scholarly journals High-throughput screening and rational design of biofunctionalized surfaces with optimized biocompatibility and antimicrobial activity

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhou Fang ◽  
Junjian Chen ◽  
Ye Zhu ◽  
Guansong Hu ◽  
Haoqian Xin ◽  
...  

AbstractPeptides are widely used for surface modification to develop improved implants, such as cell adhesion RGD peptide and antimicrobial peptide (AMP). However, it is a daunting challenge to identify an optimized condition with the two peptides showing their intended activities and the parameters for reaching such a condition. Herein, we develop a high-throughput strategy, preparing titanium (Ti) surfaces with a gradient in peptide density by click reaction as a platform, to screen the positions with desired functions. Such positions are corresponding to optimized molecular parameters (peptide densities/ratios) and associated preparation parameters (reaction times/reactant concentrations). These parameters are then extracted to prepare nongradient mono- and dual-peptide functionalized Ti surfaces with desired biocompatibility or/and antimicrobial activity in vitro and in vivo. We also demonstrate this strategy could be extended to other materials. Here, we show that the high-throughput versatile strategy holds great promise for rational design and preparation of functional biomaterial surfaces.

Author(s):  
Rebecca J Chesterfield ◽  
Jason H Whitfield ◽  
Benjamin Pouvreau ◽  
Da Cao ◽  
Christine A Beveridge ◽  
...  

AbstractStrigolactones are plant hormones and rhizosphere signalling molecules with key roles in plant development, mycorrhizal fungal symbioses, and plant parasitism. Currently, sensitive, specific, and high-throughput methods of detecting strigolactones are limited. Here, we developed genetically encoded fluorescent strigolactone biosensors based on the strigolactone receptors DAD2 from Petunia hybrida, and HTL7 from Striga hermonthica via domain insertion of circularly permuted GFP. The DAD2 biosensor exhibited loss of cpGFP fluorescence in vitro upon treatment with the strigolactones 5-deoxystrigol and orobanchol, or the strigolactone analogue GR24. The biosensor likewise responded to strigolactones in an in vivo protoplast system, and retained strigolactone hydrolysis activity. The ShHTL7 biosensor exhibited loss of cpGFP fluorescence upon GR24 treatment in vitro, and responded to a specific inhibitor of ShHTL7 but not DAD2, indicating that the biosensors retained the specificity of their parent receptors. These biosensors have applications in high-throughput screening, and may also have utility for studying strigolactone biology.


Catalysts ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 935
Author(s):  
Sarah Maxel ◽  
Linyue Zhang ◽  
Edward King ◽  
Ana Paula Acosta ◽  
Ray Luo ◽  
...  

Cyclohexanone monooxygenase (CHMO) from Acinetobacter sp. NCIMB 9871 is characterized as having wide substrate versatility for the biooxidation of (cyclic) ketones into esters and lactones with high stereospecificity. Despite industrial potential, CHMO usage is restricted by poor thermostability. Limited high-throughput screening tools and challenges in rationally engineering thermostability have impeded CHMO engineering efforts. We demonstrate the application of an aerobic, high-throughput growth selection platform in Escherichia coli (strain MX203) for the discovery of thermostability enhancing mutations for CHMO. The selection employs growth for the easy readout of CHMO activity in vivo, by requiring nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH)-consuming enzymes to restore cellular redox balance. In the presence of the native substrate cyclohexanone, variant CHMO GV (A245G-A288V) was discovered from a random mutagenesis library screened at 42 °C. This variant retained native activity, exhibited ~4.4-fold improvement in residual activity after 30 °C incubation, and demonstrated ~5-fold higher cyclohexanone conversion at 37 °C compared to the wild type. Molecular modeling indicates that CHMO GV experiences more favorable residue packing and supports additional backbone hydrogen bonding. Further rational design resulted in CHMO A245G-A288V-T415C with improved thermostability at 45 °C. Our platform for oxygenase evolution enabled the rapid engineering of protein stability critical for industrial scalability.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. JCD.S3660
Author(s):  
Hang Fai Kwok ◽  
Julie A. Gormley ◽  
Christopher J. Scott ◽  
James A. Johnston ◽  
Shane A. Olwill

The study of death receptor family induced apoptosis has gained momentum in recent years with the knowledge that therapeutic antibodies targeting DR4 and DR5 (death receptor's 4 and 5) have proved efficacious in multiple clinical trials. The therapeutic rationale is based on targeting and amplifying a tumour tissues normal cell death programme (apoptosis). While advances in the targeting of DR4 and DR5 have been successful the search for an agonistic antibody to another family member, the Fas receptor, has proven more elusive. This is partly due to the differing in vitro and in vivo characteristics of individual antibodies. In order to induce Fas targeted cell death an antibody must be capable of binding to and trimerising the receptor. It has been shown that antibodies capable of performing this function in vivo, with the assistance of tumour associated cells, do not always induce apoptosis in vitro. As a result the use of current methodologies to detect functional antibodies in vitro may have dismissed potential therapeutic candidates ('false negative'). Here we report a novel high throughput screening technique which artificially cross-links antibodies bound to the Fas receptor. By combining this process with Annexin-V and Prodidium Iodide (PI) staining we can select for antibodies which have the potential to induce apoptosis in vivo.


2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 687-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoonsuk Lee ◽  
Dong-Ku Kang ◽  
Soo-Ik Chang ◽  
Moon Hi Han ◽  
In-Cheol Kang

Protein microarray is an emerging technology that makes high-throughput analysis possible for protein-protein interactions and analysis of proteome and biomarkers in parallel. The authors investigated the application of a novel protein microarray chip, Proteo Chip, in new drug discovery. Integrin αvβ3 microarray immobilized on the Proteo Chip was employed to screen new active peptides against the integrin from multiple hexapeptide sublibraries of a positional scanning synthetic peptide combinatorial library (PS-SPCL). The integrin αvβ3-vitronectin interaction was successfully demonstrated on the integrin microarray in a dose-dependent manner andwas inhibited not only by the syntheticRGDpeptide but also by various integrin antagonists on the integrin microarray chip. Novel peptide ligands with high affinity to the integrin were also identified from the peptide libraries with this chip-based screening system by a competitive inhibition assay in a simultaneous and highthroughput fashion. The authors have confirmed antiangiogenic functions of the novel peptides thus screened through an in vitro and in vivo angiogenesis assay. These results provide evidence that the Proteo Chip is a promising tool for highthroughput screening of lead molecules in new drug development.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-23
Author(s):  
Nazmina Vhora ◽  
Ujjal Naskar ◽  
Aishwarya Hiray ◽  
Abhijeet S. Kate ◽  
Alok Jain

BACKGROUND: A higher rate of attenuation of molecules in drug discovery has enabled pharmaceutical companies to enhance the efficiency of their hit identification and lead optimization. Selection and development of appropriate in-vitro and in-vivo strategies may improve this process as primary and secondary screening utilize both strategies. In-vivo approaches are too relentless and expensive for assessing hits. Therefore, it has become indispensable to develop and implement suitable in-vitro screening methods to execute the required activities and meet the respective targets. However, the selection of an appropriate in-vitro assay for specific evaluation of cellular activity is no trivial task. It requires thorough investigation of the various parameters involved. AIM: In this review, we aim to discuss in-vitro assays for type 2 diabetes (T2D), which have been utilized extensively by researchers over the last five years, including target-based, non-target based, low-throughput, and high-throughput screening assays. METHODS: The literature search was conducted using databases including Scifinder, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar to find the significant published articles. DISCUSSION and CONCLUSION: The accuracy and relevance of in-vitro assays have a significant impact on the drug discovery process for T2D, especially in assessing the antidiabetic activity of compounds and identifying the site of effect in high-throughput screening. The report reviews the advantages, limitations, quality parameters, and applications of the probed invitro assays, and compares them with one another to enable the selection of the optimal method for any purpose. The information on these assays will accelerate numerous procedures in the drug development process with consistent quality and accuracy.


2005 ◽  
Vol 125 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroshi KOMURA ◽  
Kenichi MATSUDA ◽  
Yukie SHIGEMOTO ◽  
Iichiro KAWAHARA ◽  
Rieko ANO ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 312 (5) ◽  
pp. H1002-H1012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junyu Yang ◽  
Milton E. Brown ◽  
Hanshuo Zhang ◽  
Mario Martinez ◽  
Zhihua Zhao ◽  
...  

Myocardial infarction (MI) is the most common cause of heart failure. Excessive production of ROS plays a key role in the pathogenesis of cardiac remodeling after MI. NADPH with NADPH oxidase (Nox)2 as the catalytic subunit is a major source of superoxide production, and expression is significantly increased in the infarcted myocardium, especially by infiltrating macrophages. While microRNAs (miRNAs) are potent regulators of gene expression and play an important role in heart disease, there still lacks efficient ways to identify miRNAs that target important pathological genes for treating MI. Thus, the overall objective was to establish a miRNA screening and delivery system for improving heart function after MI using Nox2 as a critical target. With the use of the miRNA-target screening system composed of a self-assembled cell microarray (SAMcell), three miRNAs, miR-106b, miR-148b, and miR-204, were identified that could regulate Nox2 expression and its downstream products in both human and mouse macrophages. Each of these miRNAs were encapsulated into polyketal (PK3) nanoparticles that could effectively deliver miRNAs into macrophages. Both in vitro and in vivo studies in mice confirmed that PK3-miRNAs particles could inhibit Nox2 expression and activity and significantly improve infarct size and acute cardiac function after MI. In conclusion, our results show that miR-106b, miR-148b, and miR-204 were able to improve heart function after myocardial infarction in mice by targeting Nox2 and possibly altering inflammatory cytokine production. This screening system and delivery method could have broader implications for miRNA-mediated therapeutics for cardiovascular and other diseases. NEW & NOTEWORTHY NADPH oxidase (Nox)2 is a promising target for treating cardiovascular disease, but there are no specific inhibitors. Finding endogenous signals that can target Nox2 and other inflammatory molecules is of great interest. In this study, we used high-throughput screening to identify microRNAs that target Nox2 and improve cardiac function after infarction.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Choi ◽  
Mowei Zhou ◽  
Roger Shek ◽  
Jesse W. Wilson ◽  
Logan Tillery ◽  
...  

AbstractSARS-CoV-2 has caused a global pandemic, and has taken over 1.7 million lives as of mid-December, 2020. Although great progress has been made in the development of effective countermeasures, with several pharmaceutical companies approved or poised to deliver vaccines to market, there is still an unmet need of essential antiviral drugs with therapeutic impact for the treatment of moderate-to-severe COVID-19. Towards this goal, a high-throughput assay was used to screen SARS-CoV-2 nsp15 uracil-dependent endonuclease (endoU) function against 13 thousand compounds from drug and lead repurposing compound libraries. While over 80% of initial hit compounds were pan-assay inhibitory compounds, three hits were confirmed as nsp15 endoU inhibitors in the 1-20 μM range in vitro. Furthermore, Exebryl-1, a β-amyloid anti-aggregation molecule for Alzheimer’s therapy, was shown to have antiviral activity between 10 to 66 μM, in VERO, Caco-2, and Calu-3 cells. Although the inhibitory concentrations determined for Exebryl-1 exceed those recommended for therapeutic intervention, our findings show great promise for further optimization of Exebryl-1 as an nsp15 endoU inhibitor and as a SARS-CoV-2 antiviral.Author summaryDrugs to treat COVID-19 are urgently needed. To address this, we searched libraries of drugs and drug-like molecules for inhibitors of an essential enzyme of the virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 nonstructural protein (nsp)15. We found several molecules that inhibited the nsp15 enzyme function and one was shown to be active in inhibiting the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This demonstrates that searching for SARS-CoV-2 nsp15 inhibitors can lead inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2, and thus therapeutics for COVID-19. We are currently working to see if these inhibitors could be turned into a drug to treat COVID-19.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Landeta ◽  
Adrian Mejia-Santana

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the greatest global health challenges today. For over three decades antibacterial discovery research and development has been focused on cell-based and target-based high throughput assays. Target-based screens use diagnostic enzymatic reactions to look for molecules that can bind directly and inhibit the target. Target-based screens are only applied to proteins that can be successfully expressed, purified and the activity of which can be effectively measured using a biochemical assay. Often times the molecules found in these in vitro screens are not active in cells due to poor permeability or efflux. On the other hand, cell-based screens use whole cells and look for growth inhibition. These screens give higher number of hits than target-based assays and can simultaneously test many targets of one process or pathway in their physiological context. Both strategies have pros and cons when used separately. In the past decade and a half our increasing knowledge of bacterial physiology has led to the development of innovative and sophisticated technologies to perform high throughput screening combining these two strategies and thus minimizing their disadvantages. In this review we discuss recent examples of high throughput approaches that used both target-based and whole-cell screening to find new antibacterials, the new insights they have provided and how this knowledge can be applied to other in vivo validated targets to develop new antimicrobials.


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