Synthetic Biomarkers – a new buzz word in the area of modern diagnostics

Biomarkers are the Holy Grail for detecting diseases. Natural biomarkers are sought after molecules for effective screening of patients. Biomarkers include detection of proteins, RNA, DNA to now even micro RNAs. However, detection of natural biomarkers is fraught with issues of specificity, feasibility , price etc.

Now, a new set of research is employing the idea of nano-particles conjugated peptides. Since many disease states are characterized by dysregulated protease activity, the synthetic probe acts by stimulating this response thereby releasing the peptides that can be non-invasively detected. The nanoparticle is introduced and allowed to accumulate in diseased tissue where it is cleaved by the overactive proteases. This cleavage releases the peptides into the host’s urine, where it can be detected using either simple ELISA or mass spectrometry. Synthetic biomarkers provide the flexibility, ease and specificity that a modern day diagnostic lab would demand. In fact, promising results have already been observed to monitor liver fibrosis and detect early stage cancer. This noninvasive urinary monitoring could prove applicable to many diseases that feature protease dysregulation, including cancer, atherosclerosis, inflammation, and Alzheimer’s disease and may also detect many of these diseases much earlier than the traditional biomarkers.

  Image - ACS Nano, 2013, 7 (10), pp 9001–9009

The recent news of a paper based assay to detect cancer (colorectal at this point of time) and thrombosis is a very important step in the direction of non-invasive ‘synthetic biomarker’ based diagnostics. This is even more significant for poor countries where population cannot afford high cost diagnostics that might not even be accurate enough for the cost of the assay. Therefore, I believe the field of nano-particles and synthetic biomarkers can be given more encouragement not only from the Government but also from the various aid agencies to improve upon the technology and help bring the products to the market much faster.