Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) have published a study demonstrating the use of an advanced nanoparticle-based tool for analysing human proteins in order to discover both their function and potential drug targets for treating genetic diseases.
The research tool, provided by US biotech firm Seer, Inc., is a pioneer in the field of proteomics – the study of human proteins.
Researchers believe that understanding the role of proteins in a host of human diseases holds the potential to enable the creation of a new generation of protein-targeting therapies, but analysing the nature of proteins remains technologically problematic, owing to their vast number and complexity. To meet this challenge, researchers at WCM-Q are intensively studying and testing the most advanced protein analysis platforms to discover which of the available tools is most effective.
The latest WCM-Q study in this field, titled, ‘A genome-wide association study of mass spectrometry proteomics using a nanoparticle enrichment platform', has been published in the leading scientific journal Nature Genetics. Dr Karsten Suhre, professor of physiology and biophysics at WCM-Q and director of the bioinformatics and virtual metabolomics core, is lead author of the study.
“Gaining a deeper, more complete and more accurate view of the proteome holds the potential to point the way to new therapies for many human diseases,” said Dr Suhre. “The challenge is that analyzing the proteome is very difficult – the quantity of data is vast, proteins are highly complex and dynamic, and different proteins often have similar structures to one another, making them difficult to identify, distinguish, quantify and analyse.”
The Proteograph Product Suite from Seer Inc. uses nanoparticles which enrich particular proteins, making them easier to isolate and identify. The technology builds on an established method called mass spectrometry, in which molecules are ionised using a high-energy beam of electrons and then separated and identified by their differing atomic masses. The study found that nanoparticle-enriched mass spectrometry can complement the use of another proteomics technology, known as affinity-based proteomics, in which antibodies or other binding molecules are used to detect specific proteins.
Dr Frank Schmidt, professor of biochemistry and biophysics, and director of the proteomics core at WCM-Q, said: “This study demonstrates that in our work to map the proteome, to understand how it works, and to discover associations between specific genes, proteins and diseases, it is beneficial to use a number of proteomics platforms in a complementary fashion.”