SUMITOMO BAKELITE CO., LTD. (Headquarters: at 2-5-8 Higashi Shinagawa, Shinagawa
ward, Tokyo; Tsuneo Moriya, President) has developed vessels, plates and devices
(protein non-adsorbent devices) with a surface where the adsorption of proteins
will not occur, preventing such adsorption problem which, otherwise, would often
appear during structural and functional analysis of proteins in conventional
vessels, plates and devices used in the biotech field.
|
| Societal Background |
|
Marked progress has been made in biochemical fields like
clinical diagnostics and drug discovery to clarify the functions of proteins and
assay drugs base on and keeping pace with the advance of genomic sequencing and
information data obtained thereby. To process such enormous amounts of
information obtained by sequencing a technology ensuring a high speed and high
precision analysis of a very small amount of natural substances is essential.
Thus, various machines and apparatus as well as methods have been invented
and developed as novel systems for such analysis, wherein the precision and
sensitivity of such machines have been improved a lot to meet the
requirement.
Nevertheless, as far as the vessels, plates and devices in
contact with living substances are concerned, we are still using classical
materials chosen from their transparency and moldability, such as polystyrene
and polypropylene, where no remarkable progress is found since the transition in
the past from glass to plastics. While organic substances existing in vivo,
such as proteins, may be stable therein, their structure and functions are
vulnerable to substantial alteration and damage in vitro when picked up into
contact with plates or onto devices as foreign matters due to the adsorption of
the substances to vessels, plates and devices. Moreover, such physical
influences as on the changes in concentration and loss of proteins due to the
adsorption, came to be not negligible, vital hindrance of analytical research
along with the finer amount of proteins to be handled. Higher speed and
higher sensitivity of analytical systems are bigger drivers for us to motivate
the development of next-generation devices which have intelligent surface
controlling over protein adsorption, since such new systems will apparently meet
with serious difficulties of traditional vessels, and devices.
|
| Brief description of the developed
devices. |
Device products employing protein non-adsorbent
surface treatment technology developed so far are lined up in the assortments
of: cryogenic preservation tubes, preservation/ diluting purpose 96-well
deep-well plate, 96-well multi-well plate for colorimetry, 96-well multi-well
plate for fluorescent/luminescent analysis. We are supposed to increase the
application areas further to various other kinds of vials, dishes, devices and
apparatus.
|
| Key Technology |
The adsorption ratio of proteins onto the
surfaces of conventional plastic vessels and devices is measured as high as
about 30%.max of the total amount, namely, 30% of proteins within a protein
solution in contact therewith was lost due to the adsorption. On the other
hand the protein non-adsorbent surface developed allowed to reduce the figure to
a "non-adsorbent" level of less than 1/1000 of conventional plastic vessels and
devices even after a long time contact. Such tremendous features can be
exhibited for all types of proteins.
The main features of our protein
non-adsorbent products are as follows:
| 1.Preservation vessels: |
Prevent deactivation and metamorphosis during preservation of
the proteins ensuring long-term, stable preservation . |
| 2.Diluting vessels: |
Inhibit the changes in concentration due to adsorption
while ensuring accurate dilution as expected theoretically. |
| 3.Measuring vessels: |
Minimize the reduction of signals and generation of
noises due to adsorption ensuring the high-sensitivity & high-precision
analysis. |
|
In fact Protein non-adsorbent devices did not
existed in this world as available materials to date. For that reason no
discussions were made among researchers on the bad influence of the adsorption,
despite the adverse testing conditions under which they are actually forced to
carry out the analysis. The protein non-adsorbent products allow to realize
the analysis and research in-vitro in nearly the same conditions as in-vivo
environments. We can assure you that this will become an essential material
in research and analysis in bio-related fields. Eventually aiming to apply
this technology to all kinds of vessels, plates and devices for use in
preserving, handling and treating proteins, peptides and DNA., we will explore
possibilities for further product improvement and development . |
Thank you.
|
|