Easily measure peptides and proteins which can be used to discover multi-marker panels or profile patterns indicative of specific diseases
ClinProt Micro is described as an affordable, easy-to-use and compact clinical system dedicated to peptide and protein profiling, biomarker discovery and biomarker validation (currently for research use only).
It is based on a high-performance bench-top Maldi-Tof mass spectrometer from Bruker Daltonics's Flex series, providing excellent biomarker detection sensitivity and resolution, as well as the reliability and reproducibility needed for rigorous validation studies of putative biomarkers for cancer and other diseases.
The ClinProt Micro system offers unique integrated sample preparation tools for biofluids and tissue extracts with comprehensive analysis, visualisation and model building software.
The ClinProt workflow is said to easily measure peptides and proteins which can be used to discover multi-marker panels or profile patterns indicative of specific diseases.
These multi-marker panels or patterns have potentially better diagnostic specificity than single biomarkers.
Bruker says the ClinProt Micro system is ideal for cancer research and other clinical and diagnostics research laboratories engaged in biomarker discovery across a range of samples.
It is a robust and easy-to-use system operating under Compass software for intuitive operation by expert and non-expert users alike.
Another unique component of the ClinProt Micro is Bruker Daltonics's patented AnchorChip Maldi target technology, which offers excellent performance in biomarker discovery, including fast automated acquisition and a ten-fold sensitivity increase.
When upgraded with optional reflectron technology for even higher resolution, the ClinProt Micro system can also be utilised for biomarker identification on isolated and digested putative biomarkers with excellent protein sequence coverage.
The reflectron model also offers the ability to detect and localise post-translational modifications in cancer proteomics.
The new ClinProt Micro system complements Bruker Daltonics's existing ClinProt high-end research systems based on floor-standing high-resolution Maldi-Tof or Tof/Tof systems, which the company says have become very successful in recent years due to their outstanding performance and reproducibility.
The ClinProt Micro solution incorporates Bruker Daltonics's unique magnetic bead sample preparation technology with functionalised surfaces to bind and enrich proteins and peptides.
Captured proteins and peptides are eluted from the surface and a fraction is transferred to AnchorChip targets for analysis, leaving the remaining aliquot for further confirmatory analyses.
The versatile ClinProt MB magnetic bead assays include various choices of hydrophobic bead types, weak anion exchange (WAX) beads, weak cation exchange (WCX) beads, immobilised metal affinity capture (Imac) beads with both copper and iron variants, as well as MagAB antibody beads for biologically selective, very sensitive clinical assays.
Sample preparation is facile, scaleable and highly reproducible whether undertaken manually, or under automation for higher throughput on the optional ClinProt robot, says Bruker.
For larger validation studies, ClinProt magnetic bead sample preparation tools are significantly more affordable and more reproducible than typical flat-surface so-called protein chip methods.
The ClinProt Micro harnesses the power of Bruker Daltonics's dedicated bioinformatics software for biomarker discovery, called ClinProTools.
This intuitive and simple-to-use software allows easy access to ClinProt Micro data for rapid and comprehensive evaluation to mine potential biomarkers in complex protein profiles.
ClinProTools offers smart visualisation of large numbers of profiles, the creation of predictive models, the validation of models via cluster analysis, and the classification of unknown samples - addressing all the major functions in biomarker pattern profiling and validation.
Mark Flocco, business development manager for clinical proteomics at Bruker Daltonics, commented: "Our new ClinProt Micro represents a major leap forward in cancer biomarker discovery, by combining the facile magnetic bead preparation of biological fluids or tissue samples, with high-quality, sensitive and reproducible ClinProt profiling, and dedicated bioinformatics software in an intuitive, flexible and cost effective workflow.
"Its order of magnitude lower cost per sample makes this approach affordable for economical larger validation studies.
"Finally, due to its modularity, the ClinProt Micro can even be used for the identification of the many recently discovered putative multi-biomarker panels".
Frank Laukien, president and CEO, stated: "ClinProt Micro offers a dedicated, scaleable system for biomarker discovery, which we believe will substantially increase the ability of cancer and other clinical researchers to discover, validate and identify new multi-marker panels with higher disease specificity.
"As the field of clinical proteomics continues to develop, our ClinProt Micro solution offers clinicians and cancer researchers a truly coherent, yet simple to use, routine workflow, delivering excellent data quality and confidence in its interpretation".
