Immunohistochemical detection of HER2 cancer biomarker with IgY antibody and quantum dots. (Source: NIST)

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and SAIC recently showed how chicken antibodies may one day improve the detection of an aggressive form of breast cancer.

HER2 is one of a family of genes that help regulate the growth and proliferation of human cells. Normal cells have two copies of HER2, but about 20 to 25 percent of breast cancers have multiple copies of the gene, resulting in the overproduction of a HER2-encoded protein that stimulates tumors to be particularly fast growing and difficult to treat in a subset of breast cancer patients. The research team found that chicken immunoglobulin Y (IgY) antibody created against the HER2 protein could be tagged with quantum dot to more reliably detect the HER2 biomarker than the existing diagnostic tests using mammalian antibodies tagged with conventional fluorescent dyes. Overall, the improvement in sensitivity to the HER2 biomarker was about 40-50 percent.

Published in Drug Discovery & Development magazine: Vol. 11, No. 3, March, 2008, p.42.