Trio of Applied Biosystems' products debut at Analytica
appearance at the recent Analytica show in which the company
demonstrated the capabilities of its products for life science
research in the laboratory.
The instrument-based systems and consumables specialists also provided details about its acquisition of the Research Division of Ambion - significant as it places AB in a new and fast-growing market, representing further growth in its product offering.
Ambion's Research Product Division, supplies RNA-based reagents for life science research and drug development.
Ambion's sample prep, RNAi, microRNA, gene expression and array products are a small part of a market that identifies the nucleic acid (NA) therapeutic market to reach over $210 billion (€161bn) within the next five years.
AB used the show in Munich to show off its wider selection of its microRNA assays, announcing the availability of 300 individual TaqMan MicroRNA (miRNA)assays for human, mouse and rat studies.
MicroRNAs in the human genome are responsible for gene regulation and are a growing research area with implications for further understanding of gene regulation in various disease states.
"Whether or not specific microRNAs are expressed in a cell often influences key cellular characteristics and functions carried out by that cell," said William Murray, division president of Molecular Biology for Applied Biosystems.
"These non-coding microRNA molecules play a regulatory role in cellular processes, as well as in disease development, such as cancer."
The assays are based on a two-step process using >Applied Biosystems' proprietary stem-loop technology for reverse transcription (RT) of the mature microRNA followed by quantitative real-time PCR.
"The TaqMan MicroRNA Assays solve a challenge by determining expression profiles of microRNAs in developmental biology, stem cell research, cancer research, and disease research," said Caifu Chen, director of gene expression research at Applied Biosystems.
Unlike traditional laboratory methods, such as Northern Blots, these assays enable researchers to discriminate between highly homologous microRNAs and the precursor and mature form of microRNAs.
Applied Biosystems also introduces its new QSTAR Elite mass spectrometer for biomarker discovery - a new quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer for discovering protein and small molecule biomarkers from complex biological systems.
It offers researchers new insights in proteomics and metabolomics, offering more productive metabolite and protein biomarker identification.
The Tempo LC system and Analyst QS 2.0 software on the new QSTAR Elite System improves productivity from sample injection through to data acquisition.
Other packages include the ProteinPilot Software option for protein identification and expression analysis, which speeds up database searches, and the new MarkerView 1.1 Software option that aligns data across multiple samples for statistical analysis to identify potential biomarkers.
The QSTAR Elite System can be configured with the new Tempo LC system line, combining high precision liquid chromatography with ease of use to give a powerful solution for biomarker discovery.
The new TargetSeq Resequencing System for high throughput projects completes AB's selection of product offerings.
The system is a software system for project-specific optimisation of high throughput resequencing of smaller and targeted genomic regions, that uses AB's 3730 and 3730xl DNA Analysers.
The TargetSeq system features a fast-run software module for the sequencing of individual exons or other small DNA fragments and it can produce 200-400 base pair reads in 20 mins or less.
This system increases the number of bases read by the 3730 Analyser series to more than 2.8 megabases or 6912 samples (72 runs) per day, increasing the throughput of high workload resequencing projects in cancer and medical research.
TargetSeq software is uses existing hardware, software and reagent components on the 3730 series analysers. It includes a new version of the KB Basecaller software optimised for heterozygote or mixed base detection.
This latest advance in DNA sequencing means that the 3730 Analyser series and TargetSeq software provide the only high throughput genetic analysis system with the flexibility to run both long and short fragments.
