The Technology
The present technology provides a quick and reliable test to identify multidrug resistance in cancer cells and personalize chemotherapeutic drug treatment. Imidazoacridinones (IAs) are a novel class of fluorescent molecules which differ in their residues and are recognized and extruded out of cancer cells by ABC transporters. Some of these IAs are being developed as anticancer drugs. Taking advantage of the fluorescent characteristics of IAs, the current technology offers a diagnostic technique able of identification and quantification of ABC transporter (e.g. ABCG2) in cancer cells biopsy within one hour. This novel patented approach is based upon the brief staining of tumor cells with low concentrations of C-1310, a naturally brightly fluorescent cytotoxic drug that is a member of the IAs family. Then the cells are analyzed for cellular fluorescence by existing technologies like fluorescence microscopy, evaluating the functional overexpression of the efflux transporter when the cells do not fluoresce, which indicates that they harbor the cancer MDR phenotype as they expelled the fluorescent IAs chromophore. Moreover, addition of a specific ABCG2 transport inhibitor (Fumitremorgin C, FTC) blocks the IAs extrusion, thereby restoring the fluorescence staining of MDR cells with no effect on the already fluorescent non-MDR cells and confirming the first test results.
Advantages
- Accuracy
- Fast results (one hour)
Applications and Opportunities
- Clinical decision support in oncology
- Prediction of drug effectiveness
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