Comparative study of serum sample preparation methods in aggregation-based plasmonic sensing.

The use of nanoparticle-based colorimetric methods has received considerable attention in a broad range of clinical and biomedical applications due to their high sensitivity, low cost, extreme simplicity and excellent analytical performance. However, the formation of a protein corona has severely limited the application of nanoparticles (NPs) in clinical samples, which can confer colloidal stability to serum-exposed nanoparticles compared to pristine particles. To address this challenge, dialysis, ultrafiltration and phenol : chloroform : isopentanol extraction methods were compared aiming at facile and routine protein separation methods to eliminate the formation of protein corona on NPs and the development of a sensitive and simple therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) assay for the detection of aminoglycoside antibiotics in serum.

Efficient targeted anticoagulant with active RGD motif.

Three anticoagulants combining large peptide recombinant hirudin variants (rHV2-K47) and Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) motif related to platelet aggregation were generated, i.e. sequences CRFPRGDADPYCE and CNPRGDFRCI were added to the C-terminus of hirudin to obtain RGD-hirudin 1 and 2, respectively, and the sequence RGDSE was inserted between residues 53-54 of hirudin to obtain RGD-hirudin 3.

Investigation on recombinant hirudin via oral route.

The possibility for oral administration of peptide recombinant hirudin variant (rHV2-K47) as an anticoagulant agent was evaluated in several aspects. The proteolytic properties of rHV2-K47 and its stability during storage were examined by in vitro experiments. Radiolabeled rHV2-K47 was infused into the duodenum of rats and rHV2-K47 absorbed into serum was shown to be intact by electrophoresis pattern.

Codon optimization of MTS1 and its expression in Escherichia coli.

MTS1, which encodes a protein named p16, is an important gene involved in tumorigenesis. To increase the expression of p16 in Escherichia coli, MTS1 was synthesized de novo by recursive PCR, with codons optimized towards E. coli.

Construction and characterization of trifunctional single-chain urokinase-type plasminogen activators.

Two chimeric proteins have been constructed. One consists of four parts: a portion of the low molecular mass single-chain urokinase-type plasminogen activator (scu-PA-32K, residues 144-411), a 15-mer linker sequence, the C-terminal amino-acid sequence (residues 53-65) of hirudin (Hir), and an RGD sequence derived from the leech protein decorsin, i.e.