Effects of the Magnetic Orientation of M13 Bacteriophage on Phage Display Selection.

Although phage display selection using a library of M13 bacteriophage has become a powerful tool for finding peptides that bind to target materials on demand, a remaining concern of this method is the interference by the M13 main body, which is a huge filament >10  times larger than the displayed peptide, and therefore would nonspecifically adhere to the target or sterically inhibit the binding of the displayed peptide. Meanwhile, filamentous phages are known to be orientable by an external magnetic field. If M13 filaments are magnetically oriented during the library selection, their angular arrangement relative to the target surface would be changed, being expected to control the interference by the M13 main body.

Novel O/W Emulsions by Utilizing a Vesicle/Disc Transformation of Polyether Modified Silicone.

Emulsification is an important technology in the field of cosmetics and household products. Emulsions are in non-equilibrium state; therefore, the products vary depending on the preparation process, and their state changes with time. Furthermore, it is known empirically that different types of oils have different emulsification properties (preparation and stability).

Switching the Ligand Specificity of the Biosensor XylS from to -Toluic Acid through Directed Evolution Exploiting a Dual Selection System.

The transcriptional activator XylS induces transcription from the promoter in the presence of several benzoic acid effectors, with -toluic acid being the most effective and -toluic acid being much less effective. To alter the effector specificity of XylS, we developed a dual selection system in , which consists of (i) an artificial operon of an ampicillin resistance gene and under promoter control and (ii) a chloramphenicol resistance gene under promoter control. This system enabled both positive selection to concentrate XylS mutants recognizing a desired ligand and negative selection to exclude undesired XylS mutants such as those recognizing undesired ligands and those that are active without effectors.