Early Detection of Pancreatic Cancers and Precancerous Lesions

February 21, 2020

Summary of Research

The study goal is to discover candidate cell-free and exosomal-miRNA biomarkers. It also is intended to develop a cell-free and exosomal-miRNA biomarker panel that distinguishes patients with PDAC (pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma) from normal patients (without PDAC) and those with other PNs (Pancreatic Neoplasms) or pancreatitis.

This study is an NIH-funded collaborative effort among nine institutions (including Ochsner) engaged in prospectively collecting and evaluating blood and fresh tissue specimens from hundreds of patients each with PDAC, non-PDAC PNs, pancreatitis and normal controls. The tissue and blood are collected at the same time these specimens are collected for routine patient care. Some of the viable tumor cells may be used to establish long-term cell lines or organoids unique for each patient’s tumor. The analysis of these biospecimens are done at City of Hope and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).

Recent Success, Findings or Outcomes

This study is in its third year with significant accomplishments:

• robust methods for exosome isolation and small RNA sequencing
• isolated RNA from more than 800 tissue and plasma specimens (including ~250 matched pair of tissue and plasma samples from the same patients), many of which were subsequently used for small RNA sequencing
• compared performance of various small RNA-Sequencing platforms to identify the most optimal sequencing approach that worked for tissue, cell-free and exosomal-small RNA sequencing, on a Novaseq sequencer
• small RNA-sequencing on more than 800 specimens from tissue, plasma (cell-free) and exosomes, in patients with precancerous lesions, PDAC and controls

The preliminary sequencing data we have analyzed thus far is very encouraging. It provides some confidence on the feasibility of identifying a miRNA-based classifier for the non-invasive disease and early detection of PDAC.