Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Biotech / Medical : Ciphergen Biosystems(CIPH): -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tuck who wrote (216)	3/30/2004 9:46:09 AM
From: tuck	Respond to of 510

[SELDI for Alchoholism] I'd like to see more numbers, but an interesting start: >>Proteomics. 2004 Apr;4(4):1187-94. Identification of novel and downregulated biomarkers for alcoholism by surface enhanced laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry. Nomura F, Tomonaga T, Sogawa K, Ohashi T, Nezu M, Sunaga M, Kondo N, Iyo M, Shimada H, Ochiai T. Department of Molecular Diagnosis, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan. Since personal and verbal reporting of alcohol use is not necessarily accurate, objective markers to assess alcohol consumption are required. The currently available markers, however, are limited in sensitivity and specificity for screening of excessive alcohol drinkers. Therefore, searches for novel markers are warranted. Recently, surface enhanced laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF-MS) has been successfully used to detect disease-associated proteins in complex biological specimens. We used the ProteinChip SELDI technology to generate comparative protein profiles of the consecutive serum samples obtained during abstinence from a total of 16 chronic alcoholic patients hospitalized for a rehabilitation program. We recognized two peaks (5.9 and 7.8 kDa), both of which had been downregulated on admission, the expression level of which significantly increased after a one-week abstinence. These changes were also seen in nonresponders of gamma-glutamyltransferase. These two proteins were partially purified and subjected to amino acid sequencing. The 5.9 kDa protein was identified as a fragment of fibrinogen alphaE chain and the 7.8 kDa was a fragment of apoprotein A-II. These novel protein fragments may be promising biomarkers for excessive alcohol drinking.<< Cheers, Tuck