BioCentury
ARTICLE | Emerging Company Profile

Caprion: Compartmentalizing information

July 9, 2001 7:00 AM UTC

As sequencing the human genome has shown, raw information is only valuable when it can be understood and used. Though numerous academic and corporate groups are studying the proteome in order to both validate genomic targets and identify additional targets, the biggest hurdle is collecting and identifying useful information. Caprion Pharmaceuticals Inc. is focused on using its cell fractionation technology to provide higher quality samples for proteomic analysis and target validation.

Estimates of the number of proteins in a cell range from 30,000 to 300,000 and the number of protein-protein interactions is likely several-fold higher, making it important to validate protein-protein interactions to improve target selection. A popular and simple method involves studying interactions in yeast systems. But Caprion CEO Lloyd Segal noted that while prokaryotes like yeast are "bags of proteins and enzymes," eukaryotic cells are highly compartmentalized, with membranes acting as barriers between compartments. Thus using yeast as a model system may detect false interactions between proteins that are normally separated and do not interact in humans...