used to identify different types of cancer.
Researchers are now testing this molecular detection approach on lung cancer cells, liver cancer cells and cells infected by viruses.
The experiments were funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the office of the University of Florida vice president for Research.
