Novel system for sensitive detection of botulinum neurotoxins

描述(申请人提供)：恐怖组织在世界各地的存在，以及他们从医生和科学家那里招募专业知识的能力，对社会构成了越来越大的生物恐怖袭击威胁。为了减少甚至预防这种攻击的后果，有必要建立新的生物制剂检测系统。目前，现有的“快速”方法要么过于昂贵和复杂，要么缺乏敏感性。相反，我们建议开发一种新的系统，它将是廉价的、简单的使用和高度敏感的。这个系统将由我们实验室开发的一种新的信号放大方法与定向蛋白质进化的进展相结合而创建。为了证明我们方法的可行性，在第一阶段，我们将针对A型肉毒神经毒素的受体识别结构域开发该检测系统的第一个组件。在第二阶段，该方法将用于为通用的肉毒神经毒素检测系统开发额外的检测器。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The existence of terrorist organizations around the world, along with their ability to recruit expertise from physicians and scientists, poses an increasing threat of bioterrorist attack to society. In order to reduce the consequences of such an attack or even prevent it, new systems for detection of biothreat agents are necessary. Currently existing "express" methods suffer from either being too expensive and complicated or lacking sensitivity. In contrast, we propose to develop a new system that will be inexpensive, simple to use, and highly sensitive. This system will be created by combining a novel signal amplification approach, developed in our lab, with advances in directed protein evolution. To prove the viability of our approach, during Phase I, we will develop the first components of this detection system targeted at the receptor- recognizing domain of Botulinum Neurotoxin Serotype A. In Phase II, this approach will be used to develop additional detectors for a universal Botulinum Neurotoxin detection system.