Today, prostate cancer diagnosis is performed using antibody detection, but the technique is both difficult and leads to too many false positives. At the University of Birmingham in the UK, researchers are taking a different approach that may help improve the accuracy of the diagnosis while making it practical to use since it can be easily stored for long periods at room temperature. The scientists developed a sensor chip that can differentiate glycoprotein molecules with specific sugar attachments in target locations on the molecule. Glycoprotein molecules are produced as part of the body’s immune response to disease. They tend to have different sugar components depending on the presence of a particular disease, so identifying these sugar elements, rather than the proteins themselves, may provide a new level of accuracy for diagnostics.
To make this happen, the researchers created a chip with tiny cavities that are shaped to accept glycoproteins with specifically shaped sugar attachments. Focusing on prostate cancer, the researchers created a molecule with a boron group that reacts with the glycoprotein. This molecule also reacts and attaches to another molecule that itself is bound to a gold surface, drawing the rest of the compound to lay on the chip. Another molecule is then used to lay over the rest of the surface so that other glycoproteins do not attach. The next step is to remove the glycoprotein from the chip, leaving a mold with boron-containing molecules that point to the sugars that were present within the glycoprotein.
While the system was developed to identify prostate cancer, the same technology should be adaptable for diagnoses of a wide range of diseases.
Study in journal Chemical Science: Selective glycoprotein detection through covalent templating and allosteric click-imprinting…
Source: University of Birmingham…
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