- Determine improvement of detection limits for rare abundance proteins such as transcription factors using photonic crystal array technology
- Determine applicability of using synthetic peptides for effective antibody production that recognize the protein in the native state in plant extracts.
- Demonstrate array methods that are scalable to higher throughput, as compared to immunoblotting or other protein detection methods
- Develop methods to allow researchers to directly confirm the expression of proteins in cells, tissue, and organ systems of plants that are predicted from high throughput mRNA sequencing and sensitive microarrays.
- The research provides quantitative data on the specific protein levels. The technology could also be applied to detecting the foreign proteins produced by GM (genetically modified plants) to assess the success of the constructs.
- The research will provide proof of concept for a method that could be scaled up for proteomics approaches to detect hundreds of proteins simultaneously using synthetic peptide antibodies.
- Photonic crystal coated arrays should improve sensitivity of limits of detection for proteins of rare abundance, as transcription factors and enzymes that regulate important pathways including nutritional composition and plant disease resistance.