Peptide Array Core

The Center for Innovations in Medicine (CIM) is offering peptide microarrays and processing for immunosignaturing and other applications. The microarrays consist of peptides spotted or synthesized on standard glass slides or onto slicon dioxide, respectively.

Each peptide is a random sequence. The peptides are exactly 20 amino acids long with a constant GSC linker (for spotted arrays) or ~14 amino acids long with a GSG linker (for in situ synthesized arrays).  For spotted arrays, the 17 amino acids are generated by random choice of 19 amino acids (cysteine is excluded) and for in situ synthesized arrays, the 11 amino acids are generated by pseudorandom choice of 18 amino acids (cysteine and methonine are excluded).

Spotted microarrays

In situ synthesized microarrays

The Microarrays are printed on standard 75.4mm x 25mm (3 in x 1 in) glass slides, or synthesized on 8 inch wafers and diced into standard slides. The arrays can be purchased directly for use by the researcher or they can be processed in the Core. Data analysis can be provided. We recommend 10um 2-color scanners for the 10K microarrays and a 0.5um 2-color scanner for the 330K and 350K microarrays.  The CIM10K has been used in several different applications including:

• Immunosignaturing: A small sample of serum, saliva or other fluids can be analyzed for the antibody signature on the array. This procedure is very sample sparing and sensitive to changes in health status. It can be used to characterize vaccines/infections or to develop diagnostics for chronic diseases.

• Ligands: Proteins, viruses, bacteria or cells can be applied to the arrays to find peptide ligands. Conditions for binding can be controlled relative to temperature, solvents or competitors. The Synbody technology provides a method to increase specificity and affinity by linking peptide ligands. Initial leads can be readily improved by a simple maturation procedure.
• Cell binding and peptide antimicrobials: Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells and viruses have been labeled and bound to the peptide arrays to identify cell binding or cell-lytic peptides.