Antibodies on the conveyor
A way has been found to quickly produce artificial antibodies against various diseases
Sergey Kolenov, Hi-tech+
The new technique will allow you to quickly test a variety of candidate molecules and select those that most effectively bind to pathogens and neutralize them. The technology is simple and inexpensive, and in the future it can be automated.
Antibodies are one of the most powerful tools of the immune system to fight infections. Each of them targets a specific pathogen. Antibodies either neutralize the threat on their own, or send a signal to other immune cells. After the body has suffered a certain infection, the immune system, as a rule, begins to produce antibodies to it. They can be collected and used to treat other people. Another option is to construct antibodies from scratch.
Unfortunately, both of these approaches are expensive and complicated. An alternative may be artificial antibodies and other nanoparticles acting on a similar principle. Their approach to their creation was proposed by researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, whose work is described in the press release of the New Library of Artificial Antibodies Could Target Pathogens With Molecular Precision.
Article by Kim et al. Discovery of Stable and Selective Antibody Mimetics from Combinatorial Libraries of Polyvalent, Loop-Functionalized Peptoid Nanosheets is published in ACS Nano – VM journal.
The team has developed special nanolists of peptoid molecules. On their surface there are peptoids having the shape of loops, which the authors called lupoids (from the English loop – loop). Loops are used to attach to the active molecules of certain pathogens.
According to scientists, such nanolists are excellent for testing peptoids, which will later become the basis for artificial antibodies. If you place a few slightly different "loops" on the surface of a leaf, and then treat it with a pathogen, you can isolate molecules that have the greatest affinity for proteins of infectious agents.
For example, in an experiment, the authors were able to identify peptoids that effectively capture and destroy the causative agent of anthrax.
A peptoid nanolist that selectively binds to a key protein involved in the interaction between the anthrax pathogen and the host cell.
The authors note that the system they created is simple and inexpensive to produce. In addition, it can be automated. This gives hope for the emergence of a new source of artificial antibodies that will help treat many dangerous diseases.
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