Biosceptre (Aust) Pty Ltd.

The World Health Organization reports there were 14.1 million new cancer cases and 8.2 million cancer deaths in 2012 demonstrating significant unmet medical needs exist.Modifications to cell death mechanisms that take place during cancer and the significant proliferative and metastatic potential of cancer cells have focused medical research onto targets and pathways that are known to control these critical functions.One such target is the P2X7 receptor.P2X7 is a purinergic receptor that forms ATP-gated channels ultimately mediating proliferation or cell death, depending on activation conditions.Recent preclin. studies have investigated the possibility that modulators of the P2X7 channel may provide innovative cancer therapeutic approaches.The P2X7 receptors expressed on cancer cells are found in a non-functional conformation we define as nfP2X7.The nfP2X7 receptor is unable to form the large pore conformation of the channel that is associated with driving cell death.In the present study we utilize antibodies that are specific to the nfP2X7 form of P2X7 to confirm the expression of nfP2X7 receptor in a panel of human cancer tissues.We demonstrate that the nfP2X7 is expressed ubiquitously on the surface of cancer cells and thus has potential to provide a novel and broad therapeutic cancer target.

The degree of unmet need for new therapeutics in oncol. is clear since about 30% of the population die from cancer with enormous associated costs in health care and in personal impact.New and preferably specific targets are needed now to address the problem, both to improve overall survival and importantly to reduce side effects in order to improve quality of life. nfP2X7 is a receptor that, unlike P2X7, cannot enable apoptosis in cancer cells.Having established the widespread coverage of human cancers in which the aberrant receptor is found, attention has been drawn to the therapeutic potential of the target and whether an immunotherapeutic approach is capable of providing a significant therapeutic response.We demonstrate the intrinsic target specificity, the delivery of antibody within target cells, the extremely good safety profile of the targeting antibody and the broad range of cancer tissue that could be treated in both humans and other animals.