Technology

The THX RPMA platform has been featured in over 50 peer-reviewed publications and 20 scientific presentations within the past 2 years alone. It has already been successfully used in NCI-sponsored clinical trials. The technology is a breakthrough tool that provides a clear and accurate analysis of the ‘wiring diagram’ of a patient’s cells and defines which pathways are specifically altered and activated. THX scientists can identify signaling defects that appear to predict response to certain therapies, prognose disease outcome and survival, and then produce a patient-specific portrait of drug target activation for clinical trial and therapeutic stratification. Combined with Theranostics’ related intellectual property, RPMA has led to the detection of key signaling defects in a variety of human tumors, including breast, ovarian, lung, colorectal, prostate, leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma and rhabdomyosarcoma. THX will continue to expand the applications of the assay as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool for diabetes, ocular disease, obesity, heart disease, inflammatory and infectious disease and neurological disorders.

Reverse phase protein microarrays offer a new opportunity to generate data on post-translational phosphorylation events not obtainable by gene microarray analysis. The reverse format immobilizes an individual test sample in each array spot. In contrast to forward-phase arrays in which multiple capture molecules are bound to an array and incubated with a single test sample, the reverse phase allows many test samples to be spotted on a single array. This accomodates samples that are available in very limited quantities, including needle biopsy tissue. The integration of laser capture microdissection technology into the Theranostics’ process enables as many as 100 slides to be printed from less than 5,000 microdissected cells. Each array is incubated with one detection protein. Hundreds of phosphospecific analytes can be measured concurrently to enable multiplexed cell signaling analysis and elucidate the molecular network within a specimen. Through this innovation on the array process, we can achieve direct quantitative measurements and extremely sensitive analyte detection. Phosphorylated protein isoforms can be measured from a lysate representing less than 10 cells. We offer better reproducibility, sensitivity and robustness when compared to other techniques.

RPMA Advantages:

• Sensitivity
• No antigen retrieval
• Single antibody class
• Quantitative measurement vs. subjective scoring
• Inter and Intra- assay variation: less than 10%
• Cells from any source: solid tissue, blood, serum, bone, spinal fluid