PROTEOME SCIENCES DEMONSTRATES THE IMPACT OF MASS SPECTROMETRY IN ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE RESEARCH

06 September 2006

Proteome Sciences plc yesterday demonstrated the application of its proprietary ProteoSHOP® mass spectrometry platform in the discovery and validation of candidate biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease and the strategy it has adopted to discover novel potential therapeutic targets in the first presentation of the Biomedical Applications Session at the 7th Siena International Proteomics Meeting, Italy.

Dr. Peter Schulz-Knappe, Chief Scientific Officer, presented how Proteome Sciences has developed and applied proprietary mass labels and mass spectrometry interpretation software to maximise the performance of its ProteoSHOP® platform for biomarker and therapeutic target discovery.

Using a combination of 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis and multi-dimensional chromatographic protein separations combined with its proprietary isotopically labelled mass tags PST® and TMT® linked to multiple mass spectrometry systems Proteome Sciences has developed relatively high-throughput workflows under its ProteoSHOP® platform for biomarker and therapeutic target discovery and validation. These have now been applied to a well characterised cohort of plasma samples from patients with Alzheimer's disease and relevant age and sex matched controls. This has identified over 30 candidate biomarkers from which a number of proteins have been evaluated for their potential in diagnosing disease and monitoring its progression.

Dr. Schulz-Knappe also revealed a novel candidate therapeutic target for Alzheimer's disease related to the hyper-phosphorylation of the brain protein tau. The target, casein kinase 1, was discovered by using a differential phosphopeptide display methodology, one of the applications of the company's proprietary isobaric Tandem Mass Tags (TMT®). This approach allowed the identification of 37 different phosphorylation sites in tau of which 12 have not previously been reported.

The use of these powerful mass spectrometry technologies in combination with well designed protein extraction, labelling and separation workflows has enabled Proteome Sciences to discover and patent important new biomarkers and therapeutic targets in one of the most economically important human diseases.