Chips are down as Manchester makes protein scanning breakthroughAugust 25, 2008Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed a new and fast method for making biological 'chips' - technology that could lead to quick testing for serious diseases, fast detection of MRSA infections and rapid discovery of new drugs. Researchers working at the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (MIB) and The School of Chemistry have unveiled a new technique for producing functional 'protein chips' in a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), published online today (22 August 2008). Protein chips - or 'protein arrays' as they are more commonly known - are objects such as slides that have proteins attached to them and allow important scientific data about the behaviour of proteins to be gathered.
Functional protein arrays could give scientists the ability to run tests on tens of thousands of different proteins simultaneously, observing how they interact with cells, other proteins, DNA and drugs. As proteins can be placed and located precisely on a 'chip', it would be possible to scan large numbers of them at the same time but then isolate the data relating to individual proteins. These chips would allow large amounts of data to be generated with the minimum use of materials - especially rare proteins that are only available in very small amounts. The Manchester team of Dr Lu Shin Wong, Dr Jenny Thirlway and Prof Jason Micklefield say the technical challenges of attaching proteins in a reliable way have previously held back the widespread application and development of protein chips. Existing techniques for attaching proteins often results in them becoming fixed in random orientations, which can cause them to become damaged and inactive. Current methods also require proteins to be purified first - and this means that creating large and powerful protein arrays would be hugely costly in terms of time, manpower and money. Now researchers at The University of Manchester say they have found a reliable new way of attaching active proteins to a chip. Biological chemists have engineered modified proteins with a special tag, which makes the protein attach to a surface in a highly specified way and ensures it remains functional. The attachment occurs in a single step in just a few hours - unlike with existing techniques - and requires no prior chemical modification of the protein of interest or additional chemical steps. Prof Jason Micklefield from the School of Chemistry, said: "DNA chips have revolutionised biological and medical science. For many years scientists have tried to develop similar protein chips but technical difficulties associated with attaching large numbers of proteins to surfaces have prevented their widespread application. "The method we have developed could have profound applications in the diagnosis of disease, screening of new drugs and in the detection of bacteria, pollutants, toxins and other molecules." Researchers from The University of Manchester are currently working as part of a consortium of several universities on a £3.1 million project which is aiming to develop so-called 'nanoarrays'. These would be much smaller than existing 'micro arrays' and would allow thousands more protein samples to be placed on a single 'chip', reducing cost and vastly increasing the volume of data that could be simultaneously collected. University of Manchester Science News and Science Current Events Tag Cloud This tag cloud is a visual representation of term frequencies of random science news topics with common terms grouped together and emphasized by their display size. Dead Zone Adult Stem Cells Wildfire Hysterectomy Yeast Cells Huntingtons Disease Anthropology Arctic Obese Aphids Electrons Planet Formation Cognitive Impairment Solar System Long-term Memory Gestational Diabetes Autoimmune Diseases Space Weather Drinking Tonsillectomy Mobile Phone Biofuel Neutron Star Macrophages Nuclear Power
See More: Science News Tags | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
Related New Drugs Current Events and New Drugs News Articles Newly appreciated membrane estrogen receptor important therapeutic target for breast cancer New research at Rhode Island Hospital has uncovered the biological effects of a novel membrane estrogen receptor, a finding that has potential implications for hormonal therapy for breast cancer. Alzheimer's research yields potential drug target Scientists at UC Santa Barbara and several other institutions have found laboratory evidence that a cluster of peptides may be the toxic agent in Alzheimer's disease. Scientists say the discovery may lead to new drugs for the disease. New nanoparticles could revolutionize therapeutic drug discovery A revolutionary new protein stabilisation technique has been developed by scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) which could lead to 30 per cent more proteins being available as potential targets for drug development - opening up exciting possibilities in drug discovery. Artificial liver for drug tests If you have hay fever, headaches or a cold, it's only a short way to the nearest chemist. The drugs, on the other hand, can take eight to ten years to develop. MicroRNAs help control HIV life cycle Scientists at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have discovered that specific microRNAs (non-coding RNAs that interfere with gene expression) reduce HIV replication and infectivity in human T-cells. Scripps research scientists observe human neurodegenerative disorder in fruit flies A team of scientists from The Scripps Research Institute, Katholeike Universiteit Leuven, and the University of Antwerp, Belgium, among other institutions, has created a genetically modified fruit fly that mimics key features of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a common neurodegenerative disorder that strikes about one out of every 2,500 people in the United States. UAB Researchers Draft 3-D Protein Map A new three-dimensional computer protein map is helping researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) unravel the biological pathways that control brain-cell death after a stroke. U of M study finds new insight on therapy for a devastating parasitic disease University of Minnesota Medical School researchers have discovered an important new insight into how a commonly prescribed drug may work to treat those infected by a parasitic flatworm. Cancer-Causing Protein Can Also Help Fight the Tumors It Causes Oncogenes are genes that when mutated or expressed in high concentrations can cause normal cells to become cancerous. Targeting Tumor Behavior May Lead To New Liver Cancer Drugs Ohio State University cancer researchers have used computational and genomic methods to identify possible anti-cancer agents that may block a particular kind of tumor behavior. More New Drugs Current Events and New Drugs News Articles |
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||