Adaptive Dynamic Artificial Poly-ligand Targeting (ADAPT): a highly multiplexed aptamer-based biomarker discovery platform
Günter Mayer1,2, Valeriy Domenyuk1, Zhenyu Zhong1, Adam Stark1, Jie Wang1, Sonal Tonapi, Heather O’Neill1, Nianqing Xiao1, Mark R. Miglarese1, Michael Famulok1,2,3, and David B. Spetzler1
1Caris Life Sciences, Phoenix, AZ;
2LIMES Program Unit Chemical Biology & Medicinal Chemistry, University of Bonn, Germany;
3Chemical Biology Max-Planck-Fellowship Group, Center of Advanced European Studies and Research, Bonn, Germany.
Here we report on Adaptive Dynamic Artificial Poly-ligand Targeting (ADAPT) as a ssDNA aptamer-based highly multiplexed biomarker discovery platform and we report its potential utility in breast cancer diagnostics. We enriched a ssDNA library of 1012 oligonucleotides (ODNs) for interacting with blood plasma exosomes. Enrichment was confirmed by comparing binding profiles of the starting and the enriched ODN libraries to plasma exosomes using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), qPCR, flow cytometry and mass spectrometry. To further refine the enriched libraries, we generated a sub-library containing 2000 individual ODNs and profiled 500 plasma samples from 206 breast cancer biopsy positive (BC+), 177 biopsy negative (BC-) and 117 self-declared healthy donors (H). A Random Generalized Linear Model was used to build a case/control classifier and yielded Area Under a ROC Curve (AUC)-values of 0.58 (BC+ vs. all controls), 0.63 (BC+ vs. BC-) and 0.6 (BC+ vs. H) in a 5-fold cross-validation analysis. The most informative 50 ODNs significantly improved performance compared to the original 2000: AUC=0.62 (BC+ vs. all), 0.66 (BC+ vs. BC-) and 0.67 (BC+ vs. H). In summary, the ADAPT-platform identifies and measures thousands of ODNs that form signatures by their association with differentially expressed biomolecules in their native states. These data indicate that ADAPT may have promising utility as a diagnostic tool.