Authors
Ward, Timothy HCummings, Jeffrey
Dean, Emma J
Greystoke, Alastair
Hou, Jian-Mei
Backen, Alison C
Ranson, Malcolm R
Dive, Caroline
Affiliation
Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology Group, Paterson Institute for Cancer Research, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.Issue Date
2008-08-26
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Within the era of molecularly targeted anticancer agents, it has become increasingly important to provide proof of mechanism as early on as possible in the drug development cycle, especially in the clinic. Selective activation of apoptosis is often cited as one of the major goals of cancer chemotherapy. Thus, the present minireview focuses on a discussion of the pros and cons of a variety of methodological approaches to detect different components of the apoptotic cascade as potential biomarkers of programmed cell death. The bulk of the discussion centres on serological assays utilising the technique of ELISA, since here there is an obvious advantage of sampling multiple time points. Potential biomarkers of apoptosis including circulating tumour cells, cytokeratins and DNA nucleosomes are discussed at length. However, accepting that a single biomarker may not have the power to predict proof of concept and patient outcome, it is clear that in the future more emphasis will be placed on technologies that can analyse panels of biomarkers in small volumes of samples. To this end the increased throughput afforded by multiplex ELISA technologies is discussed.British Journal of Cancer advance online publication, 26 August 2008; doi:10.1038/sj.bjc.6604519 www.bjcancer.com.Citation
Biomarkers of apoptosis. 2008: Br. J. CancerJournal
British Journal of CancerDOI
10.1038/sj.bjc.6604519PubMed ID
18728647Type
ArticleLanguage
enISSN
1532-1827ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1038/sj.bjc.6604519