A new technology is developed to help scientists understand the work process of proteins and fix the broken proteins. The user-friendly technology is believed to lend a hand to finding new drugs for many diseases, including cancer.
As we know that the human body has a coordinating way of turning its proteins on and off to alter their function and activity in cells. It is phosphorylation, which is the reversible attachment of phosphate groups to proteins. They provide an enormous variety of function and are essential to all forms of life. However, we know little about the detail of this dynamic process.
Researchers have built a cell-free protein synthesis platform technology that can manufacture large quantities of these human phosphoproteins for scientific study using a special strain of E. coli bacteria. The technology can enable scientists to learn more about the function and structure of phosphoproteins and identify the one which are involved in disease. The study was published Sept. 9 by the journal Nature Communications.
Trouble in the phosphorylation process is a trait of disease like cancer, inflammation and Alzheimer's disease. The human proteome is estimated to be phosphorylated at more than 100,000 unique sites. It makes study of phosphorylated proteins and their role in disease be a tough task.
The new technology just developed begins to make the job a tractable problem. It can make these special proteins at unprecedented yields, with a freedom of design that is not possible in living organisms. The consequence of this innovative strategy is enormous in the long run.
Michael C. Jewett is a biochemical engineer who led the Northwestern team. He uses cell-free systems to create new therapies, chemicals and novel materials to impact public health and the environment. Jewett and his colleagues combined state-of-the-art genome engineering tools and engineered biological "parts" into a "plug-and-play" protein expression platform that is cell-free. Cell-free systems activate complex biological systems without using living intact cells. Crude cell lysates, or extracts, are employed instead.
To be specific, the researchers prepared cell lysates of genomically recoded bacteria that incorporate amino acids not found in nature. This allowed them to harness the cell's engineered machinery and turn it into a factory, capable of on-demand biomanufacturing new classes of proteins.
The manufacturing technology will help scientists to unclock the phosphorylation 'code' that exists in the human proteome. The study was published on Sept. 9 by the journal Nature Communications.
Read more:http://about.cusabio.com/m-187.html