Journal: Nature communications
This study reports a new technical platform for circulating microRNA (miRNA) detection, called SE‑SPTM‑PCR, designed to overcome three key problems that limit clinical use of miRNA liquid biopsies: low analyte abundance, high sequence homology among miRNAs, and nonspecific background amplification.
Key features of the method:
- Uses locked nucleic acid (LNA) probes to selectively enrich target miRNAs before amplification.
- Employs a “specific probe terminal mediated” RT‑qPCR design to prevent nonspecific amplification.
- Demonstrates experimentally that it eliminates nonspecific products and improves analytical sensitivity by about 100‑fold compared with conventional stem‑loop RT‑qPCR.
Clinical performance (all based on the reported cohorts and metrics):
- Colorectal cancer:
- Biomarker: hsa‑miR‑92a‑3p in liquid biopsy.
- Cohort: 48 patients vs 48 controls.
- Diagnostic performance: improved from an AUC of 0.72 (with standard methods) to 0.85 using this platform.
- HCMV reactivation after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation:
- Biomarker: hcmv‑miR‑UL22A‑5p.
- Cohort: 32 HCMV DNA–positive vs 32 DNA–negative recipients.
- Diagnostic performance: achieved an AUC of 0.95 for detecting HCMV reactivation.
- Nasopharyngeal carcinoma:
- Biomarker: ebv‑miR‑BART3‑3p.
- Cohort: 40 patients vs 40 controls.
- Diagnostic performance: achieved an AUC of 1.0.
Interpretation for oncology practice:
- The platform substantially improves the measurable performance of an existing colorectal cancer miRNA marker and “rescues” two viral miRNA markers that were previously not clinically viable with older assays.
- If validated in larger, independent cohorts, this approach could strengthen miRNA‑based liquid biopsy for early cancer detection and for monitoring virus‑associated conditions relevant to oncology (e.g., EBV‑related nasopharyngeal carcinoma).