News Releases & Research Results Novel circular RNA highly expressed in pancreatic cancer and its application as a biomarker: development of a novel diagnostic marker for pancreatic cancer

The results of research conducted by the graduate student Takahiro Seimiya, Lecture Motoyuki Otsuka, and Professor Kazuhiko Koike of the Department of Gastroenterology, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, and others.

• The research group comprehensively screened specific RNAs known as circular RNAs (*) expressed in pancreatic cancer and identified a novel circular RNA.
  *Circular RNA is a single-stranded RNA with a ring structure, with the 3′ and 5′ ends present in a normal RNA molecule joined together. Because of their structural properties, circular RNAs are known to have biological functions that are distinct from those of linear RNAs.
• They found that the novel circular RNA was not only highly expressed in pancreatic cancer tissues but was also detected at a high rate in the blood of patients with pancreatic cancer.
• The results of this research project may facilitate the development of a novel diagnostic marker that would contribute to the early detection of pancreatic cancer, for which early diagnosis has been difficult and prognosis is poor.

This program was conducted with support from the Project for Cancer Research and Therapeutic Evolution (P-CREATE) and Project of Translational and Clinical Research Core Centers by AMED.

The results of this research project were published online in the Journal of Human Genetics on September 3.

Seimiya T., et al. Aberrant expression of a novel circular RNA in the pancreatic cancer Journal of Human Genetics
DOI：10.1038/s10038-020-00826-5