BENGALURU: Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) along with collaborators, have identified potential blood-based biomarkers to predict disease progression and survival times in those with late-stage brain tumour.
A team of researchers from the Centre for BioSystems Science and Engineering (BSSE) at IISc, the Mazumdar Shaw Centre for Translational Research and Mazumdar Shaw Medical Foundation, collected blood and tumour samples from patients with grade three and grade four glioma tumours that occur in the brain, and compared the number of specific immune cells called monocytes and neutrophils in these samples. They identified surface proteins in immune cells in blood, whose levels were closely linked to tumour progression. The study, published in OncoImmunology, tried to find that late-stage gliomas are associated with poor prognosis — the tumour is harder to treat and the patient is likely to have a low chance of survival.
“Our pilot study suggests that we can potentially use two blood-based biomarkers present on immune cells to identify patients who might not perform well with particular treatment strategies,” says Siddharth Jhunjhunwala, Assistant Professor with BSSE, and senior author of the study. Such a blood-based testing methodology could help clinicians better understand disease progression and choose a more effective treatment regimen.
While conventional cancer treatment like chemotherapy is often ineffective in treating these tumours, it has prompted a shift to newer techniques like immunotherapy, involving the provocation of the immune system to attack tumour cells.
Another researcher and primary author of the study Jayashree V Raghavan, PhD student at BSSE, said that as these are biosamples, they need to be preserved and processed well, without loss of cell viability. “We had to split up methodology between two institutes — here and at the lab at Mazumdar Shaw Foundation. They would do the processing and fixation to retain the viability of the cells, and then we would carry out characterisation and immunostaining here.”
In addition to this, the team looked for differences in the composition of surface proteins. IISc stated that the researchers found a certain type of monocytes — M2 monocytes — were present in larger numbers in samples from grade four tumours. Previous studies have shown that high numbers of M2 monocytes are associated with a suppression of immune responses, and this finding could, therefore, help develop new treatment strategies. Jhunjhunwala cautioned, that further testing and validation on a larger scale is necessary before this can be taken from the lab to the clinic.