Plasma-derived exosomal tRF-3004a as a diagnostic biomarker for colorectal cancer

Transfer RNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs) play crucial regulatory roles in tumour biology; however, their potential as biomarkers for colorectal cancer (CRC) remains underexplored. Plasma samples from 123 patients with CRC and 79 healthy controls (HCs) were collected for this study. Exosomes were extracted from plasma, validated, and tRF-3004a levels were detected using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The correlation between plasma-derived exosomal tRF-3004a expression levels and clinicopathological parameters was analysed using the chi-square test. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of plasma-derived exosomal tRF-3004a. The results showed that compared with HCs, plasma-derived exosomal tRF-3004a was significantly elevated in patients with CRC and decreased after surgery. Moreover, high tRF-3004a expression was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis, tumour node-metastasis staging, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels, and nerve/vascular invasion in patients with CRC. ROC analysis revealed that plasma-derived exosomal tRF-3004a demonstrated promising diagnostic utility for CRC, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.819 (sensitivity, 0.691; specificity, 0.861). The combination of CEA and carbohydrate antigen 19 - 9 (CA19-9) levels increased the AUC to 0.867. The results of this study demonstrate that plasma-derived exosomal tRF-3004a may serve as a novel diagnostic biomarker for CRC.