One- and two-photon brightness of proteins interacting with gold. A closer look at gold-insulin conjugates.

Red luminophores displaying large Stokes shift and high-quantum yields are obtained when gold salts are reacted with proteins under strongly alkaline conditions. Although bovine serum albumin (BSA) has mainly been used as a protein template, other attempts to prepare red luminophores have been proposed using other proteins. Here, we report on the structural characterization and nonlinear optical properties of insulin-gold conjugates.

Mono- and Bi-specific Nanobodies Targeting the CUB Domains of PCPE-1 Reduce the Proteolytic Processing of Fibrillar Procollagens.

The excessive deposition of fibrillar collagens is a hallmark of fibrosis. Collagen fibril formation requires proteolytic maturations by Procollagen N- and C-proteinases (PNPs and PCPs) to remove the N- and C-propeptides which maintain procollagens in the soluble form. Procollagen C-Proteinase Enhancer-1 (PCPE-1, a glycoprotein composed of two CUB domains and one NTR domain) is a regulatory protein that activates the C-terminal processing of procollagens by the main PCPs.

Unveiling a Shield of Hope: A Novel Multiepitope-Based Immunogen for Cross-Serotype Cellular Defense against Dengue Virus.

Dengue virus (DENV) infection continues to be a public health challenge, lacking a specific cure. Vaccination remains the primary strategy against dengue; however, existing live-attenuated vaccines display variable efficacy across four serotypes, influenced by host serostatus and age, and predominantly inducing humoral responses. To address this limitation, this study investigates a multiepitope-based immunogen designed to induce robust cellular immunity across all DENV serotypes.

AGuIX nanoparticle-nanobody bioconjugates to target immune checkpoint receptors.

This article presents bioconjugates combining nanoparticles (AGuIX) with nanobodies (VHH) targeting Programmed Death-Ligand 1 (PD-L1, A12 VHH) and Cluster of Differentiation 47 (CD47, A4 VHH) for active tumor targeting. AGuIX nanoparticles offer theranostic capabilities and an efficient biodistribution/pharmacokinetic profile (BD/PK), while VHH's reduced size (15 kDa) allows efficient tumor penetration. Site-selective sortagging and click chemistry were compared for bioconjugation.

Structural Analyses of Bacterial Effectors by X-Ray Crystallography.

X-ray crystallography is a method of choice to determine and analyze protein structures. Although large complexes are challenging to crystallize and cryo-electron microscopy is thus better suited for these, crystallography can still be efficient in solving structures of single components of secretion systems or effectors. Many of the different steps leading to structure determination by X-ray crystallography have been automatized.