# Plasmonic Glycan Arrays for Highly Sensitive Detection of Glycan-binding Proteins

> **NIH NIH R43** · VITAN-BIOTECH, LLC · 2020 · $222,939

## Abstract

Project Summary
 Exploring the biological information content in glycans represents one of the current
focuses of postgenomic research and technology development. Glycan-based high
throughput assays (e.g. glycan microarrays) hold great promise for the rapid analysis of
carbohydrate binding proteins (CBPs), elucidation of CBP biology, and the development of
diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics for a number of diseases, including cancer and
neurological disorders. As the field of glycobiology grows, the important roles that glycans
and glycoproteins play in health are becoming increasingly recognized. However, the “state-
of-the-art” glycan arrays have several instinct limitations including poor dynamic range, poor
sensitivity, and inability to easily interrogate multiple glycan-protein interactions
simultaneously in complex samples. Because protein–glycan interactions are typically of low
affinity, and many CBPs and auto-anti-glycan antibodies in clinical samples are generally in
the range of fg/mL to pg/mL, the detection sensitivity of current glycan arrays is unable to
reach the clinical threshold of many CBPs and auto-anti-glycan antibody biomarkers,
especially in the early stages of the diseases when their concentrations in clinical samples
very low. The goal of this project is to applied nanotechnology to overcome the major
limitations of poor sensitivity and dynamic ranges of current glycan microarrays. We aim to
develop and commercialize multi-plasmonic resonant photon enhanced fluorescent (MPREF)
glycan array for glycomic research. With this project, we expect to develop ready-to-use
products of: 1) the MPREF system include the components of plasmonic substrate and
plasmonic fluorophores which will be marketed as glycan array kit, 2) a validated model
MPREF glycan array containing 50+ Glycosaminoglycans.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10081148
- **Project number:** 1R43GM139437-01
- **Recipient organization:** VITAN-BIOTECH, LLC
- **Principal Investigator:** XICHUN ZHOU
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $222,939
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-08-01 → 2023-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10081148

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10081148, Plasmonic Glycan Arrays for Highly Sensitive Detection of Glycan-binding Proteins (1R43GM139437-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10081148. Licensed CC0.

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