Advanced techniques in clinical practice: Use of lab-on-a-chip electrophoresis and other methods in protein profiling

Abstract

Proteins in clinical practice are analyzed as important parameters in the determination and treatment of different diseases. The scopes of the analyses are mainly concentrated in two levelsanalyses of the complete protein profile, or determination of an isolated protein. In this work, despite of the use of conventional methods, mainly electrophoresis, new techniques have been implemented in protein analyses. Lab-on-a-chip is an electrophoretic technique that, when optimized, provides analyses of the total protein profile. When normal samples are compared to samples obtained from patients with different neurological diseases, characteristic patterns can be noted. Also, correlation and comparison can be made between the newly developed microchip electrophoresis method and the results obtained using the conventional techniques. When an analysis of a specific protein is necessary, mass spectrometry has proven to give best results, in both the se lectivity and specificity of analyses. It is believed that cystatin C is a potential biomarker in neurological diseases; therefore, the mass spectrometry method has been developed in order to obtain qualitative and quantitative analyses of biological fluids. Using the developed method of mass spectrometry immunoassay (MSIA), cystatin C was easily isolated and analyzed, obtaining complete analysis within minutes. The resulting mass spectra revealed various levels of cystatin C isoforms in serum and CSF samples.

Keywords

• cystatin c
• lab-on-a-chip electrophoresis
• maldi-tof-ms
• msia
• neurological diseases
• protein profiling