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License to drive
June 2011
EDIT CONNECT
SHARING OPTIONS:
ST. LOUIS—With a boost from technology
developed at King's
College London, Sigma Life Science, the biological products and
services
research business of Sigma-
Aldrich, is developing and commercializing a test
that facilitates the simple, accurate identification and validation of microRNA
(miRNA) targets.
The test is intended to ease research bottlenecks commonly
experienced in the identification of targets of miRNA,
gene-expression
regulators in eukaryotic cells. Aberrant expression of miRNAs are known to play
a role in many disease states—making them important
targets for clinical
research in oncology, wound healing and infectious disease—but the specific
targets of most miRNAs are unknown.
"Because of the promiscuous nature of microRNA/target
binding, a number of targets can be identified for an individual
microRNA,"
says a spokesman for King's
College
London Business, the university's innovation arm. "These would further be
investigated for their involvement in disease pathogenesis and
possible drug
targets."
But according to King's College London and Sigma Life
Science, the
identification of miRNA targets is laborious and inefficient,
relying on computer algorithms and subsequent validation by in-vitro assays.
"One of the problems that people face when studying miRNA
and other non-coding RNAs is figuring
out what genes they are regulating," says
Steven Suchyta, market segment manager for Sigma Life Science's emerging
technologies division. "miRNAs
are not very specific. One miRNA can target
hundreds or thousands of different genes. To investigate this, people are
trying to use computer
algorithms, but these are unreliable because the rules
are so undefined, and you can't validate the results. We knew we needed to find
a better way of
functionally figuring out what gene an miRNA is regulating."
To overcome these challenges,
scientists in the university's
Division of Cancer Studies developed a technology that enables the
straightforward identification of target genes that are strongly
regulated by a
given miRNA, helping to elucidate important gene regulation events in vivo.
In the early phases of their working relationship, King's College London was able to produce both 3' UTR libraries which
Sigma could use to
transfect into new cells lines and test for miRNA expression
as well as cell lines already transfected with the 3' library proprietary to
the
university.
"This enabled evaluations by Sigma of the technologies'
performance characteristics, the
scope to assemble the King's College's technology into a
format amenable for routine use by research labs and the ability to take the
King's
technology and evolve it into a format that was amenable for
larger-scale production in a cost-effective manner," the college's spokesman says.
Through an exclusive license deal, Sigma Life Science will
commercially develop the product as the Mission Target ID
Library Workflow for
use by laboratory researchers. The agreement, the financial terms of which were
not disclosed, is in line with Sigma Life
Sciences' "commitment to releasing
innovative products that help with miRNA research and providing tools for the
miRNA and non-coding RNA workflow,"
says Suchyta.
There are four transfection steps that researchers will find
easier to navigate, he explains: Zeocin
selection, miRNA transfection,
Ganciclovir selection and PCR and sequencing.
According to King's College's spokesman, Sigma Life Science's
commercial
development experience was invaluable in the development of this process.
"Sigma's experience in
seeing life science technologies
taken to market meant they possessed an experience and vision which accurately
understood the market demands for
research tools that could be based on the
King's College's technology," says the spokesman. "This experience also brought with it an
understanding
of what user format of research tool could be constructed using
the King's College's technology as its foundation. Their experience in development of
such user-formats ensured they would establish efficiently how to ensure
performance characteristics for the tool would be achieved to the level
required by users, and importantly, the efficient development steps that would
be required to evolve the King's College's technology into a high-
performance format that
was still amenable to large-scale production and supply in a cost-effective
manner."
Ultimately, says Dr. Joop Gaken, a lead researcher in King's
College's role in the project, the new test has serious implications for
oncology
research.
"The role of miRNAs in cancer is well established, and
several miRNAs clearly function as
either oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes,
although the target genes are unknown in the majority of cases," Gaken says. Code: E061111 Back |
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