Mites with a considerable impact

Many medical specialists dream of a simple blood test that allows the detection of early cancer or other serious diseases. In search of such a test, researchers have now taken a big step forward. Andre Franke, Abdou ElSharawy and their team from the Cluster of Excellence “Inflammation at Interfaces” are also involved. The possibilities of the new test procedure can currently be found in a report on the Nature Methods website:

http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmeth.1682.html

Kiel, 8 September 2011  Many tumerous diseases are now curable. The only requirement: the cancer must be detected as early as possible. Up to now, however, there has been a lack of reliable methods for early detection – many tumors are initially detected in an advanced stage. There has also been a lack of suitable biomarkers that could give indications of severe diseases at a stage where the disease had not yet broken out. Researchers from Heidelberg and Kiel took this unsatisfactory situation as an opportunity to conduct an extensive study where they searched for diagnostically usable structures in the blood of tumor patients and other chronically ill people, which will reveal abnormal changes in an early stage.

microRNAs give clues for early detection in 14 diseases

The research results are now available – and are successful on two counts: the team of researchers has found that so-called microRNAs, which are small molecules that are embedded on certain sections of the RNA strands, provide an important clue in the early detection of 14 difficult to diagnose disorders, including tumors of the pancreas, prostate or gastrointestinal tract as well as multiple sclerosis, sarcoidosis and periodontitis. The microRNAs do not – unlike their relatives, the RNA called ribonucleic acids – code specific proteins, they indirectly influence the production of proteins and play an important role in the complex process of gene regulation in the cells. Thus, they are involved in many disease and cellular adaptation processes. Due to their small size, a molecule contains an average of only 22 characters; microRNAs are particularly stable in blood.  

Novel testing methods in use

Researchers from all over Germany were involved in the study. For their investigations, the research team used a biomarker concept developed by Dr. Andreas Keller, a bioinformatician at the University of Saarland. This assay method is able to take into account the infomational content of over 100 microRNAs, allowing an impressive, sensitivity, specificity and accuracy. The study was coordinated by the “Biomarker Discovery Center” of Heidelberg; the implementation was carried out with the support of Professor Andre Franke, Dr. Abdou ElSharawy and their team as well as the popgen biobank of Kiel, who are all members of the Cluster of Excellence “Inflammation at Interfaces”. Andre Franke, commenting on the study: “The result is cause for hope. The biomarker microRNAs indicate specific diseases at a stage where they previously could not yet be diagnosed. The hit rate of microRNAs was very high in many cases. We were able to determine the profiles of these biomarkers and the differences between microRNAs in the healthy and those diseased. We show that these biomarkers may provide crucial evidence of individual clinical pictures. Measured in the tests that so far exist, this is a very good performance.”

Abdou ElSharawy adds: “Overall, the test has shown a high specificity for the individual clinical pictures, which were diagnostically good to distinquish from each other and from healthy control groups. Initial promising data also show an application of microRNA biomarkers in distinguishing both of the chronic inflammatory bowel diseases: ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. In many cases, the correct diagnosis happens years after the initial treatment, which underlines the potential of these newly discovered biomarkers. For it often happens that an incorrect diagnosis leads to the accordingly incorrect treatment.”     

Starting point for further investigations

The scientists now hope to be able to be able to, with high reliability, diagnose and distinguish a variety of different diseases with a single blood test. However, it will take some time until it is possible: “There’s still a lot of work, a lot of money and a lot of research needed to actually receive approval of a marketable product”, says Andre Frank.

The results of the study are presently available on the website of the prestigious journal Nature Methods. The link to the abstract “Towards discovering the blood-borne miRNome of human diseases” on the Nature Methods website: http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmeth.1682.html

The Cluster of Excellence "Inflammation at Interfaces"

The Inflammation Research Excellence Cluster follows a unique, interdisciplinary research approach in order to decode the causes of chonic inflammation and to develop therapies for healing. The research association brings together the competences of approximately200 geneticists, biologists, nutritionists and physicians from Kiel University and the University of Lübeck, the Research Institute Borstel and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön. In Germany alone, millions of people suffer from chronic inflammation of the lungs (asthma), the skin (psoriasis), the intestines (Crohn’s disease) and the brain (Parkinson’s disease). The trigger is a disorder of the immune system: it incessantly activates inflammatory mediators and defense cells, thereby destroying healthy tissue. The number of sufferers increases daily. This phenomenon of modern civilization has become the challenge for 21st Century medicine. Accordingly, in 2007 the German Federal Government and the German Research Foundation declared the decoding of the complex inflammation mechanism to be a national scientific priority.

Business Office of the Inflammation Research Excellence Cluster:
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