Diagnostic method based on large scale identification of post-translational modification of proteins

Abstract

Methods for the large scale identification of post-translational modification states of proteins and enzyme activities for carrying out post-translational modification reactions involve the analysis of functional extracts from fresh and frozen samples using protein arrays. The methods and kits of the present invention can be used to analyze and characterize compounds for their effects on post-translational modifications and their pathways. The methods and kits can also be used to diagnose and characterize a wide variety of diseases and medical conditions, including cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, immune diseases, infectious diseases, genetic diseases, metabolic conditions, and drug effects using cells or body fluids of a patient.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation-in-part application under 35 U.S.C. §120 of an International Application PCT / US09 / 005670, filed Oct. 19, 2009, which claims benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61 / 196,461, filed Oct. 17, 2008, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.GOVERNMENT SUPPORT[0002]This application was made with Government Support under grant No. GM039023 awarded by the National Institutes of Health. The Government may have certain rights in the invention.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Post-translational modification (PTM) of proteins has been studied largely using purified systems or whole cells. The analysis of protein PTM in cell extracts as well as extracellular fluids is both theoretically and empirically problematic. For example, both ubiquitination and phosphorylation, common examples of PTM, are very rapidly reversed, and this reversal re...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0005]The invention provides methods and kits for the systematic and large scale determination of protein PTMs and the enzyme activities that catalyze them. The methods entail incubating protein microarrays or another protein array format with cell extracts or fluids from a subject, performing specific PTM reactions on the microarrays, and detecting protein modification states of specific proteins. The methods according to the invention overcome obstacles associated with classical biochemical techniques by performing PTM reactions on protein microarrays with biological samples, such as patient materials, whose physiological state is preserved, appropriately supplemented, if so desired, with limiting PTM reaction components, and make it possible for the first time to rapidly screen patient samples for activities that modulate PTM states related to disease, and to rapidly screen for test agents that modulate PTM or PTM alteration pathways.

Problems solved by technology

The analysis of protein PTM in cell extracts as well as extracellular fluids is both theoretically and empirically problematic.

Moreover, classical biochemical methods such as Western blot do not work well for concentrated mixtures of proteins, because the modified protein bands spread throughout the electrophoretic gel, and in complex samples, such as a cell extract or a blood plasma sample, many protein species would overlap, making protein identification difficult or impossible.

Chemical methods such as mass spectrometry cannot distinguish ubiquitin and polyubiquitin chains, yet only the latter are critical for protein degradation.

A further limitation of such classical biochemical methods is that cryopreserved specimens which can be more readily available or are more logistically easy to procure cannot be used for most of these analyses and may have altered representation of the physiological condition.

Furthermore, MS methods do not analyze the activity / function of a specific tissue / sample and its content but rather identifies the abundance of certain proteins in it.

Thus, the complexity of the tissue and the dynamic range of different protein level are often limiting their detection.

Thus, systematic assays for the screening, including diagnostic screening, of ubiquitinated or other post-translationally modified proteins remain limited.

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