NCI Scientists Use NanoString Technology to Identify Targets for Melanoma Immunotherapy
Researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) have identified seven targets that could potentially be used to develop new immunotherapies for patients with metastatic melanoma. Their findings could increase the number of patients eligible for adoptive immunotherapy. The study was reported in Clinical Cancer Research.
The scientists used NanoString RNA technology, which allows for the simultaneous measurement of multiple genes that are expressed in higher amounts in tumor cells than in normal cells, to directly quantitate the gene-expression levels of multiple potential tumor antigens. Unlike other similar technologies, NanoString can detect and measure the expression levels of the genes in a single step, avoiding errors. Scientists in the NCI surgery branch are currently conducting several clinical trials using NanoString technology to treat a variety of cancers with adoptive immunotherapy.
Study Design and Results
In this study, the researchers took metastatic melanoma samples from 59 patients, five established melanoma cell lines, and 31 normal tissue samples to profile the excessively expressed genes. A NanoString probeset was designed containing 97 genes, 72 of which are considered potential candidate genes for immunotherapy.
Of the 72 potential target genes, 33 were overexpressed in more than 20% of the melanoma tumor samples. Twenty of those genes were identified as differentially expressed between normal tissues and tumor samples by ANOVA analysis. The analysis identified seven genes with limited normal tissue expression that warrant further consideration as potential immunotherapy target antigens. They include CSAG2, MAGEA3, MAGEC2, IL13RA2, PRAME, CSPG4, and SOX10.
“We identified seven potential candidate genes that deserve further consideration as targets for melanoma immunotherapy,” Richard Morgan, PhD, Staff Scientist at the Tumor Immunology Section of the Center for Cancer Research at NCI, and an author on the study, said in a statement. “We used NanoString technology because it is very robust, yielding quantitative and extremely reproducible results and, in addition, an antigen-expression profile can be constructed for a patient from a very small amount of tumor samples, which makes NanoString a better clinical tool.”
Dr. Morgan stressed, however, that more research is needed before immune cells engineered to target the seven markers identified can be used in patients.
The study authors reported no conflicts of interest. Funding for this study was provided by the Intramural Research Program of the Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, NIH.
The content in this post has not been reviewed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Inc. (ASCO®) and does not necessarily reflect the ideas and opinions of ASCO®.
