AxCell Biosciences set to identify hundreds of thousands of protein interactions

AxCell Biosciences Corp. (Newtown, PA) told attendees of the BioSpan Europe 2000 conference that its automated proteomics platform is poised to identify 135,000 protein interactions per month. The company expects that the rate would increase to 200,000 per month by mid-summer, and it plans to complete the analysis of two to three protein domain families by year's end. AxCell was one of 10 biotech companies chosen to present at the BioSpan conference, which is designed to showcase a select group of U.S. and European biotechnology companies to European institutional investors. BioSpan is sponsored by the SWX Swiss Exchange and Anisfield Investments Ltd.

"Pathways of protein-protein interactions control cellular function, and defects in these pathways can lead to disease," John D. Rodwell, AxCell's acting president and chief technical officer, explained. "Of the approximately one million different proteins in humans, about 300,000 are believed to be involved in intracellular signaling pathways. Examining how all 300,000 signaling proteins might interact with one another would involve measuring some 90 billion interactions—a Herculean labor. AxCell has found a way to simplify this task."

Combining databases of ligands and domains with an affinity screening platform, Axcell is creating its Inter-Functional Proteomics Database (IFP Database), a tool for establishing the rules of interaction between domains and ligands. IFP overlays protein pathway data with other bioinformatic information in order to visualize and correlate data on pathways with sequence, expression, tissue distribution, structural, and bibliographic information that exists for a particular protein and pathway. This database is intended to point researchers to the best point for intervention in a protein pathway to maximize beneficial pharmacological effects while minimizing potential toxicity.

"There are approximately 140 domain families in the human proteome, and we estimate 30 to 60 families are involved in signaling pathways," Rodwell stated. "Despite their importance in understanding cellular function, no domain family has ever been fully characterized. So far, we have seen that the number of domain family members can vary from less than 100 to greater than 200. AxCell's high-throughput technology is beginning to prove itself, and we believe that we can completely chart human protein signaling interactions in two to four years. By completing the measurement of the first one million interactions—including charting two to three domain families—this year, we believe that our database will have reached a sufficient critical mass for marketing in early 2001. We believe that the WW domain will be the first family that we will fully characterize."

AxCell Biosciences Corp. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cytogen Corp. (Princeton, NJ), which has two principal lines of business, proteomics and oncology. Cytogen is extending its expertise in antibodies and molecular recognition to the development of new products and a proteomics-driven drug discovery platform. The company has established a pipeline of product candidates based on its proprietary antibody and prostate specific membrane antigen, or PSMA.

For more information: Axcell Biosciences Corp., 826 Newtown-Yardley Rd., Suite 100, Newtown, PA 18940-1720. Tel: 267-757-1200. Fax: 267-757-1301.

Edited by Laura DeFrancesco