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Guo L, Zhao J, An Z, Kim S, Kim J, Yu Y, Middelberg A, Bi J, Marković M, Kim JK, Yoo PJ, Choe WS. Harnessing Liquid Crystal Sensors for High-Throughput Real-Time Detection of Structural Changes in Lysozyme during Refolding Processes. Anal Chem 2023; 95:17603-17612. [PMID: 37973790 DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.3c03272] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/19/2023]
Abstract
Despite the rapid advances in process analytical technology, the assessment of protein refolding efficiency has largely relied on off-line protein-specific assays and/or chromatographic procedures such as reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography and size exclusion chromatography. Due to the inherent time gap pertaining to traditional methods, exploring optimum refolding conditions for many recombinant proteins, often expressed as insoluble inclusion bodies, has proven challenging. The present study describes a novel protein refolding sensor that utilizes liquid crystals (LCs) to discriminate varying protein structures during unfolding and refolding. An LC layer containing 4-cyano-4'-pentylbiphenyl (5CB) intercalated with 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine (DOPE) is used as a sensing platform, and its proof-of-concept performance is demonstrated using lysozyme as a model protein. As proteins unfold or refold, a local charge fluctuation at their surfaces modulates their interaction with zwitterionic phospholipid DOPE. This alters the alignment of DOPE molecules at the aqueous/LC interface, affecting the orientational ordering of bulk LC (i.e., homeotropic to planar for refolding and planar to homeotropic for unfolding). Differential polarized optical microscope images of the LC layer are subsequently generated, whose brightness directly linked to conformational changes of lysozyme molecules is quantified by gray scale analysis. Importantly, our LC-based refolding sensor is compatible with diverse refolding milieus for real-time analysis of lysozyme refolding and thus likely to facilitate the refolding studies of many proteins, especially those lacking a method to determine structure-dependent biological activity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lili Guo
- School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
| | - Jing Zhao
- School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
| | - Zongfu An
- School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
| | - Sieun Kim
- School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
| | - Jaekwang Kim
- School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
| | - Yeseul Yu
- School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
| | - Anton Middelberg
- School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia
| | - Jingxiu Bi
- School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia
| | - Marijana Marković
- School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia
- Department of Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, Technology and Metallurgy, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, University of Belgrade, Njegoševa 12, Belgrade 11000, Serbia
| | - Jung Kyu Kim
- School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
- Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT), Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
| | - Pil J Yoo
- School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
- Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT), Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
| | - Woo-Seok Choe
- School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
- Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT), Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
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Rouhbakhsh Z, Huang JW, Ho TY, Chen CH. Liquid crystal-based chemical sensors and biosensors: From sensing mechanisms to the variety of analytical targets. Trends Analyt Chem 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.trac.2022.116820] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022]
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Zhu Y, Zhang Z, Song X, Bu Y. A facile strategy for synthesis of porous Cu 2O nanospheres and application as nanozymes in colorimetric biosensing. J Mater Chem B 2021; 9:3533-3543. [PMID: 33909751 DOI: 10.1039/d0tb03005h] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Due to the unique advantages, developing a rapid, simple and economical synthetic strategy for porous nanomaterials is of great interest. In this work, for the first time, using sodium hypochlorite as a green oxidant, urea was oxidized to CO2 as a carbon source to prepare the fine-particle crosslinked Cu-precursors, which could be further reduced by sodium ascorbate into pure Cu2O nanospheres (NPs) with a porous morphology at room temperature. Interestingly, our study reveals that introduction of an appropriate amount of MgCl2 into the raw materials can tune the pore sizes and surface area, but has no influence on the phase purity of the resulting Cu2O NPs. Significantly, all the synthesized Cu2O NPs exhibited intrinsic peroxidase-like activity with higher affinity towards both 3,3,5,5-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) and H2O2 than horseradish peroxidase (HRP) due to the highly porous morphology and the electrostatic attraction towards TMB. The colorimetric detection of glucose based on the resulting porous Cu2O NPs presented a limit of detection (LOD) of 2.19 μM with a broad linear range from 1-1000 μM, much better than many recently reported composite-based nanozymes. Meanwhile, this nanozyme system was utilized to detect l-cysteine, exhibiting a LOD value as low as 0.81 μM within a linear range from 0 to 10 μM. More interesting, this sensing system shows high sensitivity and excellent selectivity in determining glucose and l-cysteine, which is suitable for detecting serum samples with reliable results. Therefore, the present study not only develops a simple strategy to prepare Cu2O NPs with controllable porous structure, but also indicates its promising applications in bioscience and disease diagnosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ying Zhu
- School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, People's Republic of China.
| | - Zhilu Zhang
- School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, People's Republic of China.
| | - Xinyu Song
- School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, People's Republic of China.
| | - Yuxiang Bu
- School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, People's Republic of China.
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