Researchers most often use techniques such as coimmunoprecipitation and yeast two-hybrid screening to study protein-protein interactions. These methods are time-consuming-the yeast two-hybrid technique can take several months to perform-and prone to false positive results. Millbury, Mass.-based Hypromatrix recently introduced AntibodyArray™ technology to combat these problems. Hypromatrix developed the AntibodyArray for the study of protein-protein interactions and protein phosphorylation, says James Wang, the company's chief technology officer, who notes also that the arrays are not recommended for the analysis of protein expression profiles.
The AntibodyArray is a membrane on which antibodies to a variety of protein ligands are immobilized. Users of the technology apply a cell lysate to the array and incubate to allow proteins to bind to their respective antibodies. They then detect the protein of interest by exposing the membrane to an antibody against that protein. The identity of proteins with which the target protein interacts is determined...
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