Craif (Location: Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, CEO: Ryuichi Onose) and researchers Professor Mototsugu Oya and Assistant Professor Nobuyuki Tanaka from the Keio University School of Medicine Department of Urology jointly presented the results of a study titled “Novel diagnostic technology for urothelial carcinoma using urine-derived exosomes” at the 61st Annual Meeting of the Japan Society of Clinical Oncology held from October 19–21, 2023. 

■ Outline of this Joint Study
Among liquid biopsy tests, where the level of invasiveness is key, urinalysis is the least invasive due to urine being the easiest bodily liquid to collect. In this new urine liquid biopsy technique, the team focused on the analysis of urine-derived exosomes. Exosomes are nano-sized granular substances, and the exosomes of cancer patients contain cancer-derived microRNAs (miRNAs). RNAs that would decay when by itself do not degrade when contained in exosomes and are stabilized in bodily fluids.

This new method successfully detects miRNAs with high efficiency compared to the prior method using small-RNA sequencing, and is able to detect 300-400 different miRNA profiles. In order to use these abundant features for biomarker discovery and to construct a highly accurate prediction model by machine learning, the research team performed small-RNA sequencing using urine-derived exosomes from prospectively collected urothelial cancer patients, healthy subjects, and non-cancer patients with urologic diseases. They selected biomarker miRNAs that are characteristic of urothelial cancer, and then constructed a diagnostic model using machine learning (via the holdout validation method) and demonstrated that it performs well in detecting urothelial cancer.

■ About the 61st Annual Meeting of the Japan Society of Clinical Oncology
Date: October 19–21, 2023 (Thurs. – Sat.)
Venue: Pacifico Yokohama
Official Website: https://congress.jsco.or.jp/jsco2023/index/page/id/198