Biomarker discovery and analysis platform: Application to Alzheimer's disease

This BioXPRESSION Platform was used to process more than 300 human serum samples from Alzheimer's and normal patients. Alzheimer's disease and control samples were fractionated using ProXPRESSION Basic Protein Enrichment Kits. The combination of reproducible fractionation methods with precise and accurate separation, detection and identification resulted in successful, statistically significant protein identifications. Some of the proteins identified in this study have been reported in previous Alzheimer's research studies. Other proteins identified as differentially expressed in this study have not been reported and their possible roles in neuro-degeneration are being explored. Fractionation of Alzheimer's disease and control samples generated highly reproducible spectra by MALDI O-TOF MS and allows researchers to investigate the low molecular weight proteome (i.e. fragmentome). Spectra were used to generate a BAMF Alzheimer's disease fingerprint to successfully classified Alzheimer's disease samples from controls with high sensitivity and specificity. The PerkinElmer biomarker platform enables complementary discovery strategies: identification using PMF and rapid protein profiling (i.e. fingerprinting) using BAMF technology. Knowledge of a protein's identity is important for learning more about a disease processes underlying pathology. The rapid screening capabilities of protein profiling offer incredible potential for improving clinical diagnostics. The performance characteristics described are also well suited to meet the demands of toxicoproteomics and drug efficacy studies. The rapid classification capabilities can be used to screen for and detect adverse effects of drug trials.