Gal-1 PET Can Determine Immunotherapy Response

Background: Use of immunotherapy agents has resulted in the improvement of outcomes for certain patients with malignancies, such as melanoma and non–small-cell lung cancer. However, predicting which patients might benefit from such therapy has not been well determined. Research by these authors has shown that tumors with low galectin-1 (Gal-1) expression respond to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) immunotherapy. Objective: To determine if Gal-1 PET imaging could identify malignant tumors that would respond to ICB immunotherapy. Methods: Mice were used as the animal models to evaluate the uptake of the Gal-1 PET imaging in tumors. Tumor cells were injected into the mice to produce the B16-OVA tumor–bearing mouse model. 124 I radiolabeling of the anti–Gal-1 antibody was performed. Proteomic analysis was obtained to measure biomarkers that would correlate with the efficacy of the ICB immunotherapy. Results: Both Western blotting and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay methods of analysis more...