Abstract :
[en] The prostate cancer is the most common male-specific cancer observed in the European Union and is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in our industrialized countries. The choice of treatment and its efficiency is largely dependent on the stage and on the degree of advancement of the cancer when it is diagnosed. Screening procedures like digital rectal examination (DRE) and free prostate specific antigen (PSA) level testing are well established but lack accuracy, yielding only 80% of prostate cancers diagnosed in an early stage. By providing a more accurate and precise tool for diagnosing prostate cancer in its early stages, the percentage of curable cancer patients would increase radically. Current imaging techniques have limited value, thus a major challenge in current prostate cancer oncology is to develop more accurate imaging assessments. An efficient imaging technique which significantly improves the sensitivity and specificity of diagnosing, staging and predicting the behaviour of prostate cancer would be extremely valuable.
The ADONIS Project intends to prove the concept of using optoacoustic imaging in combination with biologically functionalized nanoparticles as an integrated biosensor based system for the production of specific and sensitive data for accurate diagnosis of prostate cancer. The achievement of this objective requires excellent know-how on a variety of scientific and technologic fields, brought by the partners of ADONIS, coming from five European countries, such as laser and ultrasound technologies and image reconstruction techniques, the bio-functionalization of nanoparticles, the system integration and, finally, experiments and competent evaluation of the results for their application potential.
The development of the biosensor is firstly performed to target the Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA), a transmembrane protein considered as a suitable biomarker for prostate cancer and which is under intense investigation for use as an imaging and therapeutic target. To allow the detection optimization of the biosensor, a 3D cellular culture technique (Rotating Cell Culture System) is developed with LNCaP cells (a human prostate carcinoma cell line reported to express PSMA) to be closest to the in vivo aspect for which a three-dimensional aspect of tumor for the biosensor detection is needed.
Detection and localisation of PSMA on LNCaP cell surface was performed by immunostainning on monolayer culture and on spheroid slices. Then, by backscattered electron (BSE) microscopy analysis, detection of nanoparticles on cells surface shows the successful binding of the biosensor to the cells expressing PSMA. In prospect, the detection of the biosensor will be tested on large spheroids and finally tested on in vivo model.
