Nano-immunoassay (NIA) utilizing surface-enhanced raman scattering (SERS) effect is an analytical technique with high sensitivity that holds a great promise for in vitro disease diagnosis. NIA is an automated nano-fluidic method that uses isoelectric protein focusing and antibody detection to quantify protein expression and resolve un-phosphorylated from single- and multiple- phosphorylated protein isoforms. All steps are performed in a single capillary. A precision robot moves capillaries to the sample, reagent, incubation, and separation chambers as dictated by the assay protocol. To date, assays have been developed for over 20 proteins to observe proteomic changes in proliferation, cell cycle, apoptosis and various signaling pathways.
CNIA Technology
CNIA refers to a capillary-electrophoresis nano immunoassay system, which offers both size-based and charge-based separation formats. Depending on the process, samples are prepared with SDS-containing buffers (for size-based assay) or solution-phase carrier ampholytes (for charge-based assay) and automatically loaded into small capillaries for electrophoretic separation.
- Improved Assay Performance
- Automation and robust performance
- Greater sensitivity
- Higher dynamic range
- Quicker turnaround time
- Precise data quantitation
- Comparison of CNIA to other immunoassay
Immunoassay-based analytical technologies have been widely used for target-specific protein detection and quantification from discovery research to clinical studies. Table 1 offers a comparison of the CNIA system with other major immunoassay platforms.
Outlook
The CNIA technology has shown considerable promise in various nano-immuno assay (NIA) applications. For the future development and translational application of the technology, some improvements are needed.
- Expanding the range of target detection with good resolution
- Improving signal-to-noise ratio in size-CNIA
- Peak identification for charge-CNIA
- Integrating the CNIA technology with other approaches
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