Antibody microarrays: analysis of cystic fibrosis

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is the most common autosomal recessive disease in the USA and Europe, whose life-limiting phenotype is manifest on epithelial cells throughout the body. The principal cause of morbidity and mortality is a massively proinflammatory condition in the lung. The mutation responsible for most cases of CF is [ΔF508]CFTR. However, the penetrance of the disease is quite variable, and adverse events leading to hospitalization cannot be easily predicted. Thus, there is a strong need for prognostic endpoints that might serve to identify impending clinical problems long before they happen. Our approach has been to search for proteomic signatures in easily accessed biological fluids that might identify the molecular basis for adverse events. We describe here a workflow that begins with patient-derived bronchial brush biopsies and progresses to analysis of serum and plasma from patients on antibody microarrays.