Bruker Daltonics announces several far-reaching new capabilities for clinical proteomics and peptide/protein biomarker discovery at the 52nd ASMS conference
The ClinProt magnetic bead product line has been expanded significantly to now include not only various hydrophobic bead types, but also weak anion exchange (Wax) beads, weak cation exchange (WCX) beads, as well as immobilised metal affinity capture (Imac) beads with both copper and iron variants.
This comprehensive offering of semi-selective magnetic bead arrays for sample clean-up provides clinical researchers with a flexible tool-kit for biomarker discovery and assay protocol optimisation, says Bruker.
The ClinProt magnetic bead arrays have large surface areas for excellent sensitivity, allow straight-forward robust automation of solution-based sample preparation protocols, and are inherently scalable and quite reproducible, in contrast to chip-based surface methods for sample preparation.
The cost per assay using ClinProt magnetic bead arrays has dropped to $2 per assay, thus allowing economic larger validation studies, which will be needed for many recently discovered putative multi- biomarker sets.
Antibody magnetic bead arrays.
MagAB nano-particle is a key addition to the ClinProt product line which allows researchers to attach antibodies, antibody fragments, peptides, DNA or ligands to the magnetic bead surface. These MagAB beads are useful for researchers looking for specific proteins or binding partners, for biologically selective and very sensitive specific clinical assays.
The MagAB beads are also useful as a more generally applicable tool for research and discovery in interaction proteomics.
The flexibility of the MagAB beads allows ClinProt users to capture specific populations of proteins and peptides based upon the specificity of the antibody interaction.
In the case of antibody cross-reactivity, researchers can take advantage of the compound-specific read-out by mass spectrometry to identify multiple antibody binding partners, such as isoforms, based on the accurate mass obtained by Maldi-Tof, or potentially even based on structural information from de novo sequencing, if a Maldi-Tof/Tof is used as part of the ClinProt platform.
ClinProt 3D platform.
For metabolic or peptide/protein biomarker discovery, Bruker Daltonics introduces a novel ClinProt 3D research platform, which utilises high-resolution HPLC followed by high-mass accuracy MS, typically using ESI-Tof, or even ESI-FTMS, for the measurement of potentially thousands of molecules in human body fluids or tissues.
ClinProTools 3D software is ideal for biomarker discovery from high-resolution LC runs, it says.
With the highly intuitive and simple-to-use ClinProTools software, researchers now can visualise a virtual gel, in 3D stacking or contour plot mode, or view the data in an average spectra view.
The software has added capability, utilising multiple algorithms for mining information which does not become obvious upon initial visual inspection.
Either approach reviews the spectra and looks for differences that allow the ClinProTools software to group the data into distinct families: for example, drug treated versus non- treated samples, responders versus non-responders, or normal versus affected patients.
ClinProt ID for biomarker identification.
The new ClinProt ID capability combines magnetic bead separation and AnchorChip sample concentration technology for biomarker identification either by Maldi-Tof/Tof analysis directly, in the case of peptide biomarkers, or by enzymatic digestion, followed by Maldi-Tof/Tof analysis, in the case of protein biomarkers.
ClinProt ID allows a clear scientific understanding of putative biomarkers, in order to assess their potential biological and medical relevance.
Biomarker identification is becoming very important for two reasons: first to obtain strong intellectual property protection for newly discovered biomarkers, and second to provide more detailed information to establish biological relevance of biomarkers for future FDA applications on new protein molecular diagnostics tests.
ClinProt ID further enhances the confidence in biomarker discovery and future diagnostics assays by utilising both the pattern recognition approach as well as peptide or protein identification.
