Sigma-Aldrich Corporation's Sigma Life Science Business to Distribute Worldwide Olink Bioscience's Protein Interaction Analysis Technology

ST. LOUIS, Feb. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Sigma-Aldrich^® Corporation (NASDAQ: SIAL), a leading Life Science and High Technology Company, announced that Sigma^® Life Science, its innovative biological products and services business, signed an agreement to distribute worldwide Olink Bioscience's Duolink^® In Situ products, which present a new disruptive method for imaging and measuring protein-protein interactions in unmodified cells. The Duolink In Situ products work in tandem with Sigma Life Science's broad antibody portfolio and will allow researchers to target the precise protein of interest and enable robust analyses and imaging. For more information, visit www.sigma.com/duolink.

The versatile technology, among other applications, can be used in combination with CompoZr^® Zinc Finger Nuclease-mediated gene editing to track knocked-out or knocked-in genes and with MISSION^® RNA interference technologies to track protein expression following gene knockdown. "The synergy between Olink and Sigma Life Science's global support network will help the scientific community to access and to accelerate the adoption of the powerful Duolink technology," said Josef Zihlmann, Vice President at Sigma Life Science.

The proprietary PLA^® technology allows Olink's Duolink In Situ products to quickly image the locations of single protein-protein interactions regardless of strength, measure protein expression levels, and identify relative changes in post-translational modification events. The technique relies upon two target-specific primary antibodies, a "plus" and "minus" pair of species-specific PLA probes conjugated to DNA oligos that—when a target pair of proteins are in close proximity—can hybridize to trigger a rolling circle amplification reaction. Fluorescent detection probes bind the several hundred-fold amplified DNA at high density, allowing visualization of single protein–protein interactions inside an intact cell using a standard fluorescence microscope.

"The ability to visualize these protein-protein interactions in unmodified cells under endogenous expression and at very low levels is a fundamental advance that allows greater insight into basic biology, pathways, spatial phenomena and potential therapeutic targets in those pathways," said Zihlmann.

More than 350 publications in the past six years have relied upon the Duolink method, which is featured in an average of five publications per week by academic and pharmaceutical researchers. The Sigma Life Science Prestige^® antibody collection complements the technology with its portfolio of more than 14,000 antibodies that have been validated by immunohistochemistry, a key requirement for Duolink In Situ products to target specific proteins of interest.

"We believe the agreement with Sigma Life Science will build awareness and develop the market for Duolink In Situ through their global sales and support organization serving our growing customer base locally," said Simon Fredriksson, CEO and President of Olink Bioscience. "Sigma Life Science's extensive product range for cell biology is a perfect context for customers interested in Duolink In Situ."

For more information, visit www.sigma.com/duolink.

Cautionary Statement: The foregoing release contains forward-looking statements that can be identified by terminology such as "disruptive," "robust," "fundamental advance," "greater insight" or similar expressions, or by expressed or implied discussions regarding potential future revenues from products derived there from. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of management regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. There can be no guarantee that Olink's technology or related Sigma technologies and services will assist the Company to achieve any particular levels of revenue in the future. In particular, management's expectations regarding products associated with Olink's technology or related Sigma technologies and services could be affected by, among other things, unexpected regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; the Company's ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection; competition in general; government, industry and general public pricing pressures; the impact that the foregoing factors could have on the values attributed to the Company's assets and liabilities as recorded in its consolidated balance sheet, and other risks and factors referred to in Sigma-Aldrich's current Form 10-K on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Sigma-Aldrich is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Sigma-Aldrich: Sigma-Aldrich Corporation is a leading Life Science and High Technology company whose biochemical, organic chemical products, kits and services are used in scientific research, including genomic and proteomic research, biotechnology, pharmaceutical development, the diagnosis of disease and as key components in pharmaceutical, diagnostics and high technology manufacturing. Sigma-Aldrich customers include more than 1.3 million scientists and technologists in life science companies, university and government institutions, hospitals and industry. The Company operates in 38 countries and has nearly 9,000 employees whose objective is to provide excellent service worldwide. Sigma-Aldrich is committed to accelerating customer success through innovation and leadership in Life Science and High Technology. For more information about Sigma-Aldrich, please visit its website at www.sigma-aldrich.com.

About Sigma Life Science: Sigma Life Science is a Sigma-Aldrich business that represents the Company's leadership in innovative biological products and services for the global life science market and offers an array of biologically-rich products and reagents that researchers use in scientific investigation. Product areas include biomolecules, genomics and functional genomics, cells and cell-based assays, transgenics, protein assays, stem cell research, epigenetics and custom services/oligonucleotides. Sigma Life Science also provides an extensive range of critical bioessentials like biochemicals, antibiotics, buffers, carbohydrates, enzymes, forensic tools, hematology and histology, nucleotides, amino acids and their derivatives, and cell culture media.

Sigma-Aldrich and Sigma are trademarks of Sigma-Aldrich Co, LLC registered in the US and other countries. CompoZr, MISSION and Prestige are registered trademarks of Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC. Duolink and PLA are registered trademarks of Olink AB.

SOURCE Sigma-Aldrich Corporation