Grants and Contracts Details
Description
Plants offer an extraordinary variety of bioactive small molecule metabolites
that are potentially valuable as pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals and
agrochemicals because they bind to target receptor proteins in other
organisms (e.g. for therapeutics, these would be human proteins). Recent
advances in plant biotechnology have generated bioactive metabolites and
developed approaches to modifying and producing bioactive ligands in plants
that are not readily synthesized. However, current technologies to separate
these bioactive ligands (both for identification and production) lag the novel
methods which can be used to produce them, and therefore limit their
commercial production.
Potentially valuable ligands from plants are currently screened for bioactivity
and concentrated based on the affinity (binding) of the ligand to a desired
protein receptor, which has been immobilized on the surface of nonporous
particles. The use of nonporous particles in affinity separations does not take
advantage of the dramatically surface area, protein stabilization, and
selective functionalization strategies that are possible in tailored nanoporous
silica structures. The proposed work will develop porous thin film silica
platforms for the immobilization of the human estrogen receptor (ER á/â),
which binds potential therapeutics and anti-cancer agents. The benefits of
receptor immobilization in pores will be quantified by measuring the
capacity, selectivity, and stability of the protein receptor for model
isoflavonoid ligands relative to surface-immobilized receptor proteins. A
primary advantage of porous thin film platforms for sensor design
(necessary for screening individual plant cultures) is sensitivity, where
adsorption of ligands can be monitored directly from the mass change of the
thin film using a Quartz Crystal Microbalance. Design strategies developed
for thin films can be translated to porous silica particles for larger scale
separation and bioactive ligand recovery, thus enabling rapid advances in
discovery and production of plant-derived therapeutic compounds.
Status | Finished |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 7/1/13 → 12/31/14 |
Funding
- KY Science and Technology Co Inc: $30,000.00
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