Month: February 2025

Assessing disease burden and treatment response in ulcerative colitis (UC) remains challenging, often leading to treatment withdrawal and unresolved disease activity. These challenges highlight the need for better, non-invasive biomarkers to monitor disease activity and predict treatment outcomes.

In our recently published paper “Circulating Extracellular Matrix Products as Indicators of Disease Burden and Predictors of Disease Course in Ulcerative Colitis”, we identified C7M (MMP-9/13-degraded type VII collagen α1-chain), nordicPRO-C3™ (type III collagen formation), and PRO-C22 (turnover of type XXII collagen) as biomarkers of endoscopic disease severity and treatment response in UC.

We found that a combination of nordicPRO-C3™ and PRO-C22 predicted endoscopic outcomes at week 24, while lower levels of C7M and the C3M/nordicPRO-C3™ ratio were associated with endoscopic response. Notably, this is the first time that MMP-mediated type VII collagen degradation has been linked to disease severity in UC, highlighting its potential role in epithelial damage and barrier dysfunction.

These biomarkers provide a non-invasive means to assess transmural disease activity and disease extent, addressing a critical gap in disease burden monitoring. Incorporating these biomarkers into clinical practice could improve UC management by refining diagnostic accuracy for predicting endoscopic response prior to treatment adjustment.

Article: Circulating Extracellular Matrix Products as Indicators of Disease Burden and Predictors of Disease Course in Ulcerative Colitis

Pulmonary fibrosis is a condition characterised by progressive lung scarring, resulting in a median survival of 3–5 years after diagnosis. However, the rate of lung function decline varies widely among patients with different aetiologies, posing substantial challenges in clinical management. Currently, no cure exists for pulmonary fibrosis, and pirfenidone and nintedanib, approved for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis treatment, have partial effects in slowing disease progression and variable tolerability.

This study aimed to classify patients with pulmonary fibrosis according to blood biomarkers to differentiate distinct disease patterns, known as endotypes.

Our findings showed that blood biomarker clustering in pulmonary fibrosis identified three distinct blood biomarker signatures associated with lung function and prognosis, suggesting unique pulmonary fibrosis biomarker patterns. These findings support the presence of pulmonary fibrosis endotypes with the potential to guide targeted therapy development.

Article: Cluster analysis of blood biomarkers to identify molecular patterns in pulmonary fibrosis: assessment of a multicentre, prospective, observational cohort with independent validation

Tuesday the 4th of February is World Cancer Day.  At Nordic Bioscience, we are dedicated to developing biomarker solutions that provide valuable insights on cancer, enabling drug developers to improve cancer treatment options.

In honor of this day, we would like to share a paper by our ontology team :

With increased stiffness and remodeling often driving tumor growth and metastasis, the extracellular matrix (ECM) plays a crucial role in cancer progression.

Produced by cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), type XII collagen is a key regulator of ECM organization, stabilizing type I collagen fibrils, contributing to ECM stiffening, and facilitating a pro-invasive tumor microenvironment (TME). In our study, we developed the PRO-C12 ELISA, a non-invasive tool to monitor type XII collagen fragments in serum that is related to ECM stiffening and CAF activity, providing critical insights into tumor biology and metastasis risk.

By quantifying type XII collagen fragments in serum, clinicians and drug developers gain a powerful tool to non-invasively assess CAF-driven mechanisms. PRO-C12 is relevant for  diverse cancer types and stages, paving the way for its integration into diagnostic workflows and clinical trials.

Article: Type XII collagen is elevated in serum from patients with solid tumors: a non-invasive biomarker of activated fibroblasts

Today is Rheumatoid Awareness Day, which we would like to honor by sharing one of our rheumatology teams’ publications from 2024.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by inflammation in multiple articular joints, causing pain, joint damage, and loss in joint function. Despite the successful development of disease-modifying therapies, the heterogeneity of RA means that a significant proportion of patients respond poorly to treatment. Utilizing personalized and predictive biomarkers can optimize treatment efficacy, safety, and cost.

This study explored the link between type VI collagen breakdown and the effectiveness of Tocilizumab (toci), a drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA). By measuring a specific fragment of degraded type VI collagen (C6M), researchers found that toci treatment reduced C6M levels compared to placebo and that patients who responded well to TCZ showed a greater reduction in C6M. Additionally, lower initial decreases in C6M were associated with a lower likelihood of a good treatment response.

These findings suggest that quantifying type VI collagen turnover could help predict which RA patients will benefit most from TCZ therapy, potentially leading to more personalized treatment approaches.

Article: Changes in type VI collagen degradation reflect clinical response to treatment in rheumatoid arthritis patients treated with tocilizumab