Publication on Correlation-Associated Peptide Networks of Human Body Fluids

BioVisioN AG has announced the publication of an article on Correlation-Associated Peptide Networks (CAN) by Jens Lamerz, member of the BioVisioN bioinformatics team in collaboration with the ETH Zurich and the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research (SIAF) in a recent issue of Proteomics (Proteomics 2005, 5, 2789-2798).

Each sample of a complex body fluid contains a snapshot of the respective peptidome. Profiling peptides and small proteins from either human body fluids or tissues by chromatography and subsequent mass spectrometry reveals several thousand individual peptide signals per sample.

A potential diagnostic or bioactive peptide may not only display altered concentration levels in a given disease but should also be connected to other elements of the biological systems. The authors describe and introduce a bioinformatics concept of Correlation-Associated Peptide Networks (CAN) developed by BioVisioNs' researchers.

CAN supports the comprehensive statistical analysis of peptide profiling data and allows associating peptides, which are closely related in terms of peptide biochemistry. Peptides with statistical similarity of their concentrations are grouped in form of networks, and these networks are interpreted in terms of peptide chemistry and biology.

Hans-Dieter Zucht, PhD, Chief Information and Chief Technology Officer of BioVisioN AG, commented, "The potential of this research is profound: These correlation-associated networks will become an important tool for a comprehensive analysis of peptidomes and proteomes and will facilitate discovery of bioactive, therapeutic and diagnostic peptides".