Article
Food Science & Technology
Lanhua Yi, Ping Zeng, Kwok-Yin Wong, Kin-Fai Chan, Sheng Chen
Summary: The peptide zp80 showed bactericidal activity against foodborne pathogens by penetrating cell membranes and inducing the production of reactive oxygen species, leading to cell death. Moreover, it could bind to DNA inside L. monocytogenes cells and precipitate the DNA. Treatment with 64 μM zp80 effectively reduced the amount of L. monocytogenes in fresh-cut lettuce and alleviated browning after 7-day storage.
LWT-FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Munehiro Kumashiro, Ryoga Tsuji, Shoma Suenaga, Koichi Matsuo
Summary: The antimicrobial peptide magainin 2 (M2) interacts with bacterial cell membranes and causes structural damage. This study investigates the conformation and orientation of M2 on lipid membranes, as well as the mechanism of membrane-mediated oligomerization of M2. The results suggest that the formation of beta-strand oligomers plays a crucial role in the disruption of the cell membrane.
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Chiharu Anada, Keisuke Ikeda, Ayako Egawa, Toshimichi Fujiwara, Hiroyuki Nakao, Minoru Nakano
Summary: The study explored the temperature- and composition-dependent structural changes of 18A-phosphatidylcholine complexes. It was found that above the gel-to-liquid-crystalline phase transition temperature, nanodiscs increased in size, forming enlarged nanodiscs and a lamellar phase. Further increase in temperature induced the formation of lipid vesicles. These transformations were explained using a transition model based on the migration of the peptide from the rim of the nanodiscs to the liquid-crystalline bilayer phase.
JOURNAL OF COLLOID AND INTERFACE SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Analytical
Kayano Izumi, Chihiro Saito, Ryuji Kawano
Summary: This study investigates the deformation and shape distortion of liposomes using four membrane-binding peptides: TAT and C105Y as cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs), and melittin and ovispirin as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). Liposome deformation was observed using fluorescent microscopy, while peptide binding to the DOPC membrane was estimated through capacitance measurements. It was found that the CPPs caused higher liposome deformation and shape distortion compared to the AMPs, and C105Y did not induce liposome rupture unlike the other three peptides. The differences in liposome distortion may be attributed to variations in secondary structure. These findings provide insights into controlling liposome architecture using peptides and have implications for regulating liposomal molecular robots.
Article
Biophysics
Alain Bolano Alvarez, Marcelo Pino, Steffen B. Petersen, Gerardo Daniel Fidelio
Summary: Langmuir monolayer enables the organization of amphiphilic molecules in a two-dimensional nano-scale, which has been adapted to measure lateral and transverse conductivity in confined peptide nanosheets for the first time. The study shows that amphipathic peptides form stable monolayers with semiconductor-like behavior, with differences in lateral conductivity and current-voltage due to asymmetric peptide bond backbone orientation. The results suggest the potential to design extended nano-sheets with specific electrical properties for applications in biosensing and neural interfaces.
COLLOIDS AND SURFACES B-BIOINTERFACES
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Ye Zeng, Mengjie Shen, Ankush Singhal, Geert Jan Agur Sevink, Niek Crone, Aimee L. L. Boyle, Alexander Kros
Summary: An ideal nanomedicine system improves drug therapy by enhancing cellular uptake. However, current nanomedicines mainly enter cells through endosomal/lysosomal pathways, leading to inefficient delivery of therapeutic cargo. To overcome this issue, the authors developed a synthetic lipidated peptide pair, E4/K4, inspired by natural fusion machinery. By optimizing the structure of the peptide, the researchers achieved enhanced membrane fusion and efficient delivery of drugs into cells. This study provides valuable insights for the development of efficient drug delivery systems based on liposome-cell fusion strategies.
Review
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Ankur Gogoi, Surajit Konwer, Guan-Yu Zhuo
Summary: Chirality is crucial in biological systems, affecting biochemical and pharmacological functions. Studying surface chirality at the nanoscale is important for applications in protein adsorption dynamics and chiral drug standardization.
FRONTIERS IN CHEMISTRY
(2021)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Jaroslaw Ruczynski, Brygida Parfianowicz, Piotr Mucha, Katarzyna Wisniewska, Lidia Piechowicz, Piotr Rekowski
Summary: Mastoparan is a peptide with antimicrobial properties and various biological activities. Its analogs have potential applications as antimicrobial, antiviral, and antitumor agents. This study designed and synthesized new Mastoparan analogs, and compared their antibacterial activity and structure. Two analogs were found to have high antibacterial activity, making them attractive targets for further research.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES
(2022)
Review
Chemistry, Medicinal
Katsumi Matsuzaki
Summary: This review summarizes the major research carried out in the author's laboratory on how lipids and their inhomogeneous distributions regulate the structures and functions of antimicrobial peptides and Alzheimer's amyloid beta-protein. Also, how to detect transmembrane helix-helix and membrane protein-protein interactions and how they are modulated by lipids are discussed.
CHEMICAL & PHARMACEUTICAL BULLETIN
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Liang Ma, Yongsheng Luo, Yong-Hao Ma, Xiaolin Lu
Summary: Antimicrobial peptides, such as CM15, interacted with a negatively charged phospholipid bilayer, DPPG, exhibiting rapid adsorption and efficient disruption due to increased positive charge from C-terminal amidation. Elevated temperatures promoted peptide penetration and eventual disruption of the entire bilayer due to enhanced fluidity. This study provides practical cues for designing high-efficiency antimicrobial peptides.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Tong Wu, Michael J. Wilhelm, Jianqiang Ma, Yujie Li, Yuhao Wu, Hai-Lung Dai
Summary: Phase transitions of lipid bilayer membranes affect the passive transport of molecules. This study measured the transport rate of a molecular cation across E. coli liposomes using second harmonic light scattering and found dramatic jumps in transport rate at the known phase transition points.
ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION
(2022)
Article
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Yi Zhao, Xiao-yan Wang, Yan Sun, Zhi Li, Tao Liu, Qing-mei Liu, Jingyi Chen
Summary: B2CE-N26V5K, the most potent and nontoxic analog, was identified in this study. The results indicated that helicity promotes antibacterial activity, while the Rana box affects hemolytic activity.
WORLD JOURNAL OF MICROBIOLOGY & BIOTECHNOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Food Science & Technology
Lanhua Yi, Ping Zeng, Jun Liu, Kwok-Yin Wong, Edward Wai-Chi Chan, Yanbing Lin, Kin-Fai Chan, Sheng Chen
Summary: The antimicrobial peptide zp37 showed strong bactericidal effect against E. coli O157:H7, causing cell deformation by affecting the cell membrane and binding to DNA in the cytoplasm. Experiments demonstrated low toxicity of zp37 both in vitro (HEK293 cell) and in vivo (Galleria mellonella) assays.
LWT-FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Wujing Xian, Matthew R. Hennefarth, Michelle W. Lee, Tran Do, Ernest Y. Lee, Anastassia N. Alexandrova, Gerard C. L. Wong
Summary: AMPs preferentially permeate prokaryotic membranes via electrostatic binding and membrane remodeling. High salt suppresses this action, but histidines in marine AMPs can interact with salt ions to neutralize phosphate charge and facilitate pore formation.
ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION
(2022)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Shiying Zhu, Wenyi Li, Neil O'Brien-Simpson, Frances Separovic, Marc-Antoine Sani
Summary: Cationic antimicrobial peptides can combat infections by targeting the cell membrane of microbes, with C-terminus amidation enhancing stability and antibacterial ability, while also increasing membrane disruptive ability.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Anup K. Prasad, Chandni Tiwari, Sourav Ray, Stephanie Holden, David A. Armstrong, K. Johan Rosengren, Alison Rodger, Ajay S. Panwar, Lisandra L. Martin
Summary: This study investigates the structural changes of antimicrobial and amyloidogenic peptides in the presence of a membrane mimetic surfactant, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The results show that the peptides display increased stability and a tendency towards alpha-helical structures in the presence of SDS.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Marco Pinto Corujo, Adewale Olamoyesan, Anastasiia Tukova, Dale Ang, Erik Goormaghtigh, Jason Peterson, Victor Sharov, Nikola Chmel, Alison Rodger
Summary: The importance of determining protein structure over a wide range of conditions is highlighted in this study, which evaluates different methods for extracting structural information from protein infrared spectra, with a focus on the self-organising map (SOM) approach. The SOM approach was found to be more accurate than band-fitting methods for solution spectra, demonstrating its potential utility in structural analyses. Additionally, the study explores the conversion of aqueous ATR spectra to and from transmission spectra for structure fitting and concludes that Fourier self-deconvolution does not enhance structure predictions.
FRONTIERS IN CHEMISTRY
(2022)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Marco Pinto Corujo, Pavel Michal, Rod Wesson, Don Praveen Amarasinghe, Alison Rodger, Nikola P. Chmel
Summary: This article discusses the challenge of background fluorescence in Raman spectroscopy and introduces an affordable custom made external photobleaching unit that can effectively remove the fluorescence signal causing degradation of signal-to-noise ratio. The unit was successfully used to remove impurities in a highly fluorescent bovine serum albumin protein solution, providing a solution to the problem in Raman spectroscopy analysis.
JOURNAL OF SPECTROSCOPY
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Medicinal
Alison Rodger, Junya Kitamura, Akihiro Sato, Ping Shao
Summary: In this study, a Jasco J-1500 circular dichroism spectropolarimeter was used with a microvolume Couette flow cell and appropriate cut-off filters to measure the excitation fluorescence detected linear dichroism (FDLD) of fluorophores in liposomal membranes. The FDLD spectrum selectively probes the fluorophore(s) and eliminates scattering, providing valuable information on analyte orientations in the membrane. Data for gramicidin, anthracene, and pyrene are presented, and issues with photon leakage from the long pass filters used are discussed.
Article
Mechanics
I. Pincus, A. Rodger, J. Ravi Prakash
Summary: Although the nonequilibrium behavior of polymer solutions is generally well understood in extensional flow, there are still unanswered questions for dilute solutions in simple shear flow, and quantitative agreement with experiments has not been achieved.
JOURNAL OF RHEOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Anastasiia Tukova, Mohammad Tavakkoli Yaraki, Alison Rodger, Yuling Wang
Summary: This study investigates the adsorption kinetics of aromatic thiols on gold nanoparticles with different shapes using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). The findings reveal significant differences in the adsorption behavior and binding site preferences of aromatic thiols on gold nanoparticles with distinct morphologies.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Paul Wormell, Pavel Michal, Adam Scott, Koushik Venkatesan, Kausala Mylvaganam, Tobias von Arx, Junya Kitamura, Jun Koshoubu, Alison Rodger
Summary: This study demonstrates the possibility of rapidly measuring vibrational linear dichroism infrared spectra using stretched polymer films and modified instrumentation. The approach is useful in analyzing and assigning complicated infrared spectra, but attention should be given to aggregation and resonance phenomena in surface infrared spectra.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Anastasiia Tukova, Yihan Nie, Mohammad Tavakkoli Yaraki, Ngoc Thanh Tran, Jiaqiu Wang, Alison Rodger, Yuantong Gu, Yuling Wang
Summary: Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) undergo changes upon contact with biological media, leading to the formation of protein corona (PC) around the particles. Understanding the mechanisms and functions of PC formation is important for utilizing its benefits and avoiding drawbacks. This study investigates the differences in PC formation on spherical and anisotropic AuNPs, revealing that protein does not fully cover the surface of anisotropic nanoparticles, providing potential binding sites for analytes while stabilizing the AuNPs.
Article
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Huihua Xing, Alison Rodger, Jeffrey Comer, Agustin S. Picco, Cristian Huck-Iriart, Edward L. Ezell, Martin Conda-Sheridan
Summary: This study investigates the effect of replacing the amide linkage between the peptide and lipid portions of peptide amphiphiles (PAs) with a urea group. The inclusion of the urea group is found to influence the morphology and internal arrangement of the self-assembled structures formed by the PAs. Additionally, the hydrogel made of the urea-modified PAs exhibits increased stability, self-healing ability, and supports cell adhesion and growth.
ACS APPLIED BIO MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Analytical
Alison Rodger, Timothy Chin
Summary: Circular dichroism spectroscopy is commonly used to analyze chiral structures in solution, especially protein secondary structure. This paper presents the validation of demountable DMV Bio-cells with different path lengths for CD spectroscopy. These cells require a smaller sample volume compared to standard cuvettes, are easy to clean, and less likely to be damaged.
ANALYTICAL METHODS
(2022)
Review
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Marco Pinto Corujo, Vivian Lindo, Nikola Chmel, Alison Rodger
Summary: In this study, CD, IR, and Raman spectroscopies were applied to characterize antibody PTMs, showing that secondary structure remained the same after treatments and stability was affected by modifications. Raman and IR analysis detected differences between reference and deglycosylated proteins, indicating the presence of other PTMs.
CURRENT PROTEIN & PEPTIDE SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Khondker R. Hossain, Daniel Clayton, Sophia C. Goodchild, Alison Rodger, Richard J. Payne, Flemming Cornelius, Ronald J. Clarke
Summary: Membrane protein structure and function are modulated by interactions with the lipid environment, particularly for P-type ATPases. These ATPases play vital roles in cell physiology, with some pumps possessing polybasic domains that interact with phosphatidylserine in the plasma membrane, affecting ion pumping activity and acting as potential death sensors.
FARADAY DISCUSSIONS
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Vian S. Ismail, Hannah M. Britt, Jackie A. Mosely, John M. Sanderson
Summary: The study demonstrates acyl transfer from lysophosphatidylcholines to the peptide melittin in both pure lysolipid micelles and lipid/lysolipid mixtures. Acyl transfer from lysolipids in bilayers is slightly favored over transfer from lipids, and the reactivity towards lipidation is significantly increased when even small amounts of lysolipids are introduced into pure bilayers of saturated lipids.
FARADAY DISCUSSIONS
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Adewale Olamoyesan, Dale Ang, Alison Rodger
Summary: This method utilizes the neural network approach SOMSpec to determine the secondary structure of proteins with significant unfolded domains. By derandomizing spectra and regenerating alpha-helical and beta-sheet contents, it has shown promising results in determining protein structures with unfolded domains.
Review
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Anastasiia Tukova, Alison Rodger
Summary: Liposomes are artificial membrane models used to study cellular systems and their components. This review discusses various spectroscopic techniques such as fluorescence, circular dichroism, and Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy for analyzing liposomes and their interactions with proteins and peptides.
EMERGING TOPICS IN LIFE SCIENCES
(2021)
