Description:
Invention Summary
The invention provides the first efficient method for simultaneously measuring the anti-migratory effect and cytotoxic effect of drugs on biopsy cells without the need to expand the cells in culture. This assay is particularly useful for predicting the chemosensitivity of an individual patient's cancer to therapeutic drugs. Single cell suspension preparations of biopsy tissue is exposed to anticancer drugs and introduced into the first chamber of a migration plate separated from a second chamber by a porous membrane opaque to radiation. A migration stimulus is added to the second chamber. Migrated cells on the side of the membrane facing the second chamber are labeled with a live-cell fluorescent indicator. Non-migrated cells on the side of the membrane facing the first chamber are labeled with a fluorescent indicator of cell death. The emitted fluorescence of both the migrated cells and the non-viable cells is quantified in a fluorescence plate reader. The comparative intensity of fluorescence is an indicator of the susceptibility of the cells to the cytotoxic properties of the drug.
Market Opportunity
Global cancer prevalence rates are on the rise owing to an aging population and changing lifestyle.
Features & Benefits
• Because the formation of solid tissue cancer is dependent upon the invading cell's ability to migrate across tissues as well as hyperproliferation, a chemosensitivity assay that measures both the anti-migratory and cytotoxic effect of drugs is a more comprehensive and a more sensitive method for determining the chemosensitivity of biopsies. The invention measures an endpoint characteristic of metastasis formation, and measures two endpoints of anticancer effect instead of just one, making the assay more comprehensive, and not specific to one cell response.
• The invention does not require that biopsy cells be expanded in culture, thus shortening the time frame of the assay and avoiding the bias that culturing causes by selecting a subset of biopsy cells.
• The invention has the advantage over most other chemosensitivity assays in that results are quantified automatically, thus avoiding the bias inherent in subjective sampling by humans.
Intellectual Property Patent No.: 6,448,030