BH3 Profiling – A Predictive Biomarker for Apoptotic Response to Chemotherapy

During oncogenesis, cancer cells provoke death signals due to a variety of aberrant behaviors, including genomic instability, oncogene activation, and anoikis. In order to grow and persist as clinically relevant tumors, cancer cells must find a way to escape pro-death signals in the intrinsic or mitochondrial apoptotic pathway. We have developed a tool, BH3 profiling, which can detect how cancer cells evade apoptosis. Some evade apoptosis, but become dependent on anti-apoptotic proteins like BCL-2. Such tumors are sensitive to agents like ABT-737 that target BCL-2, including acute lymphoblastic leukemia. BH3 pro…