Search

A homogeneous PCR-based assay for sensitive and specific detection of antibodies in serum or dried blood spots (DBS) is presented and the method is used to monitor individuals infected with or vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. Detection probes were prepared by conjugating the recombinant spike protein subunit 1 (S1), containing the receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2, to each of a pair of specific oligonucleotides. The same was done for the nucleocapsid protein (NP). Upon incubation with serum or DBS samples, the bi- or multivalency of the antibodies (IgG, IgA or IgM) brings pairs of viral proteins with their conjugated oligonucleotides in proximity, allowing the antibodies to be detected by a modified proximity extension assay (PEA). Anti-S1 and anti-NP antibodies could be detected simultaneously from one incubation reaction. This Antibody PEA (AbPEA) test uses only 1 µl of neat or up to 100,000-fold diluted serum or one ø1.2 mm disc cut from a DBS. All 100 investigated sera and 21 DBS collected prior to the COVID-19 outbreak were negative, demonstrating a 100% specificity. The area under the curve, as evaluated by Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis reached 0.998 (95%CI: 0.993-1) for samples taken from 11 days after symptoms onset. The kinetics of antibody responses were monitored after a first and second vaccination using serially collected DBS from 14 individuals. AbPEA offers highly specific and sensitive solution-phase antibody detection without requirement for secondary antibodies, no elution step when using DBS sample in a simple procedure that lends itself to multiplex survey of antibody responses., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest UL is a founder and shareholder of Olink Proteomics, having rights to the PEA technology. All other authors declare that they have no competing financial interests or personal relationships that could influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Plasma proteome analyses of the future promise invaluable insights into states of health, not only by measuring proteins whose role it is to ensure blood homeostasis, but increasingly also as a window into the health of practically any tissue in the body via so-called leakage protein biomarkers. Realizing more of this vast potential will require progress along many lines. Here we discuss the main ones, such as optimal selection of target proteins, affinity reagents, immunoassay formats, samples, and applications, with a view from ongoing work in our laboratory., (Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

After the conclusion of the second five-year period of the European Science Foundation (ESF) programme on functional genomics, it is time to take stock and evaluate its accomplishments. The programme networked leading scientists from a large number of European countries for strategy discussions about the promotion of functional genomics research, and to arrange scientific meetings and exchange programmes. In brief, I believe this programme has punched above its weight, and that it has successfully contributed to the overall organisation of molecular biosciences in Europe. With a modest annual budget the programme has created several interesting new opportunities, some of which may have yet to show their full impact. However, these mini-reviews are intended to provide a personal perspective on this functional genomics effort, and accordingly I focus on my personal experiences from the ESF programme., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

While antibodies currently play a dominant role as affinity reagents in biological research and for diagnostics, a broad range of recombinant proteins are emerging as promising alternative affinity reagents in detection assays and quantification. DNA-mediated affinity-based assays, such as immuno-PCR and proximity ligation assays (PLA), use oligonucleotides attached to affinity reagents as reporter molecules. Conjugation of oligonucleotides to affinity reagents generally employs chemistries that target primary amines or cysteines. Because of the random nature of these processes neither the number of oligonucleotides conjugated per molecule nor their sites of attachment can be accurately controlled for affinity reagents with several available amines and cysteines. Here, we present a straightforward and convenient approach to functionalize recombinant affinity reagents for PLA by expressing the reagents as fusion partners with SNAP protein tags. This allowed us to conjugate oligonucleotides in a site-specific fashion, yielding precisely one oligonucleotide per affinity reagent. We demonstrate this method using designed ankyrin repeat proteins (DARPins) recognizing the tumor antigen HER2 and we apply the conjugates in different assay formats. We also show that SNAP or CLIP tags, expressed as fusion partners of transfected genes, allow oligonucleotide conjugations to be performed in fixed cells, with no need for specific affinity reagents. The approach is used to demonstrate induced interactions between the fusion proteins FKBP and FRB by allowing the in situ conjugated oligonucleotides to direct the production of templates for localized rolling circle amplification reactions., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Multiplex protein quantification has been constrained by issues of assay specificity, sensitivity and throughput. This research presents a novel approach that overcomes these limitations using antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates for immuno-polymerase chain reaction (immuno-PCR) or proximity ligation, coupled with competitive PCR and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. Employing these combinations of technologies, we demonstrate multiplex detection and quantification of up to eight proteins, spanning wide dynamic ranges from femtomolar concentrations, using only microliter sample volumes., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The heterogeneous nature of cancer results in highly variable therapeutic responses even among patients with identical stages and grades of a malignancy. The move towards personalised medicine in cancer therapy has therefore been motivated by a need to customise therapy according to molecular features of individual tumours. Companion diagnostics serves to support early drug development, it can provide surrogate markers in clinical trials, and also guide selection of individual therapies and monitoring of responses in routine clinical care. The era of companion diagnostics can be said to have begun with the introduction of the HercepTest - a first-of-a-kind diagnostic tool developed by DakoCytomation in 1998 to select patients for therapy with the anticancer drug Herceptin (trastuzumab). Herceptin and the paired test proved that companion diagnostics can help guide patient-tailored therapies. We will discuss herein technologies to analyse companion diagnostics markers at the level of DNA, RNA or protein, focusing on a series of methods developed in our laboratory that can facilitate drug development and help stratify patients for therapy., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Gene expression - a key feature for modulating cell fate-is regulated in part by histone modifications, which modulate accessibility of the chromatin to transcription factors. Until now, protein-DNA interactions (PDIs) have mostly been studied in bulk without retrieving spatial information from the sample or with poor sequence resolution. New tools are needed to reveal proteins interacting with specific DNA sequences in situ for further understanding of the orchestration of transcriptional control within the nucleus. We present herein an approach to visualise individual PDIs within cells, based on the in situ proximity ligation assay (PLA). This assay, previously used for the detection of protein-protein interactions in situ, was adapted for analysis of target PDIs, using padlock probes to identify unique DNA sequences in complex genomes. As a proof-of-principle we detected histone H3 interacting with a 26 bp consensus sequence of the Alu-repeat abundantly expressed in the human genome, but absent in mice. However, the mouse genome contains a highly similar sequence, providing a model system to analyse the selectivity of the developed methods. Although efficiency of detection currently is limiting, we conclude that in situ PLA can be used to achieve a highly selective analysis of PDIs in single cells., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Molecular diagnostics can offer early detection of disease, improved diagnostic accuracy, and qualified follow-up. Moreover, the use of microfluidic devices can in principle render these analyses quickly and user-friendly, placing them within the reach of the general practitioner and maybe even in households. However, the progress launching such devices has been limited so far. We propose that an important limiting factor has been the difficulty of establishing molecular assays suitable for microfabricated formats. The assays should be capable of monitoring a wide range of molecules, including genomic DNA, RNA and proteins with secondary modifications and interaction partners, and they must exhibit excellent sensitivity and specificity. We discuss these problems and describe a series of molecular tools that may present new opportunities for lab-on-a-chip devices at the point-of-care.