To ensure that the antibodies are specific and compete with the binding sites for the targeted protein

We have previously demonstrated that PLA offers highly sensitive and specific detection of proteins and their interactions over wide dynamic ranges either in solution or in situ, and the method can be applied either for transfected or normally expressed target proteins. Interactions are dynamic processes that are preferentially detected in their natural environment. In this paper we have established a scalable method using microarrays for recording levels of proteins and all pairwise interactions among a targeted set of proteins. The method has been applied for investigating four proteins of the NFkB family along with one housekeeping protein. We demonstrate that the approach can be adapted to different sample types by analyzing both cell lysates and fixed cell samples, and the assays should thus be suitable for analysis of clinical samples such as plasma, serum or other bodily fluids, as well as fixed cells or tissue sections. By using DNA barcodes to represent the targeted proteins, and taking advantage of efficient techniques for nucleic acid analysis, the method allows analysis of the entire interaction space among the set of targeted proteins. This opens up unique possibilities for studying all possible interactions and posttranslational modifications among large groups of proteins, either for research or diagnostic purposes. Also larger complexes of interacting proteins can be investigated by identifying pairwise interactions. Both quantitative real time PCR and next generation sequencing have previously been used to read out multiplex PLA experiments. Recently, Lundberg et al developed four 24-plex PLA reactions, using a microfluidic system from Fluidigm to conveniently run real time PCR in chips with 96 amplification reactions for each of 96 DNA samples per chip. Since the potential for binary interaction analysis scales as the square of the number of investigated targets, DTM offers an attractive alternative for inexpensive high-throughput readout. By using two-color DTM analyses, distinctly bar-coded PLA ligation products from pairs of samples can be pooled prior to PCR amplification, allowing the LY2109761 clinical trial ratios for the corresponding analytes in the two samples to be determined even when array features are saturated, thus achieving a broad dynamic range. The proposed method has limitations for absolute quantification of the abundance of proteins or protein-protein interactions, but the method is excellently suited to screen for quantitative differences between pairs of samples. It could be of great value to use the method to screen for differences in levels of proteins and their binary interactions between e.g. cancer and normal tissue, and to follow this by qualitative in situ PLA analyses of the individual or interacting proteins using the same reagents. A main rate limiting factor for further multiplexing of the assay will be the identification of high quality affinity reagents. The quality of the antibodies strongly influences both the sensitivity and the specificity of the assays. We have applied a strict validation pipeline for all binders used in the assays shown herein.

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