Abstract 2395: A bioluminescent probe for detection and imaging of heparanase enzymatic activity

Abstract Cancers of all types have been shown to overexpress the carbohydrate-processing enzyme heparanase during angiogenesis and invasion, and this enzymatic activity correlates positively with tumor stage and the presence of metastases. While detection of heparanase enzymatic activity holds potential for cancer diagnosis and staging, no probe has been achieved for in vivo systems. We have recently developed fluorogenic heparanase probes for single-step detection of in vitro heparanase enzymatic activity, drastically simplifying the detection of heparanase activity. The modular chemistry allows us to extend the utility further to improve the sensitivity of in vitro heparanase activity detection and enable in vivo detection. Thus, we have developed a bioluminescent heparanase probe, which upon activation by heparanase produces a substrate of firefly luciferase, a standard reporter enzyme for in vivo monitoring of tumor progression. This probe will be validated in multi-well assays of heparanase activity, and applied in real-time correlation of heparanase activity and tumor progression in, fLuc+ tumors in animal models. These studies hold promise in enabling highly sensitive detection of heparanase activity both in vitro and in vivo, and in allowing future research of real-time monitoring of heparanase activity with the tumor progression. Citation Format: Johnathan Somers, Kelton Schleyer, Jun Liu, Zhishen Wang, Arjun Kafle, Lina Cui. A bioluminescent probe for detection and imaging of heparanase enzymatic activity [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 2395.