Close-up on a technician analyzing blood samples at the lab and holding a test tube. (Credit: The Rockefeller University)
OXFORD, United Kingdom — Cancer research is one of the most important areas of health science that exists. Now, two Cancer Research UK-funded studies are revealing that proteins in the blood could warn people of an impending case of cancer more than seven years before an official diagnosis.
Scientists have identified 618 proteins linked to 19 different types of cancer, including 107 proteins that were collected through blood samples from people at least seven years before their diagnosis. The researchers found that the proteins could be associated with the earliest stages of the disease, where prevention is possible. They think some of the proteins could be crucial for detecting cancer early enough to make treatment more efficient.
“To save more lives from cancer, we need to better understand what happens at the earliest stages of the disease. Data from thousands of people with cancer has revealed really exciting insights into how the proteins in our blood can affect our risk of cancer. Now we need to study these proteins in depth to see which ones could be reliably used for prevention,” says Dr. Karl Smith-Byrne, Senior Molecular Epidemiologist at Oxford Population Health and an author working on both new studies, in a media release.
In the first study, published in Nature Communications, scientists analyzed blood samples taken from more than 44,000 people from the UK Biobank, which included over 4,900 people who eventually received a cancer diagnosis. Proteomics was used to analyze 1,463 proteins from a single blood sample from each person. Proteomics is what makes it possible for scientists to do large-scale studies on proteins. For this work, the team compared the proteins of people who eventually developed cancer and those who didn't. They found 182 proteins that varied in the blood three years before a cancer diagnosis occurred.
“The genes we are born with, and the proteins made from them, are hugely influential in how cancer starts and grows. Thanks to the thousands of people who gave blood samples to UK BioBank, we are building a much more comprehensive picture of how genes influence cancer development over many years,” says Dr. Joshua Atkins, Senior Genomic Epidemiologist at Oxford Population Health and joint first author of the first study.
In the second study, also appearing in Nature Communications, the scientists looked at genetic data from over 300,000 cancer cases to delve deeper into which blood proteins were specifically involved in cancer formation and could be ideal targets for treatment. Forty proteins in the blood impacted the risk of getting nine different types of cancer. Still, the team emphasizes the importance of doing more research to figure out the exact role of these proteins in cancer development.
“Preventing cancer means looking out for the earliest warning signs of the disease. That means intensive, painstaking research to find the molecular signals we should pay closest attention to. Discoveries from this research are the crucial first step towards offering preventative therapies which is the ultimate route for giving people longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer,” says Dr. Iain Foulkes, Executive Director of Research and Innovation at Cancer Research UK.
