The use of micronuclei DNA from erythrocytes for the detection of early-stage gastrointestinal cancers.

4085 Background: Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers account for over a third of cancer deaths. However, their early detection remains a challenge. Micronuclei (MN) are extranuclear bodies containing damaged chromosome segments indicative of genomic instability. Increased MN frequency in hematopoietic cells is observed in patients with solid tumors. We have developed a method (WO2021/228246 A1) for purifying and characterizing micronuclei DNA (MN-DNA) in erythrocytes from peripheral blood. By comparing MN-DNA from healthy donors (HDs) and GI cancer patients, we identified significant changes in read densities at specific genomic locations in patients, which were termed as tumor-associated MN-DNA (taMN-DNA) signatures. Here, we evaluated the potential of these signatures for early-stage GI cancer detection, including colorectal (CC), gastric (GC) and esophageal (EC) cancers. Methods: Peripheral blood (1-2 ml) was collected from healthy donors (HD) and cancer patients MN-DNA isolation and purification from erythrocytes. Participants were randomly divided into training, validation and independent test cohorts in a 7:2:1 ratio, maintaining similar cancer types, CC/GC/EC/HD ratio, gender and age distribution. Distinct MN-DNA features between cancer patients and HDs were identified using sequencing data. Logistic regression algorithms were applied using these features for cancer detection. Results: The study enrolled 1753 participants, including 987 HDs, 420 CC, 282 GC and 64 EC cases. Of these, over half were diagnosed with early-stage diseases; TNM stage 0-I accounted for 40.57%, stage II for 23.32%, stage III for 29.25% and stage IV for 6.87%. The cancer detection model with MN-DNA features yielded an overall accuracy of 87.43%, with a sensitivity of 83.66% and specificity of 90.36%. For individual caner types, sensitivity was 85.37% for CC, 79.31% for GC and 92.31% for EC. For early-stage (stage 0-II) CC, GC and EC, the model demonstrated sensitivities of 95.12%, 86.05% and 100.00%, respectively, at 90.36% specificity. Conclusions: Unlike cell-free DNA, MN-DNA are chromosomal fragments in the cytoplasm. The abundance of erythrocytes in peripheral blood provides an easily accessible source for MN-DNA enrichment. This pilot study illustrates the potential of MN-DNA as a tool for early GI cancer detection, contributing to large-scale efforts towards developing an effective GI cancer screening test.