A team of Indian Scientists has uncovered a promising method to detect lung cancer by analyzing small fragments of microbial DNA in blood offering hope for non invasive cancer diagnosis shortly.
In a latest study published in Nature Computational Science researchers from Homi Bhabha National Institute, Tata Memorial centre, and collaborating institutes explored how microbial traces found in plasma famous as cell free DNA could be helpful to find lung cancer.
Their approach is famous as liquid biopsy could assist replace painful and risky tissues biopsies with a simple blood test.
Blood Test may help detect lung cancer
Lung cancer is main cause of the cancer related deaths worldwide.
Diagnosing often requires hard procedures like needle biopsies or scan that may not detect early stage rumors.
This study shows that ananlyzing non human DNA in blood specially microbial DNA may provide rapid safer less painful method to detect cancer.
The presence of microbes in bloodstream could even assist identify the primary site of cancer in cases where the origin is not famous called cancers of unknown primary which account for 2-5% of all cancers.
The study consist of 261 blood samples from 50 patients diagnosed with cancer lung.
Scientist using two cutting edge DNA sequencing techniques to analyze samples.
Targeted ultra deep sequencing of cancer related genes.
Whole exome sequencing captures all proteins coding genes in human genome.
Using this genetical data they screened for microbial DNA signatures bacteria viruses and organisms in blood,
A large variety of microbes were found in patient blood samples including pseudomias, Toxoplasma and Streptomyces and some of which famous are linked with lung infections and immune response in cancer.
Two computer tools were used to identify microbial DNA Karen 2 and IPD2.
Karen 2 found more microbes but was prone to errors.
IPD2 was more accurate and due to filtering of human DNA.
Microbial DNA signatures in blood often match patterns found in lung tumor tissues suggesting blood based microbial analysis could reflect the tumor biological enviroment.
The researhcer team stress the need of better analysis tools and larger clinical studies to confirm these findings.
Blood Test may help detect lung cancer
The result is mile stone for developing cost effective accurate liquid biopsy test could be used in future.
