The invention encompasses methods and test strips for detecting the presence of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in a biological sample with a lateral flow device which uses lectin conjugates, anti-antigen conjugates, an immobilized serum line, and an immobilized anti-antigen line.

Devices and methods for analysing extracellular vesicle glycans are described. According to an embodiment, a microfluidic device comprises an inlet portion configured to receive a fluid sample; a mixing portion fluidically coupled to the inlet portion and configured to facilitate mixing between the fluid sample and magnetic nanoparticles functionalized to bind with extracellular vesicles and aggregate to vesicle glycans in the fluid sample; a magnetic separation portion fluidically coupled to the mixing portion and configured to separate clusters of magnetic nanoparticles from the fluid sample; and a magnetic sensor configured to measure magnetic properties of the fluid sample after it has passed through the magnetic separation portion. The magnetic nanoparticles may configured to aggregate in the presence of respective lectins when bound with extracellular vesicles carrying target glycans. In a specific embodiment, the magnetic particles comprise a magnetic polycore coated with polydopamine.

Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to rapidly and easily test initial liver disease and more particularly to a monoclonal antibody for α1-acid glycoprotein, a diagnosis kit for tracking progressive chronic hepatitis and liver fibrosis in an initial phase of liver disease by measuring the concentration of asialo-α1-acid glycoprotein (AsAGP) as a hepatocyte injury marker in a sample using the antibody, and a use thereof. Further, embodiments of the present invention provide a kit for specifically determining the degree of progressive chronic hepatitis and hepatic fibrosis from a blood sample and an immunochromatography strip, comprising a HRP-RCA II (Ricinus communis agglutinin II) conjugate or a Gold-RCA II conjugate specifically binding to asialo α-1 acid glycoprotein.

The present invention features a method for solubilizing chitin in an aqueous solution by dissolving a sample containing chitin in a basic solution and autoclaving the sample. The present invention also features a method for quantifying the amount of chitin in a sample. Chitin binding proteins are used to quantify the amount of chitin using a modified ELISA assay. Results of the assay may be compared to a control containing known amounts of chitin to quantify the chitin in the sample.

The present invention relates to a method for detecting fucosylated alpha1-acid glycoprotein (AGP) in a sample, comprising the steps providing a monovalent fucose-binding peptide having at least 80% identity, such as 85, 90, 95, 99 or 100% identity, to a peptide having an amino acid according to SEQ ID NO: 1, immobilised on a solid phase; bringing the sample into contact with the immobilised fucose-binding peptide; and detecting any fucosylated AGP bound to said fucose-binding peptide. The invention further relates to a method for assessing a risk that a human individual suffers from hepatocellular carcinoma, and to a kit of parts and antibodies useful in the methods according to the invention, and to a peptide useful as an immunizing antigen in production of such antibodies.

A lateral flow assay and compositions for performing such an assay are described herein that detect whole virus (e.g., HIV, HCV, HSV-2) or viral proteins that use the broad-spectrum anti-viral lectin, griffisthin (GRFT), conjugated to polymeric or gold nanoparticles (NPs) and an appropriate monoclonal antibody (mAb) to confer virus selectivity.

A method of making a sensor includes subjecting a metal substrate to a solution having glycopolymer chains and attaching the glycopolymer chains to the metal substrate to form a glycopolymer-functionalized metal substrate that can bind a lectin target. A lectin target can be a food allergen or a toxin. The metal substrate can include a plasmonic metal. A method of using the sensor includes incubating a portion of the sensor in a sample fluid and another portion of the sensor in a control fluid. Spectral data sets are generated via Raman Spectroscopy for each portion of the sensor. The presence and concentration of a lectin target in the sample fluid is determined by comparing the spectral data sets.

[Problem] The purpose of the present invention is to stably supply high-quality and highly uniform Wisteria floribunda agglutinin (WFA) that recognizes biologically important sugar-chain markers, to elucidate the sugar-chain recognition activity in detail, and to furthermore increase the specificity of the sugar-chain recognition activity. [Solution] The present invention involves the development of a technique for cloning genes for coding Wisteria floribunda agglutinin (WFA) and producing recombinant WFA having the same sugar-chain recognition activity as natural WFA from transformed bacteria. Natural WFA is reduced to thereby manufacture a reduced WFA monomer for specifically recognizing terminal GalNAc residue. A recombinant monomer WFA for recognizing LDN (GalNAcβ1, 4GlcNAc) sugar chain, which is important as a diagnostic marker among sugar chains having a terminal GalNAc residue, is manufactured by introducing cysteine mutation to recombinant WFA or by C-terminal-side amino acid deletion.

Genetic fusions of proteins, for example single-domain antibodies (sdAbs), with a positively-charged domain enhanced immobilization of active protein in a desired orientation.

The present invention discloses immunomodulating compositions. More particularly, the present invention discloses compositions comprising an immune-modulating agent and a lectin-interactive agent, which are useful for stimulating and prolonging host immune cell responses. The compositions of the present invention are particularly useful in the treatment and/or prophylaxis of a range of conditions including pathogenic infections, autoimmune diseases, transplant rejection, graft versus host disease, allergies, inflammatory disease, as well as cancers and tumors.