New Urine Test Can Detect Cancer In Minutes

By Chuck Seegert, Ph.D.

A new point-of-care urine test enables the rapid detection of disease markers in urine at extremely low concentrations. The test, which incorporates a new, microfluidic lab-on-a-chip, can detect a disease by analyzing how far a sample travels through the device’s tubing.

Biomarkers are rapidly becoming a critical part of the caregiver’s toolkit. Many times, analytes that are indicative of diseases are contained in bodily fluids at very low concentrations. If they could be detected earlier and more reliably, it would often mean the difference between life and death. This is particularly true in the field of cancer diagnostics, where early detection is critical.

For prostate cancer, there is already a biomarker test, but it isn’t specific for cancer alone. Prostate-specific antigen is evaluated to see if its levels are elevated, a condition that is correlated with increased prostate size. While this may be an increase caused by cancer, it may also be due to benign prostate enlargement in general. Now, however, a research team at Brigham Young University (BYU) has figured out a way to more specifically test for prostate cancer, according to a press release from the university.

The device is designed around microfluidic channels that are lined with covalently bound nucleic acid receptors, according to a study the team published in Analytical Methods. Untreated urine samples are put into the device where the urine flows through the channels. If a biomarker is present in the urine, it will react with the receptors and close off the channel, thus stopping flow. Normal urine would pass all the way through, so the diagnostic indicator for this test is how far the urine flows.

“In a disease state, this particular marker is equal to about one billionth of a percent of the content of urine,” said professor Adam Woolley, in the BYU press release. “We can detect close to those levels. If we can get below that, it would give us better sensitivity for somebody at an early stage of the disease.”

While the current test for prostate-specific antigen is non-specific, the new test is designed to interact with an exact RNA sequence that is 22 base pairs long. Harmless sequences do not cross react, potentially making this test more specific and preventing false positive results. The test was developed with a focus on RNA biomarkers for prostate cancer, but it should be broadly applicable to other DNA and RNA markers with a small change to the receptor molecules.

Biomarker detection is the focus for many groups in the medical diagnostic research space. Designs are widely varied, but some include materials like graphene, while others also use microfluidics to detect extremely low levels of analytes.

Image Credit: Grad student Debolina Chatterjee, co-author of the paper with Professor Adam Woolley, BYU