When it comes to proteomics and broad protein profiling (and/or quantification), two main technologies come to mind: Mass Spectrometry and Antibody Arrays. Rather than opposing each other, they appear more as complementary in the chase for Biomarker discovery.

Indeed, each technique has its own advantages and limitations. Combining the two can contribute to more accurate identification of relevant biomarkers. Going one step further, biomarker identification performed by Mass Spec can be confirmed by Antibody Arrays.

Involved in many physiological processes (apoptosis, aging, cell signalling..) and numerous diseases (cardiovascular disorders, to cancer and neuro-degenerative diseases…), Mitochondria have become more and more popular as a study model in many research fields. In order to facilitate your daily work, tebu-bio provides a broad range of easy-to-use kits and assays: read on to discover the MitoTools!

I had introduced in a previous post a newly released
Allopregnanolone Immunoassay Kit (K061-H). It has actually been used in a recent study by Gao and Matsumot, published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology (S0378-8741(18)34424-6) The authors reported significant reduction in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)-like behaviors in mice treated with Kami-shoyo-san (KSS), a traditional Japanese herbal medicine. Read more in this post to see how it was used (with special thanks to Arbor Assay scientists).

Recent articles have highlighted the role the STING cell signalling pathway may be playing in drug development, whether via its inhibition to control innate immunity and inflammation (Nature Biotechnology, March 2019 :  “Drug developers switch gears to inhibit STING”), through activation of STING to boost checkpoint inhibitors in their fight against cancer (C&EN 2018  “STING fever is sweeping through the cancer immunotherapy world”), or using STING ligand cGAMP as a vaccine adjuvant for anti-tumour or anti-viral vaccines. More specifically, Aduro has demonstrated how their compound ADU-S100 activates the STING pathway to increase immune reponse against cancer cells. This interesting interview on their clinical trials program (AACR 2016) relates its potential synergy with immune checkpoint inhibitors and potent effect in systemic tumour regression.

How does the STING pathway work? And which tools can be of help to study its potential activation or inhibition is what this post aims to illustrate.