Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Transgene, SA, 11 rue de Molsheim, F-67082 Strasbourg, France

Correspondence to: Dr UB Rasmussen, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Transgene, SA, 11 rue de Molsheim, F-67082 Strasbourg, France. E-mail: rasmussen@transgene.fr

We isolated cancer cell-specific phages by subtracting and selecting complex peptide display phage libraries on cultured human cancer cells. The best candidate was selected by performing three rounds of subtraction before each of five selections on the human colorectal WiDr cell line. The phage showed more than 1000-fold higher binding efficiency for WiDr cells when compared to five other human cancer cell lines, including two of colorectal origin, and when compared to wild-type M13 phage. Fifty-fold higher binding efficiency was also seen for a human breast cancer cell line. We show that the WiDr cell binding of the selected phage was efficiently competed by the synthetic peptide HEWSYLAPYPWF, predicted from the phage sequence. This confirms that the specificity of the peptide is independent of the display by the phage coat proteins. The identified peptide may target biomarkers linked to colorectal cancer, and thus be useful for designing gene transfer vectors as well as diagnostic and prognostic tools for this disease. Cancer Gene Therapy (2002) 9, 606-612 doi:10.1038/sj.cgt.7700476

targeting; peptide display; phage display; subtraction; human cancer cells; WiDr cells