Bruker Daltonics Launches New CLINPROT™ Magnetic Beads for Glycoprotein Enrichment

At the HUPO World Congress 2006, Bruker Daltonics today launches its new ClinProt™ MB-LAC LCA (Lectin Affinity Chromatography - Lens Culinaris Agglutinin) glycoprotein kit. This ready-to-use glyco-kit further enhances Bruker Daltonics’ separation technology in the field of glycoprotein analysis and clinical proteomics research. The new LCA magnetic beads complement Bruker Daltonics’ well-established portfolio of ClinProt™ glycobeads which are functionalized with either concanavalin A, wheat germ agglutinin or boronic acid. With a combination of optimized beads, intelligent enrichment strategies for glycosylated peptides and proteins prior to mass spectrometric analysis are now enabled for protein scientists.

Glycosylation is the most common post-translational modification of proteins, playing a key role in protein folding, stability, solubility, activity and molecular recognition. Altered glycosylation is known to act as an indicator or effector in pathologic mechanisms with potential impact on diagnosis and therapy of human diseases. Immunity to certain infectious diseases, prion diseases and cancer can all be associated with abnormal glycosylation patterns. As an example, increased branching and sialylation of N-linked glycans on cancer cells are potential tumor markers in molecular diagnostics.

Bruker Daltonics meets the growing demands of glycomic analysis with a unique combination of ClinProt™ glycobead separation technology, superior performance MALDI-TOF/TOF mass spectrometers, and advanced ESI-MS/MS systems, along with sophisticated bioinformatics. With the Bruker Daltonics’ mass spectrometry workflow, glycoproteins from human serum can be reliably and reproducibly captured and identified with a dynamic range of eight orders of magnitudes. Besides glyco-protein identification and characterization, ClinProt™ glycobeads are suitable for profiling analyses.

Dr. Katrin Sparbier, Senior Scientist at Bruker Daltonik GmbH, points out: “Bruker Daltonics’ lectin coated magnetic beads enable the handling of low sample volumes and generate less non-specific binding in contrast to agarose supports. Optimized separation protocols can be scaled according to purification demands and transferred to automated sample preparation workflows.”

Dr. Guido Mix, Consumables Business Development Manager at Bruker Daltonik GmbH, comments: “Mass spectrometry is the key methodology for analyzing and characterizing glycoproteins, N-glycosylation sites and glycan structures. However, glycoproteins are often encountered in minute quantities in biological samples and researchers spend considerable efforts on pre-fractionation and separation. Bruker Daltonics enables magnetic bead-based enrichment, separation and profiling of low-abundance glycoproteins. With our high-end mass spectrometry technology, we are making glycoproteomics research easier and more productive.”