Evaluation of phenylboronate agarose for industrial-scale purification of erythropoietin from mammalian cell cultures.

The search for novel, cost-effective ways to produce erythropoietin (Epo), the world top-selling biopharmaceutical, is a major challenge for today's biotechnology industry. However, Epo's high glycosylation content (almost 40% of total mass) and the requirement for sialic acid for optimal in vivo activity still make mammalian cells the expression system of choice. In contrast to the abundance of reports on Epo production, robust, cost-effective methods for large-scale Epo purification can hardly be found in literature.

Targets and assays for discovering novel antibacterial agents.

The increasing frequency of nosocomial infections due to multi-resistant pathogens exerts a significant toll and calls for novel and better antibiotics. Different approaches can be used in the search for novel antibiotics acting on drug-resistant bacterial pathogens. We present some considerations on valid bacterial targets to be used for searching new antibiotics, and how the information from bacterial genome sequences can assist in choosing the appropriate targets.