Syngene announces that its G:Box Ichemi XT imaging system is being used by researchers to help determine the molecular basis of life-threatening disease, Duchenne's muscular dystrophy.
Scientists in the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Portsmouth are using a G:Box Ichemi XT system to accurately and quantitatively analyse Western blots of P2 receptors and other proteins associated with the dystrophin protein complex.
The blots are detected with either chemiluminescent ECL or different coloured fluorescent Dyomics dyes and the information gathered from them is used to determine which proteins have an impact on the pathology of muscular dystrophy.
This could lead to the development of novel therapies for the fatal muscle-wasting disease.
Prof Darek Gorecki, director of research in the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, said: 'We have identified P2 proteins affected by the absence of dystrophin and have produced knock-out mice to determine the effects that absence of P2 has in muscle cells.
'Since there is sometimes very small differences between up- and down-regulated proteins, we need an imaging system that can accurately detect low levels of protein and these very slight changes in expression levels.
'We chose a G:Box Ichemi XT because it is versatile enough to capture low levels of light from blots using ECL imaging, as well as image and overlay different coloured fluorescent Westerns, giving us greater confidence in our qualitative data,' he added.
