NanoInk

Nanotechnology offers the pharmaceutical industry new opportunities to optimize the drug discovery process. Cells are themselves 'nano structures' that function on nano-dimesions. The ability to manipulate biomolecules at the nanoscale should provide insights into how cells work and communicate, and ultimately what leads to disease pathology. At a practical level, the miniaturization of drug discovery assays will impact research cost effectiveness by requiring significantly less sample for any given technique. In fact nanotechnology offers the potential to push the detection threshold down to a few copies of proteins increasing sensitivity and facilitating the analysis of individual cells. Looking beyond drug discovery, nanotechnology applications will expand into the clinical realm, benefiting the drug development process by making routine the analysis of nearly any human tissue or fluid. Nanotechnology will usher in the era of personalized medicine, where patient specific studies with only a few cells or proteins will be quantified and compared across the population.

Proteomics refers to the identification of the complete set of expressed proteins in an organism. Today the term proteomics has expanded to include the study of protein-protein interactions, protein structure, function, and how modifications affect protein activity. A key driver behind the science of proteomics has been the study of the differential expression of proteins in organs, tissues and cells in specific pathological states, by the adaption of gene expression microarray technologies. Previously the translation from gene to differential protein expression analysis has been somewhat crude. However nanotechnology has now begun to impact proteomics by the use of nanoarrays that much more accurately and cost effectively assess differential protein expression, biomarker discovery and protein based interactions.

On the nanotechnology front, sophisticated and costly instrumentation such as atomic force microscopy, electron microscopy and e-beam nanolithography have been directed at various proteomic analyses. However only recently has this instrument driven technology evolved to a point where it is ready for rapid adoption and standardization with the biological sciences in general and proteomic analyses specifically. Dip Pen Nanolithography® (DPN) is an established method of nanofabrication in the physical and chemical sciences, that is crossing over to biological sciences. Using DPN, biomaterials are deposited onto a variety of surfaces at nanometer resolution, using femtoliter volumes of material, bringing precision, cost effectiveness, and high reproducibility to proteomics. DPN is not limited to science in a vacuum, and enables the controlled deposition of a variety of functioning biomolecules including nucleic acid, proteins, cell lysates or whole cells. Using DPN nanoscale arrays can be spotted on to glass, nitrocellulose, or other ELISA friendly surfaces offering accuracy and data quality not possible with other methods.

Coupling powerful nanoarray deposition techniques with the latest generation of fluorescent detection technologies has resulted in the NanoDiscovery Fluorescent System, a new approach to protein analysis and detection. The NanoDiscovery Fluorescent System can create high-quality protein nanoarrays with nanometer resolution and precision, that are easy to use and provide enhanced sensitivity. It is compatible with high-resolution fluorescent scanners and easily accommodates existing assay protocols. This means the system integrates quickly and cost-effectively into any laboratory environment.

Highly reproducible proteomic analysis has been an elusive goal. Traditional protein arrayers that use pin spotted technology often print inconsistent features, which can lead to poor reproducibility. Other protein detection techniques exhibit prohibitively slow reaction kinetics or require large amounts of sample material and reagents. The use of NanoDiscovery Fluorescent System and nanoarrays provides better data quality while using tiny amounts of sample. The uniformity of the features combined with extremely low non-specific bind­ing can result in better assay data as these miniature sized spots behave as more specific and sensitive probes, ultimately permitting the detection of very low abundance biomarkers from small amounts of biofluids.

The nanoscale arrays can also help enable high-throughput analysis. Because the protein features it de­posits are so small and precisely located, the NanoDiscovery Fluores­cent System can print up to 96 sub-arrays per slide. This translates to the ability to perform high through­put protein analysis on a single slide. The NanoDiscovery Fluorescent System array is completely customi­zable with hundreds of features patterned into each sub-array, and the number of sub-arrays per slide can be designed to meet individual customer requirements.

Nanoarrays can reduce assay cost, and open up entirely new assay opportunities not easily approachable today, like precious clinical samples containing just a few cells from low volume fluids. DPN technology utilizes femtoscale fluidic liquid handling to deposit ex­tremely small quantities of proteins and reagents, minimizing the sample size and resulting in cost savings for expensive biological reagents, or offering assays on samples that was previously not possible. With the power of the NanoDiscovery Fluorescent System scientists can probe proteins buried deep in the proteome, with very low expression profiles.

Combining optimized surface chemistries with gentle deposition techniques, the robust NanoDiscovery Fluorescent System creates nanoarrays of bioactive proteins, ideal for high-throughput protein assay applications or clinical sample analyses:

• Protein profiling
• Biomarker detection
• Cytokine expression profiling
• Growth factor and signal transducer screening
• Protease screening

With many of the processes associated with the search for new drug targets being contracted out by the pharmaceutical industry, it is now possible to source a service that is expert in the application of nanotechnology in pharmaceutical sciences. The Nano BioDiscovery Division at NanoInk provides a comprehensive line of services for the analysis of proteins from custom protein nanoarray spotting to complete assay development and analysis for a range of proteins. NanoInk scientists work with the customer to design the protein nanoarrays in the most favorable pattern on a modified substrate and determine the best assay conditions for optimal performance. Based on the customer's requirements the Nano BioDiscovery team will then either send the arrays to the customer for processing at their own facility or will run the assay, and extract and analyze the data, developing a comprehensive report with image files, raw data with the results delivered rapidly to the client.

Nanotechnology is ready to serve the pharmaceutical R&D market needs. NanoDiscovery Fluorescent Systems offer exciting opportunities towards experiments that were previously not possible, providing high sensitivity assays, as well as more cost and time-efficient approaches to drug discovery and development.