scholarly journals The Dynamic Continuum of Nanoscale Peptide Assemblies Facilitates Endocytosis and Endosomal Escape

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongjian He ◽  
Jiaqi Guo ◽  
Jiashu Xu ◽  
Jiaqing Wang ◽  
Shuang Liu ◽  
...  

Considerable number of works have reported alkaline phosphatase (ALP) enabled intracellular targeting by peptide assemblies, but little is known how these substrates of ALP enters cells. Here we show that the nanoscale assemblies of phosphopeptides, as a dynamic continuum, cluster ALP to enable caveolae mediated endocytosis (CME) and eventual endosomal escape. Specifically, fluorescent phosphopeptides, as substrates of tissue nonspecific alkaline phosphatase (TNAP), undergo enzyme catalyzed self-assembly to form nanofibers. As shown by live cell imaging, the nanoparticles of phosphopeptides, being incubated with HEK293 cells overexpressing red fluorescent protein-tagged TNAP (TNAP-RFP), cluster TNAP-RFP in lipid rafts to enable CME, further dephosphorylation of the phosphopeptides form the peptide nanofibers for endosomal escape inside cells. Inhibiting TNAP, cleaving the membrane anchored TNAP, or disrupting lipid rafts abolishes the endocytosis. Moreover, decreasing the formation of peptide nanofibers prevents the endosomal escape. As the first study establishing a dynamic continuum of supramolecular assemblies for cellular uptake, this work not only illustrates an effective design for enzyme responsive supramolecular therapeutics, but also provides mechanism insights for understanding the dynamics of cellular uptakes of proteins or exogenous peptide aggregates at nanoscale.

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 831
Author(s):  
Elnaz Shaabani ◽  
Maryam Sharifiaghdam ◽  
Herlinde De Keersmaecker ◽  
Riet De Rycke ◽  
Stefaan De Smedt ◽  
...  

Delivery of small interfering RNA (siRNA) provides one of the most powerful strategies for downregulation of therapeutic targets. Despite the widely explored capabilities of this strategy, intracellular delivery is hindered by a lack of carriers that have high stability, low toxicity and high transfection efficiency. Here we propose a layer by layer (LBL) self-assembly method to fabricate chitosan-coated gold nanoparticles (CS-AuNPs) as a more stable and efficient siRNA delivery system. Direct reduction of HAuCl4 in the presence of chitosan led to the formation of positively charged CS-AuNPs, which were subsequently modified with a layer of siRNA cargo molecules and a final chitosan layer to protect the siRNA and to have a net positive charge for good interaction with cells. Cytotoxicity, uptake, and downregulation of enhanced Green Fluorescent Protein (eGFP) in H1299-eGFP lung epithelial cells indicated that LBL-CS-AuNPs provided excellent protection of siRNA against enzymatic degradation, ensured good uptake in cells by endocytosis, facilitated endosomal escape of siRNA, and improved the overall silencing effect in comparison with commercial transfection reagents Lipofectamine and jetPEI®. Therefore, this work shows that LBL assembled CS-AuNPs are promising nanocarriers for enhanced intracellular siRNA delivery and silencing.


Author(s):  
Xiaorong Zhu ◽  
Richard McVeigh ◽  
Bijan K. Ghosh

A mutant of Bacillus licheniformis 749/C, NM 105 exhibits some notable properties, e.g., arrest of alkaline phosphatase secretion and overexpression and hypersecretion of RS protein. Although RS is known to be widely distributed in many microbes, it is rarely found, with a few exceptions, in laboratory cultures of microorganisms. RS protein is a structural protein and has the unusual properties to form aggregate. This characteristic may have been responsible for the self assembly of RS into regular tetragonal structures. Another uncommon characteristic of RS is that enhanced synthesis and secretion which occurs when the cells cease to grow. Assembled RS protein with a tetragonal structure is not seen inside cells at any stage of cell growth including cells in the stationary phase of growth. Gel electrophoresis of the culture supernatant shows a very large amount of RS protein in the stationary culture of the B. licheniformis. It seems, Therefore, that the RS protein is cotranslationally secreted and self assembled on the envelope surface.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burkhard Bechinger

AbstractTo use nucleic acids in biomedical research and medical applications, these highly hydrophilic macromolecules have to be transported through the organism, targeted to specific cell surfaces, and have to cross cellular barriers. To this end, nanosized transfection complexes have been designed and several of them have been successfully tested. Here, the different steps of the transfection process and the particular optimization protocols are reviewed, including the physicochemical properties of such vectors (size, charge, composition), protection in serum, cellular uptake, endosomal escape, and intracellular targeting. The transfection process has been subdivided into separate steps and here special emphasis is given to peptides that have been designed to optimize these steps individually. Finally, complex devices encompassing a multitude of beneficial functionalities for transfection have been developed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 2101346
Author(s):  
Chengfan Wu ◽  
Chenchen Wang ◽  
Tong Zhang ◽  
Ge Gao ◽  
Mengxing Wei ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (12) ◽  
pp. 3778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Bozhanova ◽  
Mikhail Baranov ◽  
Nadezhda Baleeva ◽  
Alexey Gavrikov ◽  
Alexander Mishin

Fluorogens are an attractive type of dye for imaging applications, eliminating time-consuming washout steps from staining protocols. With just a handful of reported fluorogen-protein pairs, mostly in the green region of spectra, there is a need for the expansion of their spectral range. Still, the origins of solvatochromic and fluorogenic properties of the chromophores suitable for live-cell imaging are poorly understood. Here we report on the synthesis and labeling applications of novel red-shifted fluorogenic cell-permeable green fluorescent protein (GFP) chromophore analogs.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Bousmah ◽  
H. Valenta ◽  
G. Bertolin ◽  
U. Singh ◽  
V. Nicolas ◽  
...  

AbstractYellow fluorescent proteins (YFP) are widely used as optical reporters in Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) based biosensors. Although great improvements have been done, the sensitivity of the biosensors is still limited by the low photostability and the poor fluorescence performances of YFPs at acidic pHs. In fact, today, there is no yellow variant derived from the EYFP with a pK1/2 below ∼5.5. Here, we characterize a new yellow fluorescent protein, tdLanYFP, derived from the tetrameric protein from the cephalochordate B. lanceolatum, LanYFP. With a quantum yield of 0.92 and an extinction coefficient of 133 000 mol−1.L.cm−1, it is, to our knowledge, the brightest dimeric fluorescent protein available, and brighter than most of the monomeric YFPs. Contrasting with EYFP and its derivatives, tdLanYFP has a very high photostability in vitro and preserves this property in live cells. As a consequence, tdLanYFP allows the imaging of cellular structures with sub-diffraction resolution with STED nanoscopy. We also demonstrate that the combination of high brightness and strong photostability is compatible with the use of spectro-microscopies in single molecule regimes. Its very low pK1/2 of 3.9 makes tdLanYFP an excellent tag even at acidic pHs. Finally, we show that tdLanYFP can be a FRET partner either as donor or acceptor in different biosensing modalities. Altogether, these assets make tdLanYFPa very attractive yellow fluorescent protein for long-term or single-molecule live-cell imaging that is also suitable for FRET experiment including at acidic pH.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Pahmeier ◽  
Christoper J Neufeldt ◽  
Berati Cerikan ◽  
Vibhu Prasad ◽  
Costantin Pape ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTPositive-strand RNA viruses have been the etiological agents in several major disease outbreaks over the last few decades. Examples of that are flaviviruses, such as dengue virus and Zika virus that cause millions of yearly infections and spread around the globe, and coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, which is the cause of the current pandemic. The severity of outbreaks caused by these viruses stresses the importance of virology research in determining mechanisms to limit virus spread and to curb disease severity. Such studies require molecular tools to decipher virus-host interactions and to develop effective interventions. Here, we describe the generation and characterization of a reporter system to visualize dengue virus and SARS-CoV-2 replication in live cells. The system is based on viral protease activity causing cleavage and nuclear translocation of an engineered fluorescent protein that is expressed in the infected cells. We show the suitability of the system for live cell imaging and visualization of single infected cells as well as for screening and testing of antiviral compounds. Given the modular building blocks, the system is easy to manipulate and can be adapted to any virus encoding a protease, thus offering a high degree of flexibility.IMPORTANCEReporter systems are useful tools for fast and quantitative visualization of viral replication and spread within a host cell population. Here we describe a reporter system that takes advantage of virus-encoded proteases that are expressed in infected cells to cleave an ER-anchored fluorescent protein fused to a nuclear localization sequence. Upon cleavage, the fluorescent protein translocates to the nucleus, allowing for rapid detection of the infected cells. Using this system, we demonstrate reliable reporting activity for two major human pathogens from the Flaviviridae and the Coronaviridae families: dengue virus and SARS-CoV-2. We apply this reporter system to live cell imaging and use it for proof-of-concept to validate antiviral activity of a nucleoside analogue. This reporter system is not only an invaluable tool for the characterization of viral replication, but also for the discovery and development of antivirals that are urgently needed to halt the spread of these viruses.


Talanta ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 123078
Author(s):  
Yiming Zhang ◽  
Yinghao Ding ◽  
Xinxin Li ◽  
Zhenghao Zhang ◽  
Xiangyang Zhang ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (15) ◽  
pp. 3781 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomonori Waku ◽  
Saki Nishigaki ◽  
Yuichi Kitagawa ◽  
Sayaka Koeda ◽  
Kazufumi Kawabata ◽  
...  

Recently, nanofibers (NFs) formed from antigenic peptides conjugated to β-sheet-forming peptides have attracted much attention as a new generation of vaccines. However, studies describing how the hydrophilic-hydrophobic balance of NF components affects cellular interactions of NFs are limited. In this report, three different NFs were prepared by self-assembly of β-sheet-forming peptides conjugated with model antigenic peptides (SIINFEKL) from ovalbumin and hydrophilic oligo-ethylene glycol (EG) of differing chain lengths (6-, 12- and 24-mer) to investigate the effect of EG length of antigen-loaded NFs on their cellular uptake, cytotoxicity, and dendritic cell (DC)-stimulation ability. We used an immortal DC line, termed JAWS II, derived from bone marrow-derived DCs of a C57BL/6 p53-knockout mouse. The uptake of NFs, consisting of the EG 12-mer by DCs, was the most effective and activated DC without exhibiting significant cytotoxicity. Increasing the EG chain length significantly reduced cellular entry and DC activation by NFs. Conversely, shortening the EG chain enhanced DC activation but increased toxicity and impaired water-dispersibility, resulting in low cellular uptake. These results show that the interaction of antigen-loaded NFs with cells can be tuned by the EG length, which provides useful design guidelines for the development of effective NF-based vaccines.


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