Sensing HIV Protease and Its Inhibitor Using "Helical Epitope"-Imprinted Polymers
SENSORS
Authors: Chou, Chien-Yu; Lin, Chung-Yin; Wu, Cheng-Hsin; Tai, Dar-Fu
Abstract
A helical epitope-peptide (lle(85)-Gly(94)) was selected from the alpha-helix structure of the HIV protease (PR) as the template, which represents an intricate interplay between structure conformation and dimerization. The peptide template was mixed with water, trifluoroethanol (TFE), and acetonitrile (ACN) at a certain ratio to enlarge the helical conformation in the solution for the fabrication of helical epitope-mediated molecularly imprinted polymers (HEMIPs) on a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) chip. The template molecules were then removed under equilibrium batch rebinding conditions involving 5% acetic acid/water. The resulting HEMIPs chip exhibited a high affinity toward template peptide HIV PR85-94, His-tagged HIV PR, and HIV PR, with dissociation constants (K-d) as 160, 43.3, and 78.5 pM, respectively. The detection limit of the developed HIV PR(85-94)QCM sensor is 0.1 ng/mL. The HEMIPs chip exhibited a high affinity and selectivity to bind HIV PR and subsequently to an inhibitor of HIV PR (nelfinavir). The HIV PR binding site was properly oriented on the HEMIPs-chip to develop a HIV PR/HEMIPs chip, which can effectively bind nelfinavir to establish a sandwich assay. The nelfinavir then attached to the HIV PR/HEMIPs chip, which can be easily removed involving 0.8% acetic acid/water. Therefore, HIV PR/HEMIPs chip can be useful to screen for other HIV PR inhibitors. This technique may improve drug targeting for HIV therapy and also strengthen investigations into other virus assays.
Intracellular Delivery of His-Tagged Genome-Editing Proteins Enabled by Nitrilotriacetic Acid-Containing Lipidoid Nanoparticles
ADVANCED HEALTHCARE MATERIALS
Authors: Li, Yamin; Li, Alice Chukun; Xu, Qiaobing
Abstract
Protein- and peptide-based therapeutics with high tolerance and specificity along with low off-target effects and genetic risks have attracted tremendous attention over the last three decades. Herein, a new type of noncationic lipidoid nanoparticle (LNP) is reported for His-tagged protein delivery. Active lipidoids are synthesized by conjugating a nitrilotriacetic acid group with hydrophobic tails (EC16, O16B, and O17O) and nanoparticles are formulated in the presence of nickel ions and helper lipids (cholesterol, 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine, and 1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine-N-[methoxy(polyethylene glycol)-2000]). It is demonstrated that the newly developed LNPs are capable of delivering various His-tagged proteins including green fluorescent protein (GFP), (-30)GFP-Cre recombinase, and CRISPR/Cas9 ribonucleoprotein into mammalian cells.