Abstract 2508: A red-shifted fluorescent substrate for aldehyde dehydrogenase, AldeRed 588-A, for labeling viable ALDH-positive cells

Abstract

Abstract Normal and cancer stem cells can be isolated based upon the enzymatic activity of aldehyde dehydrogenase I (ALDH1), a detoxifying enzyme responsible for oxidation of hazardous aldehyde byproducts. ALDH1 has been used to isolate cancer stem cells from various human malignancies including bladder, breast, cervical, colon, head and neck, liver, lung, pancreas, prostate and ovary. Currently, the ALDEFLUOR assay, is the only commercially available reagent for ALDH detection in live cells. The substrate used in this assay primarily emits in the green region of the electromagnetic spectrum (512nm). For researchers with valuable cell and transgenic animal models in which the target gene of interest has been tagged with eGFP, ALDEFLUOR therefore cannot be used. Selection of cells positive for aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity from a green fluorescent background is thus difficult with existing reagents. We now describe a red-shifted fluorescent substrate for ALDH, AldeRed 588-A, that provides additional flexibility for utilizing ALDH as a marker for stem cell and cancer stem cell isolation. The activity of AldeRed 588-A was compared with the ALDEFLUOR reagent and demonstrated similar ability to fractionate ALDHpos cells in a number of cell lines tested. Citation Format: Nick Asbrock, Vi Chu, Martin Pomper. A red-shifted fluorescent substrate for aldehyde dehydrogenase, AldeRed 588-A, for labeling viable ALDH-positive cells. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 2508.