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CANCER DETECTION

Unique enzymatic repertoire reveals the tumour

The tumour microenvironment has a specific enzymatic fingerprint, which provides opportunities for cancer therapy. Now, two studies show how this unique chemical environment can be used to produce reporter molecules or nanoclusters within the tumour that can subsequently be identified in urine or breath, enabling cancer detection and monitoring.

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Fig. 1: Increasing evidence illustrates that the tumour microenvironment is unique in harbouring an extracellular enzymatic repertoire that in healthy tissues is found only inside cells.

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Correspondence to Alexander N. Zelikin.

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Zelikin, A.N. Unique enzymatic repertoire reveals the tumour. Nat. Chem. 12, 11–12 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-019-0400-0

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