Forum for Science, Industry and Business

Single-cell mRNA cytometry via sequence-specific nanoparticle clustering and trapping

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men and the fifth leading cause of death from cancer in men worldwide, according to 2012 numbers. While several viable treatment options for prostate cancer exist, many men affected with prostate cancer will not respond to first-line treatments.

University of Toronto researchers developed a liquid biopsy technology to improve prostate cancer treatment.

Credit: University of Toronto

University of Toronto researchers developed a liquid biopsy technology to improve prostate cancer treatment.

Credit: University of Toronto

Researchers in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto have developed a new technology for liquid biopsy to identify which patients may not respond to standard therapy before it is delivered.

"Screening for drug resistance is key to improving treatment approaches for many cancers," said Shana Kelley, scientist and professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto. "It's important for patients not to be on a therapy that won't help them and it's also important for healthcare systems to avoid, whenever possible, delivering ineffective treatments."

The ability to screen patients using a blood sample as opposed to more invasive techniques required for conventional biopsies is also a step forward.

Kelley, lead investigator on the study published today in Nature Chemistry, explained how her team has advanced a completely new approach using magnetic nanoparticles with DNA capture probes on their surface that can target circulating tumour cells (CTCs) in blood samples to see if the cells contains biomarkers associated with drug resistance.

"We can then trap the individual magnetized cells in a microfluidic device built in the lab, isolating them from all the other cells in the sample and allowing us to perform highly sensitive analysis," Kelley said. The cells with the highest magnetic content will also have high mRNA expression for the biomarker associated with drug resistance.

"This means that patients with high mRNA expression should be considered for other therapies because they won't respond to the first-line treatment."

Targeting CTCs, the cells responsible for spreading cancer, is important because they carry information from the primary tumour that can inform treatment; however, they are outnumbered by a billion-to-one by normal cells in a patient' blood and are therefore extremely challenging to capture. In 2016, Kelley and her team published a study in Nature Nanotechnology that first introduced the microfluidic device and how it could be used to trap and analyze CTCs. The current study builds on this previous work by further targeting a specific biomarker within the CTCs.

The blood samples analyzed were collected from a small cohort of patients undergoing treatment for metastatic prostate cancer. In 10 of the patients tested, CTCs were visualized but only four of the patients exhibited the biomarker associated with drug resistance. This finding demonstrates that the new method can provide both a CTC count and an analysis of the clinically relevant biomarker.

"We are very excited because this is like finding a needle in a haystack. It paves the way for a straightforward and personalized screening tool that allows clinicians to see if a patient will respond to therapy or not. Our method is also rapid, accurate and inexpensive, which gives it real potential for clinical uptake," said Kelley.

As for next steps, the finding must be replicated in a larger study, Kelley explained. Her team is also focused on "scaling up" and expanding the application of this technology to other forms of cancer and other diseases.

"Liquid biopsy is one of the most promising tools emerging for the management of cancer," said Kelley "and we are excited about the potential of our technology to streamline this type of testing."

Kate Richards | EurekAlert!

Im Focus: A cavity leads to a strong interaction between light and matter

Researchers have succeeded in creating an efficient quantum-mechanical light-matter interface using a microscopic cavity. Within this cavity, a single photon is emitted and absorbed up to 10 times by an artificial atom. This opens up new prospects for quantum technology, report physicists at the University of Basel and Ruhr-University Bochum in the journal Nature.

Quantum physics describes photons as light particles. Achieving an interaction between a single photon and a single atom is a huge challenge due to the tiny...

Im Focus: Solving the mystery of quantum light in thin layers

A very special kind of light is emitted by tungsten diselenide layers. The reason for this has been unclear. Now an explanation has been found at TU Wien (Vienna)

It is an exotic phenomenon that nobody was able to explain for years: when energy is supplied to a thin layer of the material tungsten diselenide, it begins to...

Im Focus: An ultrafast glimpse of the photochemistry of the atmosphere

Researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have explored the initial consequences of the interaction of light with molecules on the surface of nanoscopic aerosols.

The nanocosmos is constantly in motion. All natural processes are ultimately determined by the interplay between radiation and matter. Light strikes particles...

Im Focus: Shaping nanoparticles for improved quantum information technology

Particles that are mere nanometers in size are at the forefront of scientific research today. They come in many different shapes: rods, spheres, cubes, vesicles, S-shaped worms and even donut-like rings. What makes them worthy of scientific study is that, being so tiny, they exhibit quantum mechanical properties not possible with larger objects.

Researchers at the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility located at DOE's Argonne National...

Im Focus: Novel Material for Shipbuilding

A new research project at the TH Mittelhessen focusses on the development of a novel light weight design concept for leisure boats and yachts. Professor Stephan Marzi from the THM Institute of Mechanics and Materials collaborates with Krake Catamarane, which is a shipyard located in Apolda, Thuringia.

The project is set up in an international cooperation with Professor Anders Biel from Karlstad University in Sweden and the Swedish company Lamera from...