Study identifies key proteins involved in immunotherapy response

Oncology , Proteomics
Monday 7 June 2021
Read time: 4 minutes

‘Ultimately, it is all about understanding and treating patients better in the future.’

These are the words of Dr. Genevieve Boland, a surgical oncologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. In a SelectScience interview, she describes how she has used Olink to investigate the low rate of response to immunotherapy in metastatic melanoma patients, as well as understand the biology of melanoma progression over time.

Current immunotherapy for melanoma is based on using immune checkpoint blockade inhibitor (ICB) monoclonal antibodies. ICB therapy targets immune checkpoints, which are normally activated to stop the immune system from attacking self-tissue or cells. Cancer cells can manipulate these checkpoints, however, to prevent the immune system from attacking them. ICB treatment blocks the checkpoints altogether, amplifying the host immune system to destroy cancer cells.

By combining this data with transcriptomics, they were also able to pinpoint where these proteins came from to identify the cell types that contributed to a lack of response to therapy.

The success of this type of treatment varies, with many patients not responding to treatment at all. With the help of Olink, Dr. Boland and her colleagues are utilizing the plasma proteome to explore how the tumor microenvironment and immune system interact to build better predictors of response to immunotherapy.

Their most recent study used both the Olink Target and Olink Explore platforms to investigate the plasma proteome in a cohort of 116 and 202 melanoma cancer patients respectively as they underwent ICB treatment. They found over 200 differentially expressed proteins between responders and non-responders 6 months into treatment. By combining this data with transcriptomics, they were also able to pinpoint where these proteins came from to identify the cell types that contributed to a lack of response to therapy.

Learn more about Dr. Boland’s work by reading the SelectScience editorial.

Read article

Watch this webinar, presented by Arnav Mahta, to find out more about this ground-breaking melanoma study.

How the proteome behaves in healthy individuals

Clinical research, Multiomics
To achieve the goal of precision medicine, not only do different molecular profiles need to be understood in disease populations, but they must also be understood in the context of healthy populations.

Key proteomics publications from 2020

Proteomics
Welcome to the first post of the all-new weekly Olink to Science! Our customer survey revealed that you would like to know more about the many publications, research, and other science happening at Olink, therefore this blog aims to do just that: keep you informed on the exciting science taking place with our technology.

Protein biomarkers are crucial in early detection of cancer

Clinical research, Oncology, Protein biomarkers
A central premise of precision medicine is to identify biomarkers indicative of disease transitions early on. This is especially important in cancer where early treatment intervention could increase a patient’s chance of survival and reduce the probability of cancer recurrence.

Using PEA and RNA-Seq to study disease pathology

Clinical research, Proteomics
The following study illustrates how transcriptomics and proteomics complement one another to clarify the pathology of a complex, and little understood disease. Atopic dermatitis (AD) is the most common chronic skin condition affecting up to 20% of children and 7-10% of adults, depending on the population.

Olink protein biomarker panel indicates fermented foods fight inflammation

Inflammation, Proteomics
Could food be used to fight chronic disease?

Study identifies proteins involved in immunotherapy response

Oncology, Proteomics
'Ultimately, it is all about understanding and treating patients better in the future.'

Proteins diagnostic of lung cancer up to 5 years before disease onset

Oncology
An earlier Olink to Science blog post covered some amazing research that found that certain blood protein biomarkers have the potential to predict cancer up to 3 years before diagnosis. This may also be the case for lung cancer, as detailed in a recent study by Dagnino and her colleagues, where elevated levels of CDCP1 were detected in participants of a cohort who later developed the disease.

Utilizing proteogenomics technology for novel drug target discovery

Drug discovery & development
High-throughput multiplexed proteomic technology is leading the way to the latest developments in pre-clinical disease analysis in drug discovery. The pharmaceutical industry is now increasing its efforts in the discovery of novel drug targets by using protein quantitative trait loci (pQTLs), which allows for a more confident inference of disease causality and associated protein regulation.

Developing a high-performance biomarker panel for Alzheimer’s disease

Clinical research, Neurology, Protein biomarkers
A simple search of the term ‘scourge of Alzheimer’s Disease’ brings up over half a million website hits. A major disease, about 15% of us that reach the age of 67 to 74, and 44% of those 75 to 84 will develop AD.

How proteomics helped diabetic kidney disease research advance

Clinical research, Proteomics
Dr. Krolewski and his team at the Harvard Medical School found 56 proteins to be significant in diabetic kidney disease patients. Potentially, these could serve as prognostic biomarkers for disease progression and treatment response. This is how adding proteomics to the methodologies elevated their research.

2947

Biomarker assays

~881 million

Protein data points generated

1182

Publications listed on website