Clinically Related Protein-Peptide Interactions Monitored in Real Time on Novel Peptide Chips by Surface Plasmon Resonance Imaging

Proteins constitute the essential machinery in cellular life; almost all cellular responses are triggered by protein-protein interactions. Performing assays to specifically analyze binding phenomena is important for understanding cellular mechanisms and for designing pharmacologic targets. These events cannot be studied with RNA/DNA chips because RNA concentrations do not always correlate with protein production and/or activity. Optical detection by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is an accurate, one-step method for the real-time direct measurement of ligand binding without labeling. However, this approach does not allow for parallel analysis on a single chip bearing an array of proteins or peptides. The aim of this application note is to describe the advantages of combining the use of peptide chips with direct label-free detection as achieved by SPR imaging (SPRi).