Platelets: the holy grail in cancer blood biomarker research?

We would like to promote the fact that platelets are increasingly emerging as a rich source of potential biomarkers for cancer. Blood platelets contain vast amounts of bioactive proteins, such as growth factors, chemokines, and cytokines. These proteins are either synthesized by the megakaryocytes t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Angiogenesis (London) 2019-02, Vol.22 (1), p.1-2
Main Authors: Sabrkhany, Siamack, Kuijpers, Marijke J. E., Griffioen, Arjan W., oude Egbrink, Mirjam G. A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biomarkers
Biomarkers, Tumor - blood
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Blood
Blood circulation
Blood platelets
Blood Platelets - metabolism
Blood Platelets - pathology
Cancer
Cancer Research
Cardiology
Cell Biology
Chemokines
Cytokines
Growth factors
Humans
Megakaryocytes
Metastases
Neoplasms - blood
Neoplasms - pathology
Oncology
Ophthalmology
Patients
Perspective
Platelets
Proteins
Ribonucleic acid
RNA
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Summary:We would like to promote the fact that platelets are increasingly emerging as a rich source of potential biomarkers for cancer. Blood platelets contain vast amounts of bioactive proteins, such as growth factors, chemokines, and cytokines. These proteins are either synthesized by the megakaryocytes that produce the platelets or are sequestered by the circulating platelets from the blood, in which case these proteins may originate from the tumor. Recent studies in patients have demonstrated that the presence of cancer influences multiple platelet characteristics (e.g., platelet count, volume, activation status, proteins, and RNA content). Interestingly, these changes happened already in early stages of the disease before metastasis had occurred. Additionally, exploiting these platelet alterations enabled discrimination of patients with early-stage cancer from healthy sex- and age-matched individuals. Therefore, we challenge clinicians and researchers to look beyond traditional fluid sources such as plasma or serum, and to take platelets and their content into account as they may become the holy grail in cancer blood biomarker research.
ISSN:0969-6970
1573-7209
DOI:10.1007/s10456-018-9651-4