Discovery and validation of biomarkers that respond to treatment with brivanib alaninate, a small-molecule VEGFR-2/FGFR-1 antagonist.

The process of neovascularization from preexisting blood vessels, referred to as angiogenesis, plays a critical role in both tumor growth and dissemination in multiple cancer types. Currently, there exists a need to identify biomarkers that can both indicate biological activity and predict efficacy at the molecular level for antiangiogenesis drugs which are anticipated to result in tumor stasis rather than regression. To identify such biomarkers, athymic mice bearing L2987 human tumor xenografts were treated with the antiangiogenic agent brivanib alaninate, which is currently under clinical evaluation. This is an orally available and selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor that targets the key angiogenesis receptors vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR-2) and fibroblast growth factor receptor 1. In the described studies, tumor samples were collected from these xenografts and RNA was extracted for gene expression profiling on Affymetrix 430A mouse GeneChips. Statistical analysis was done using a defined set of genes identified to be coexpressed with VEGFR-2 from a clinical tumor gene expression profiling database and between tumor samples isolated from brivanib alaninate-treated and untreated mice. Tyrosine kinase receptor 1 (Tie-1), collagen type IV alpha1 (Col4a1), complement component 1, q subcomponent receptor 1 (C1qr1), angiotensin receptor-like 1 (Agtrl1), and vascular endothelial-cadherin (Cdh5) were all identified to be significantly modulated by treatment with brivanib alaninate. These genes, which may be potentially useful as markers of brivanib alaninate activity, were further studied at the protein level in two separate in vivo human colon tumor xenograft models, HCT116 and GEO, using immunohistochemistry-based approaches.