fig6

Figure 6. Serum components interacting with a silver nanoscale hexagonal column chip. The surface of the Proteo®chip has a negative charge, which is designed to capture positively charged histones from nucleosomes circulating in the blood. The key is that when the DNA in these nucleosomes is methylated, it causes the histones to keep their positive charge. As a result, the nucleosomes that carry these methylation markers bind readily to the chip’s surface (A). This allows clear discrimination between serum samples from patients with cancer and those from patients with benign disease, even when the samples are diluted (B). Reproduced with permission from^[228].