Abstract 887: Development of a robust nanoimmunoassay and immunohistochemical assay for asparagine synthetase

Abstract

Abstract The enzyme-drug L-asparaginase (L-ASP) has been used for four decades to treat acute lymphoblastic leukemia. However, its unique mechanism of action is still poorly understood, and its clinical efficacy has proven unpredictable. Those problems have prompted a continuing search for biomarkers that predict L-ASP response. We previously found that the expression of asparagine synthetase (ASNS) is strongly negatively correlated with L-ASP anticancer activity in ovarian cancer cell lines, suggesting that L-ASP might be effective against a low-ASNS subset of ovarian cancers if salient characteristics of the cell lines reflect clinical ovarian tumors. However, quantitatively robust, single-antibody assays for ASNS expression have been absent from the literature. We therefore used a capillary-based isoelectric focusing (IEF) platform (the NanoPro 1000) to screen twelve ASNS antibodies for their specificity and sensitivity. Only two antibodies exhibited completely on-target activity (as shown by signal ablation by ASNS siRNA) and sufficient sensitivity. The on-target activity corresponded to a single band on Western Blot and a single peak on the NanoPro 1000, suggesting the existence of just one ASNS protein isoform. Optimized, final NanoPro assay conditions yielded less than 8% CV, a 160-fold dynamic range, and Zα-factor of 0.82, indicating a robust assay that is amenable to high-throughput screening. We next used the best ASNS antibody to develop an immunohistochemistry (IHC) assay for ASNS. As with the NanoPro assay, optimized IHC conditions yielded a large dynamic range of staining intensity, and staining was completely ablated by ASNS siRNA. To test the hypothesis that subsets of various cancers express very low levels of ASNS, we have initiated ASNS IHC of more than 20 tissue arrays representing a wide variety of cancers. Using a 3-point scoring system (0 = negative, 1 = low, 2 = high), preliminary results indicate that 90/136 (66%) of bladder cancers, 29/60 (48%) of bone cancers, 16/76 (21%) of breast cancers, 29/115 (25%) of brain cancers, 51/168 (30%) of colon cancers, and 7/64 (11%) of head and neck cancers are ASNS-negative (score = 0), suggesting that a subset of each cancer type might be sensitive to the drug L-asparaginase. Efforts are underway to apply the NanoPro assay to the NCI-60 cell line panel and to continue performing ASNS IHC to survey tissue arrays for ASNS expression. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 887. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-887