Sugar-coated pouches in body fluids can help detect cancer

Source: The post is based on the article “Sugar-coated pouches in body fluids can help detect cancer” published in PIB on 22nd September 2022

What is the News?

A team of scientists have recently developed a new molecular biosensor for easy detection of the cancer microenvironment.

Cancer Cells

Cancer cells secrete small pouches namely extracellular vesicles(EV) covered with sugar molecules called Hyaluronan(HA) which have a direct link to tumour malignancy and are considered a potential biomarker for early diagnosis of colon cancer. 

These EVs are abundant in body fluids (blood, faeces etc) and all types of cells secrete these EVs into the extracellular matrix. 

Cancer cells secrete at least two times more EVs into the body fluids than normal cells. Therefore, these EVs could be isolated non-invasively from a patient’s body for early cancer diagnosis.

What has the study found out about Cancer cells?

Scientists have found that single cancer cell-derived EV is coated with very short chain HA molecules (contour length less than 500 nanometers) using single molecule techniques.

These short-chain HA-coated EVs are significantly more elastic than normal cell-derived EVs. 

This intrinsic elasticity of HA-coated EVs in cancer helps them to withstand multiple external forces during extracellular transportation, uptake, excretion by cells, adhesion to cell surfaces, etc.

These findings will help in the easy detection of cancer.