The Californian firm is a subsidiary of Japan-based Takara Bio and has based its latest product on work coming out of, and licensed from, Stanford University.

The level of a particular protein within a cell is a critical measurement during drug discovery studies and the ability the 'tune' that amount could make it particularly useful when a protein has multiple functions.

This area of expression control is one that is familiar to Clontech. Its products include the Tet-On Advanced and the Tet-Off Advanced Inducible Gene Expression systems that control gene activation levels. The firm also make the Knockout RNAi systems for mRNA knockdown.

The addition of ProteoTuner to this list of products now means the firm has control systems from initial gene expression to final protein levels. Each can be used independently or combined explained Carol Lou, general manager of the firm.

As the system also has low toxicity, it is suitable for animal studies, according to Clontech. The new product can be used in a number of ways by life scientists engaged in both basic and applied research. For example, the fast kinetics of protein stabilisation/destabilisation make it possible to study transient effects of the protein of interest that might otherwise have been masked.

The ability to 'tune' the level of a protein of interest in the cell offers the ability to directly regulate protein levels without affecting the normal translational and transcriptional activities of the gene of interest.