Researchers identified a new tsRNA in blood to improve liver cancer diagnosis

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most primary liver cancer. It is one of the most common and mortal cancer worldwide, especially in East Asia. Advanced HCC patients expect a significantly low 5-year survival rate as well as poor prognosis. Early diagnosis is of importance for effective HCC therapies.

Researchers from Nanjing University have now shown that a tsRNA named tRF-Gln-TTG-006 in liver cancer patients’ serum may become a promising blood biomarker to detect liver cancer even in the early stage. They also find that this tsRNA may have its potential biological function during HCC progression. The results have been published in Frontiers of Medicine.

tRNAs are known as amino acids transfer thus play vital role in protein synthesis. The new identified tRF-Gln-TTG-006 is a fragment of its parent tRNA. Unlike its “parent”, tsRNA have been found that it can be promising blood biomarker and regulator of disease progression in many cancer types. Serum tsRNA signature in HCC has not been elucidated yet. The current study helps filling this gap, in which discovery of HCC-related tsRNA would be valuable in terms of facilitating HCC detection especially at early stage.

To elucidated tsRNA signature of HCC serum, the researchers adapted high-throughput sequencing specialized for tsRNAs which bear multiple modifications. Sequencing uncovered hundreds of new tsRNAs which shed lights on a special HCC serum tsRNA profile. The study uses a two-stage validation strategy to screen and finally verified this unique tsRNA which can separate early HCC patients from healthy people. When compared with the common used biomarker α-fetoprotein (AFP), tRF-Gln-TTG-006 shows a significantly superior diagnostic accuracy for patients with early-stage HCC. A total of 177 HCC patients are included in the study. Current study also shows tRF-Gln-TTG-006 may originate from tumor cells and affect tumor cell growth thus take part in the HCC progression.

Yanbo Wang says: “Based on our research, tsRNA is a promising biomarker of early HCC diagnosis and our study can provide more information on the relationship between tsRNAs and the development of liver cancer.”

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About Frontiers of Medicine

Frontiers of Medicine is oriented to an international peer-reviewed journal of general medicine that captures the best science from the diverse medical disciplines and relevant fields encompassing different aspects of life sciences. The Editors-in-Chief are Academician Saijuan Chen, Shanghai Institute of Hematology, Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China; Academician Boli Zhang, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China; Academician Baofeng Yang; Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China; Academician Xiaoping Chen, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. The main topics include clinical medicine, basic medical sciences, epidemiology, translational research, traditional Chinese medicine, public health, and health policies. The journal has been indexed by SCI, MEDLINE, SCOPUS, Source Journals for Chinese Scientific and Technical Papers and Citations, CSCD, etc.