Scientists use xMAP® Technology to detect thousands of antibodies in hundreds of samples
At the recent Drug Discovery and Development 2022 conference, Oncimmune® Chief Technical Officer, Hans-Dieter Zucht, gave a presentation about how his company’s scientists are using autoantibodies as biomarkers for a broad range of immuno-oncology studies. This work is made possible with bead-based multiplexing xMAP® Technology from Luminex, which allows the team to cost-effectively and rapidly query for hundreds or thousands of biomarkers in large numbers of samples.
Zucht pointed out that while immunotherapies have been remarkably effective in fighting cancer, they only work for a small fraction of patients with cancer. Those who do respond well may also suffer from immune-related adverse events to the treatment. There is a pressing need to identify biomarkers that may help stratify patients to ensure immunotherapies are directed to the people most likely to benefit, as well as biomarkers that could predict the likelihood of adverse events.
Insight into autoantibodies
“The concordance and repeatability of these measurements is very high.”
At Oncimmune, scientists have turned their attention to autoantibodies. This class of antibodies has already been used to elucidate clinically relevant interactions between tumor cells and the immune system. Oncimmune offers the ImmunoINSIGHTS® autoantibody profiling service, which is supported by the company’s proprietary library of immunogenic proteins, spanning almost 9,000 antigens. That’s why multiplexing is so important—their R&D service team studies these proteins in hundreds or thousands of samples for their customers.
According to Zucht, xMAP Technology has made it possible to perform high-throughput immunoassays in a straightforward manner with low-volume consumption of samples and reagents. The team can multiplex 96 or 384 samples in an assay using serum or dried samples. In addition to the cost and time savings, reproducibility is one of the key benefits of the xMAP approach. “The concordance and repeatability of these measurements is very high,” Zucht told conference attendees.
Additional studies
Zucht also shared results from several studies performed in collaboration with leading cancer research organizations. One study, for example, demonstrated that autoantibodies could be a useful biomarker for predicting which melanoma patients would develop colitis as a result of immunotherapy treatment; interestingly, the same results indicated that patients suffering from these adverse events were more likely to experience a positive outcome from the treatment. They also identified several autoantibodies that appear predictive of survival time for these patients.
To learn more about Oncimmune’s approach, check out this study of patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma or see our Partner spotlight blog.
Learn more about Oncimmune’s approach to multiplexed autoantibody pofiling of patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma.
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