Funded by the ERC-Starting Grant COMBIPATTERNING, we have invented stochastic peptide arrays with a density of up 25 Mio spots per cm2 (2 μm pitch). With these spot densities, a microscope slide have more than a Billion different peptide spots, which enables the screens for serum antibodies, cell adhesion factors or novel antibiotics with in an unprecedented velocity. The stochastic arrays are based on the optical detection of positions of the amino acids carriers, whereby the sequences synthesized are reconstructed from the optical images. Thus, stochastic peptides don’t need the controlling the amino acid movement and the synthesis areas of the peptides in comparison with all known array synthesis methods. The stochastic arrays do much better than currently available display technologies and chemical compound libraries due to the following features: (a) The manufacturing cost of stochastic arrays will be unprecedentedly low, (b) very small sample volumes, e.g. antibody sera can be analyzed, (c) stochastic arrays can easily include all kinds of artificial building blocks, e.g. posttranslational modifications of amino acids or cyclic peptides (which is a huge advantage over all display technologies), (e) stochastic arrays enable focused libraries (i.e. some amino acids are fixed, while others are varied).
In the scope of the ERC-POC Grant PreScreenArrays, we investigated the innovation potential of stochastic peptide arrays and consolidated the team for their commercialization with a startup on the base of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. In the scope of the project, we have protected our invention by a patent and are granted with additional national funds to extend our novel technology to screen for antibiotic peptides.
