# Systematic annotation of orphan RNAs reveals blood-accessible molecular barcodes of cancer identity and cancer-emergent oncogenic drivers

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-wang-orphan-rnas-breast-response-cell-rep-med-2026/  
OnCo record `paper-wang-orphan-rnas-breast-response-cell-rep-med-2026` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

A study that catalogued small RNAs made only by tumours and showed that their level in blood before and after chemotherapy tracked how breast cancer patients fared.

## Summary

Across 32 tumour types the authors annotated orphan non-coding RNAs. In a retrospective study of 192 breast cancer patients from I-SPY 2, sampled before and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the abstract reports that oncRNAs are reliably detected in blood and that changes in cell-free oncRNA burden predict both short-term and long-term outcomes; the full text states that the change remained informative of survival when controlling for pathological complete response or residual cancer burden. The hazard ratios are given only in a figure and are not quoted here. The senior author co-founded Exai Bio.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-11-04
- Journal: Cell Reports Medicine
- Year: 2026
- DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2025.102577
- Authors: Wang J, Suh JM, Woo BJ, et al.
- Findings: Change in oncRNA burden predicted short- and long-term outcomes in 192 breast cancer patients.; Remained informative after controlling for pathological response (full text).
- What it means: The closest published result to an RNA residual disease test in breast cancer: a burden score that tracks outcome, without a stated detection limit.
- Caveats: Retrospective; no limit of detection; survival figures in a figure only.; Conflict of interest: founder authorship.

## Sources

- Wang et al., Cell Rep Med 2026: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2025.102577
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41579861/

## Connected records

- cancers: [Breast cancer (all types)](https://onco.cc/cancers/breast-cancer/)
- fronts: [Diagnostics & Biomarkers](https://onco.cc/fronts/diagnostics/)
- technologies: [Liquid RNA biopsy (cell-free, vesicle and platelet RNA)](https://onco.cc/technologies/liquid-rna-biopsy/), [MRD / molecular residual disease testing](https://onco.cc/technologies/mrd-testing/)
- companies: [Exai Bio](https://onco.cc/companies/exai-bio/)
- terms: [Minimal / molecular residual disease (MRD)](https://onco.cc/terms/mrd/)
- bottlenecks: [Naming which clone or phenotype is left after treatment](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-subclone-attribution-residual-disease/)
- ideas: [Read tumour RNA and tumour DNA from the same blood draw to find and type residual cancer](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-stack-ctdna-and-tumour-rna-residual-disease/)

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