A new pan cancer biomarker, CA215 and its applications in cancer diagnostics
Gregory Lee
UBC Center for Reproductive Health, Canada
: J Clin Exp Oncol
Abstract
CA215 is a tumor-associated antigen with unique carbohydrate-associated epitope (ST antigen) initially recognized by RP215 monoclonal antibody in 1987. It was later shown that CA215 consists mainly of the immunoglobulin heavy chains expressed by most of cancer cells, but not found among those produced by normal B cells. By using RP215 as a unique probe, both sandwich and competitive immunoassays were formulated to monitor or determine serum CA215 levels among patients with different known cancers of different tissue origins (n=557). These include lung, liver, colon, ovary, prostate, breast, kidney, esophagus, stomach, pancreatic, cervix and lymphoma. The positive rates ranged from 40-80%, depending on types of cancer. When combined with other known cancer markers such as AFP, CEA, CA125, CA19-9, CA15-3 and cyfra21-1, much higher positive detection rates of cancer were consistently observed. Therefore, it can be suggested that CA215 and/or cancerous immunoglobulin heavy chains were clearly demonstrated as a potentially useful pan cancer marker for cancer diagnostics and/ or monitoring cancer patients. CA215-based enzyme immunoassay kits are also beneficial to the monitoring of RP215-based anti-cancer drugs during the therapeutic cancer treatment.
Biography
Gregory Lee worked as a Professor at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada until 2012. He received his PhD in Physical Biochemistry from California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA in 1972. His major research interest is in the field of Biotechnology. He has generated numerous monoclonal antibodies for immunodiagnostic and therapeutic applications, including the early pregnancy detection, ovulation, myocardial infarction and cancer. During the last decade, he has focused on research and development of the monoclonal antibody-based anti-cancer drugs (noticeably RP215 and GHR106) for immunotherapy of human cancer. He has been serving as Editor of several international journals related to Cancer Research since 2012.
