Antibody Therapies

We develop monoclonal antibody therapies for the treatment of cancer. We focus on developing antibodies that specifically target cancer cells and activate the body’s immune system to destroy these tumor cells without toxic effects to healthy normal cells. Such antibodies are mass manufactured through the use of genetic engineering technology and prepared for administration to patients as cancer therapeutics.

Glypican3: A molecular target for hepatocellular carcinoma
	2006/10/12 Glypican3(GPC3) is a glycosylphosphatidylinositol(GPI) -anchored protein on the cell surface with a molecular wiehgt of 60kDa

Glypican3

Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) is known as one of the major cancers in terms of incidence and mortality as well as stomach, lung or colorectal cancer in Japan. A group led by Professor Aburatani systematically analyzed the HHC DNA transcriptome by microarray analysis. Through the comparison of hepatocelluar cancer cells and normal tissue, genes highly expressed in cancer cells only were revealed. One gene identified as glypican 3 (GPC3) encodes a 60kDa GPI-anchored cell surface expressed protein. The group found that GPC3 is expressed in fetal liver and HCC, through transcriptome analysis. Subsequently, a series of anti-GPC3 monoclonal antibodies were established, and through further analysis of GPC3 using these antibodies, Hippo et al.(2004) found soluble circulating forms of GPC3 in patient sera with sGPC3(*1). Thus, suggesting that sGPC may represent a novel serological marker for the early detection of HCC. Following these findings, Yamauchi et al.(2005) used multiple monoclonal antibodies for immunohistochemistry in pathological sections, and found that GPC3 was highly expressed in fetal liver, but not in normal adult liver, liver cirrhosis or hepatitis except for a tiny focus in fulminant hepatitis(*2). Therefore GPC3 has great potential as a new pathological marker for HCC diagnosis. Reference: *1 Cancer Res. (2004) 64(7): 2418-23 Identification of Soluble NH2-Terminal Fragment of Glypican-3 as a Serological Marker for Early-Stage Hepatocellular Carcinoma. *2 Mod Pathol. 2005 Dec;18(12):1591-8. The glypican 3 oncofetal protein is a promising diagnostic marker for hepatocellular carcinoma.

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