Abstract SY36-03: Intraoperative molecular imaging with protease-activated fluorescent imaging agents
Whitley, MJ; Cardona, DM; Blazer, DG; Hwang, S; Greenup, RA; Mosca, PJ; Cahill, J; Mito, JK; Cuneo, KC; Larrier, N; O'Reilly, E; Spasojevic, I ...
Published in: Cancer Research
Intra-operative detection of residual cancer in the tumor bed can be used to decrease the risk of a positive surgical margin, reduce the rate of re-excision, and tailor adjuvant therapy. LUM015 is a pegylated protease-activated imaging agent containing a near infrared fluorophore and quencher attached by a polypeptide linker. Using mouse models of soft tissue sarcoma (STS), we showed that LUM015 selectively localizes to the tumor and upon cleavage of the linker by proteases in the tissue, the quencher is released, allowing fluorescence to be detected.We recently completed a phase I clinical trial to test the safety of LUM015 in human patients with cancer. This open-label nonrandomized trial compared 3 dose cohorts (0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 mg/kg) of LUM015 in order to determine a safe dose of LUM015 that labels tumors in humans. A total of 15 subjects, 12 with STS and 3 with breast cancer, received IV LUM015 prior to surgical resection without any adverse pharmacological activity (APA). Quantitative fluorescence imaging of the resected tissues revealed that tumor fluorescence was significantly higher than corresponding normal tissue from the same patient (p<0.0001) with a mean tumor to normal fluorescence ratio of 5.4. Furthermore, within the study population, the distribution of tumor fluorescence values was significantly higher than those recorded for fat or muscle (p<0.009).We conducted comparative analyses of LUM015 pharmacodynamics in mouse and human subjects showing that biodistribution into tumors and activation by proteases is conserved across species. These studies revealed the presence of a novel, small molecule metabolite that correlates strongly with tissue fluorescence. Additional in vivo studies in mice and in vitro studies with mouse and human tissues showed that LUM015 is selectively distributed to and accumulates in tumors to result in increased fluorescence when compared to normal tissues.Citation Format: Melodi J. Whitley, Diana M. Cardona, Dan G. Blazer, Shelley Hwang, Rachel A. Greenup, Paul J. Mosca, Joan Cahill, Jeffrey K. Mito, Kyle C. Cuneo, Nicole Larrier, Erin O'Reilly, Ivan Spasojevic, Richard F. Riedel, William C. Eward, Linda G. Griffith, Moungi G. Bawendi, Jorge Ferrer, David B. Strasfeld, W. David Lee, Brian Brigman, David G. Kirsch. Intraoperative molecular imaging with protease-activated fluorescent imaging agents. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr SY36-03. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-SY36-03