Animal health R&D often leverages relevant discoveries and modern techniques – such as proteomics - from human health. The ability to accurately identify and quantify proteins in various animal tissues and biological fluids is key in modern approaches towards animal-specific medicines.
Recent examples of proteomics applications in animal health include target and biomarker discovery, characterization of pathogen–host interactions on the protein level, mechanism of action studies, efficacy testing and identification of off-target effects.
But the lack of species-specific antibodies available for research is a major limitation. Where non-species-specific antibodies are available, insufficient specificity and undesired cross-reactivity is often a problem. Next-generation proteomics is based on mass spectrometry and overcomes these limitations. Using this approach thousands of proteins can be simultaneously identified and quantified in virtually any animal sample without the need for antibodies or any other reagents. Because mass spectrometry is highly selective, even proteins with very high sequence homology can be easily distinguished.
Biognosys has extensive experience in the quantification of proteins in various animal tissues and biological fluids originating from ruminants, horses, pigs, poultry, rabbits, rodents, fish, bees and companion animal such as cats, dogs, guinea pigs and birds. Since mass spectrometry is “species-agnostic”, method development timelines are short and turnaround times from sample to result fast.
You are likely to benefit if you are looking to:
- Accurately identify and quantify proteins in animal samples but are limited by antibody availability or performance
- Compare proteins with very high sequence homology but cannot find antibodies that are selective enough
- Take an “omics” approach in your discovery efforts and gain a system wide understanding of protein expression in your samples