Engineering,Cloning and Expression of Interleukin 2–Com1 Chimera with Aim of Recombinant Subunit Vaccine Production Against Coxiella burnetii

International Journal of Peptide Research and Therapeutics - Query fever is an important disease caused by Coxiella burnetii, therefore vaccination against this disease is so crucial. Com1 is one...     

Enhanced Specificity of Minimally Modified Anti-c-myc Oligonucleotides

Abstract

The sequence-specificity of antisense oligonucleotides (ODN) against c-myc mRNA was tested by Northern blot analysis. Rat smooth muscle cells were treated with antisense or control ODN against c-myc modified by the “minimal protection strategy”. At 0.3 μM concentration the ODN show a very specific reduction in c-myc mRNA levels. Use of the “minimal protection strategy” minimizes nonspecific effects as observed for all-phosphorothioate ODN containing four consecutive guanine residues.     

λ Phage Nanobioparticle Expressing Apoptin Efficiently Suppress Human Breast Carcinoma Tumor Growth In Vivo

Using phages is a novel field of cancer therapy and phage nanobioparticles (NBPs) such as λ phage could be modified to deliver and express genetic cassettes into eukaryotic cells safely in contrast with animal viruses. Apoptin, a protein from chicken anemia virus (CAV) has the ability to specifically induce apoptosis only in carcinoma cells. We presented a safe method of breast tumor therapy via the apoptin expressing λ NBPs. Here, we constructed a λ ZAP-CMV-apoptin recombinant NBP and investigated the effectiveness of its apoptotic activity on BT-474, MDA-MB-361, SKBR-3, UACC-812 and ZR-75 cell lines that over-expressing her-2 marker. Apoptosis was evaluated via annexin-V fluorescent iso-thiocyanate/propidium iodide staining, flow-cytometric method and TUNEL assay. Transfection with NBPs carrying λ ZAP-CMV-apoptin significantly inhibited growth of all the breast carcinoma cell lines in vitro. Also nude mice model implanted BT-474 human breast tumor was successfully responded to the systemic and local injection of untargeted recombinant λ NBPs. The results presented here reveal important features of recombinant λ nanobioparticles to serve as safe delivery and expression platform for human cancer therapy.     

Wnt lipidation: Roles in trafficking,modulation, and function

The Wnt signaling pathway consists of various downstream target proteins that have substantial roles in mammalian cell proliferation, differentiation, and development. Its aberrant activity can lead to uncontrolled proliferation and tumorigenesis. The posttranslational connection of fatty acyl chains to Wnt proteins provides the unique capacity for regulation of Wnt activity. In spite of the past belief that Wnt molecules are subject to dual acylation, it has been shown that these proteins have only one acylation site and undergo monounsaturated fatty acylation. The Wnt monounsaturated fatty acyl chain is more than just a hydrophobic coating and appears to be critical for Wnt signaling, transport, and receptor activation. Here, we provide an overview of recent findings in Wnt monounsaturated fatty acylation and the mechanism by which this lipid moiety regulates Wnt activity from the site of production to its receptor interactions.     

Novel Techniques for Weak Alignment of Proteins in Solution Using Chemical Tags Coordinating Lanthanide Ions

A molecule with an anisotropic magnetic susceptibility is spontaneously aligned in a static magnetic field. Alignment of such a molecule yields residual dipolar couplings and pseudocontact shifts. Lanthanide ions have recently been successfully used to provide an anisotropic magnetic susceptibility in target molecules either by replacing a calcium ion with a lanthanide ion in calcium-binding proteins or by attaching an EDTA derivative to a cysteine residue via a disulfide bond. Here we describe a novel enantiomerically pure EDTA derived tag that aligns stronger due to its shorter linker and does not suffer from stereochemical diversity upon lanthanide complexation. We observed residual (15)N,(1)H-dipolar couplings of up to 8 Hz at 800 MHz induced by a single alignment tensor from this tag.