根据本周发表在《细胞研究》杂志网站上的一项研究，血清小RNA（miRNAs）可以成为一种生物标记，用于检测包括癌症和糖尿病在内的疾病。这些发现为一种革命性的无创诊断工具铺平了道路。
“如今，几乎所有常用的血清标记是蛋白质，而且测量它们的传统方法需要繁重的实验室劳动。没有任何基于血清的测试目前适用于疾病诊断的广泛应用，特别是对于肿瘤的早期探测，”南京大学生命科学学院的Chen-Yu Zhang说。“因此我们的目标是发现一类新的血清标记，用于临床使用的甚至是药物筛选和个体化医疗。”
小RNA是一类自然产生的小的非编码RNA，它与癌症发展有关。近来的研究报告说，一些作为特定癌症诊断生物标记的单独的小RNA不能排除这些小RNA是以污染的形式出现的可能性。
Chen-Yu Zhang及其同事首次对健康受试者和肺癌、结肠癌和糖尿病患者的整个血液小RNA特征进行了全面辨识，排除了污染。他们提出，他们发现的特定的血清小RNA表达谱可以成为癌症和疾病的“指纹”。
尽管肿瘤标记极大地促进了诊断，目前的诊断技术是有创的，令人望而却步，因此临床应用有限。这种新方法是无创的，而且有潜力通过改善疾病诊断、癌症分类、预后估计、疗效预测、术后监测维持以及预测疾病复发的能力，从而转变各种癌症和疾病的临床管理。这种新技术还将有助于制药公司发现对在III期临床试验中失败的药物做出反应的人口亚群。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Cell Research advance online publication 2 September 2008; doi: 10.1038/cr.2008.282
Characterization of microRNAs in serum: a novel class of biomarkers for diagnosis of cancer and other diseases
Xi Chen1,*, Yi Ba2,*, Lijia Ma3,4,*, Xing Cai1, Yuan Yin1, Kehui Wang1, Jigang Guo1, Yujing Zhang1, Jiangning Chen1, Xing Guo1, Qibin Li3,4, Xiaoying Li5, Wenjing Wang6, Yan Zhang1, Jin Wang1, Xueyuan Jiang1, Yang Xiang1, Chen Xu1, Pingping Zheng3, Juanbin Zhang3, Ruiqiang Li3, Hongjie Zhang1, Xiaobin Shang2, Ting Gong2, Guang Ning5, Jun Wang3,4, Ke Zen1, Junfeng Zhang1 and Chen-Yu Zhang1
1 Jiangsu Diabetes Center, State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China
2 Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin 300000, China
3 Beijing Genomics Institute, Shenzhen 518083, China
4 Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101300, China
5 Department of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases, Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to The Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
6 Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai 200336, China
Dysregulated expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) in various tissues has been associated with a variety of diseases, including cancers. Here we demonstrate that miRNAs are present in the serum and plasma of humans and other animals such as mice, rats, bovine fetuses, calves, and horses. The levels of miRNAs in serum are stable, reproducible, and consistent among individuals of the same species. Employing Solexa, we sequenced all serum miRNAs of healthy Chinese subjects and found over 100 and 91 serum miRNAs in male and female subjects, respectively. We also identified specific expression patterns of serum miRNAs for lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and diabetes, providing evidence that serum miRNAs contain fingerprints for various diseases. Two non-small cell lung cancer-specific serum miRNAs obtained by Solexa were further validated in an independent trial of 75 healthy donors and 152 cancer patients, using quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction assays. Through these analyses, we conclude that serum miRNAs can serve as potential biomarkers for the detection of various cancers and other diseases.
