LONDON (Agence de Presse Medical for Reuters Health) - British diagnostics company Microsens said on Wednesday it had won the race to detect abnormal prion proteins in the blood of patients with suspected Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
“This is the first time such detection has been announced,” the London-based private equity company said in a statement as it presented its findings at the NeuroPrion Conference in Paris.
Dr Christopher Stanley, CEO, told APM that Microsens was already talking to major diagnostic companies with a view to finding a partner this year and launching the test by 2006.
Microsens has developed a ligand-based technology, called Seprion, into a simple immunoassay. An affinity ligand captures the abnormal protein, an antibody detects it, and an enzyme signals the positive result by turning the sample blue, Stanley explained.
The technology was used to compare blood samples from a human patient with symptoms associated with CJD to control samples. At the same time, the company also tested and compared blood samples from Scrapie-infected sheep to controls.
“In all cases, the Seprion technology detected the abnormal TSE (transmissible spongiform encephalopathy) proteins linked with disease. This is the first time a blood test has successfully demonstrated the detection of these abnormal prion proteins in both humans and animals,” the company said.
Stanley said tests on dozens of human blood samples from Britain’s transfusion service as well as hundreds of sheep had been carried out to make sure negative samples tested truly negative. The specificity so far was 100%.
Microsens plans to expand its research into the human blood test to include more samples. It has already sold the rights to Seprion for use in a post-mortem test for BSE in cattle to Idexx Laboratories Inc in the United States.
Several other biotech companies, including Prionics in Switzerland and Inpro in California, are developing different technologies to detect abnormal prion proteins.
MeSH Headings:Diagnosis: Laboratory Techniques and Procedures: Hematologic Tests: Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and EquipmentCopyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
