AIST Develops a Precise Sugar-Chain Profiling Scanner Using a Lectin Arraying Technique, Tool for High-speed Early Diagnosis of Cancer.Tokyo, Japan, Dec 20, 2005 - (JCN) - The National Institute of Advanced Science and Technology (AIST AIST Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Japan) AIST National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Japan) AIST Association for Iron & Steel Technology ) has developed the first scanner using the evanescent ev·a·nes·cent adj. Of short duration; passing away quickly. wave-excited fluorescent detection method and a sugar chain profiling system utilizing lectin lectin /lec·tin/ (lek´tin) any of a group of hemagglutinating proteins found primarily in plant seeds, which bind specifically to the branching sugar molecules of glycoproteins and glycolipids on the surface of cells. micro-arrays in the world. This study was conducted as a part of the Glyco-Engineering Project sponsored by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO NEDO National Eating Disorders Organization NEDO New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (Japan) NEDO National Economic Development Office ). AIST arrayed 40 kinds of lectins Lectins A class of proteins of nonimmune origin that bind carbohydrates reversibly and noncovalently without inducing any change in the carbohydrate. Lectins bind a variety of cells having cell-surface glycoproteins (carbohydrate bound proteins) or glycolipids (glycol-proteins), whose specificity has already been clarified, on slide glasses. Weak interactions between sugar chains and lectins were clearly detected in real time. AIST belives the technique can be applied widely not only to refined products, such as sugar chains, glyco-peptides and antibodies, but also to clinical specimens, such as blood, and thereby the application of glyco-protein engineering to medical technologies can be further accelerated. The development was carried out in collaboration with Moritex Co. Ltd. (CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. , Shigeyuki Morita) to fabricate a high-performance lectin array system by combining a specified scanner of Moritex (SCAN III, the former Nippon Laser & Electronics Lab Co., Ltd., incorporated with the Moritex in 2004) with a lectin fixation technique developed by AIST. AIST hope that the technique will play an important role in sugar chain-related fields of medicine, such as early diagnosis of cancer or rapid sorting of stem cells for regeneration medicine. This work was published in the latest issue (November) of Nature Methods, and presented at the Biotechnology Symposium held at the Toranomon Pastral on November 22. Copyright [c] 2005 Japan Corporate News Network. All rights reserved. |
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