Analy Chem: Scientists have developed new tools to study the function of the human body's immune system.

15, 2020 // -- In a recent study published in the international journal Analytic Chemistry, scientists from the University of Alberta and other institutions developed a new tool to help study the function of the human body's immune system, and the results may help improve understanding of the pathogenesis of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.
researcher Matthew Macauley said: 'Our lab has conducted an in-depth study of Siglecs, a sugar binding receptor that controls cells in the immune system, and it is challenging to study the sugar binding properties of Siglecs receptors because these bio-chemical interactions are much weaker than those between standard protein-proteins.
to solve this problem, the researchers used a nylon chain-like effect called affinity to enhance these interactions so that they could be studied more easily.
Photo Source: CC0 Public Domain's findings may help scientists understand the key role of Siglecs in the development of neurodegenerative diseases and cancers, and the tools the researchers designed are compatible with other detection techniques, including mass spectrometrometrometrometrometrometromety, which could open up new ideas to help study the properties of receptors that were previously impossible to study.
the researchers then applied the new tool to analyzing sugar molecules identified by the CD33 protein, after researchers found that CD33 played a key role in the development of Alzheimer's disease.
With the help of this new tool, researchers were able to clarify the bio-chemical properties of sugar molecules identified by CD33, which are more widespread than previously thought; This means that the interaction between CD33 and sugar molecules may be harmful, so a better understanding of the properties of sugar molecules identified by CD33 may hopefully help develop a new targeted strategy to treat human diseases by targeting interactions between CD33-sugar molecules.
results were funded by institutions such as the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
() Original source: Heajin Park, Jaesoo Jung, Emily Rodriguez, et al. Mass Spectrometry-Based Shotgun Glycomics for Discovery of Natural Ligands of Glycan-Binding Proteins, Analytical Chemistry (2020). DOI:10.1021/acs.analchem.0c02931.