Highlights from a workshop about xMAP® Technology for multiplex cytokine measurements from small sample volumes
It’s hard to imagine a better venue for catching up on the latest innovations and developments in cancer science than the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research. This year, the Luminex team was honored to attend AACR and to host an exhibitor spotlight presentation featuring three customers doing exciting work in cytokine profiling with the xMAP® Technology platform.
If you couldn’t make it to the session, we’ve got you covered! Here are some key highlights from talks by Dr. Philip Dube, Dr. Hinco Gierman, and Dr. Diane Bender.
Philip Dubé, PhD, Director of Scientific Marketing, Taconic Biosciences, Inc. kicked off the presentations with a look at how his team uses xMAP® Technology to perform multiplex cytokine profiling in humanized NOG mice. These immunodeficient mice are an ideal model to incorporate human immune cells along with human tumors, allowing scientists to study the human immune response to human cancers with an in vivo system.
Dubé showed that NOG mice can support human T cells, B cells, and myeloid populations, making them a useful model for testing immunotherapies. By using an xMAP-based Millipore assay featuring 41 cytokines — 22 human and 19 mouse cytokines — it’s possible to characterize the human immune response and differentiate it from any native mouse response that might occur. Importantly, the multiplex assay enables users to generate a large amount of data even from the vanishingly small samples that can be obtained from fragile NOG mice. The approach provides a thorough view of “the entire cytokine milieu,” Dubé said. In one example, he showed the varied response in mice grafted with tumors and immune cells from different donors, tracking specific cytokines associated with key events such as T cell activation. Together, these features make the assay a good fit for mechanistic and pharmacodynamic readouts for cancer studies, Dubé told attendees.
Next was Hinco Gierman PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, Elephas Biosciences Corp. who spoke about using cytokine profiling in an ex vivo system designed to predict a patient’s response to immunotherapy treatment based on core needle biopsy samples. This work is very important, as only about 20% of patients respond to immunotherapy matched with current biomarkers — while others who aren’t eligible through biomarkers might actually benefit from treatment.
Using xMAP Technology to profile cytokines, Gierman and his team analyzed the tumor microenvironment based on live tumor fragments from biopsies. One reason they chose this approach is that Luminex platforms are FDA-cleared for use in clinical diagnostics, making them handy from research all the way through to potential clinical application. Elephas has developed a unique platform leveraging an R&D Systems Luminex-based assay that can measure immunotherapy response from extremely small samples; critically, it also retains the diverse cell types found in the tumor microenvironment. So far, the company has enrolled more than 400 patients in a variety of clinical trials. Already, results show that specific cytokine signatures can reveal which patients will respond well to immunotherapy, with a “very accurate prediction of what is happening in the patient,” Gierman said.
Our final speaker represented the invaluable perspective of a core facility manager. Dr. Diane Bender is the lead scientist at the Immunomonitoring Laboratory, a service lab in the Bursky Center for Human Immunology and Immunotherapy at Washington University in St. Louis. She spoke about serving as a bridge between a scientist’s biological question of interest and the best technology to answer that question. She thinks about all the technical aspects that a core lab customer might not: the need for flexibility, reliability, sample compatibility, the right controls, and other factors. It was a great reminder that core lab teams are an excellent resource for scientists looking for help with recommendations for a customized approach to their research.
One of the most common requests from Bender’s core lab customers involves panels for time-course studies, which can be particularly challenging since the same assay has to be able to provide reliable and concordant results over a period of years. “I have found … over the years that the Luminex platform really provides probably the best avenue at meeting all of the needs for our researchers at WashU,” Bender told attendees. She specifically mentioned the ProcartaPlex™ Mouse Immune Monitoring Panel 48plex, an xMAP-based assay from ThermoFisher, as a cytokine profiling product that is used often in her lab.
To learn more about cytokine profiling with xMAP Technology, check out this comparison study or download our xMAP Cookbook for helpful protocols.