High-affinity pan-specific monoclonal antibodies that target cysteinyl leukotrienes and show efficacy in an acute model of colitis

Current Trends and Changes in Use of Membrane Molecular Dynamics Simulations within Academia and the Pharmaceutical Industry

There has been an almost exponential increase in the use of molecular dynamics simulations in basic research and industry over the last 5 years, with almost a doubling in the number of publications each year. Many of these are focused on neurological membranes, and biological membranes in general, applied to the medical industry. A smaller portion have utilized membrane simulations to answer more basic questions related to the function of specific proteins, chemicals or biological processes. This review covers some newer studies, alongside studies from the last two decades, to determine changes in the field. Some of these are basic, while others are more profound, such as multi-component embedded membrane machinery. It is clear that many facets of the discipline remain the same, while the focus on and uses of the technology are broadening in scope and utilization as a general research tool. Analysis of recent literature provides an overview of the current methodologies, covers some of the recent trends or advances and tries to make predictions of the overall path membrane molecular dynamics will follow in the coming years. In general, the overview presented is geared towards the general scientific community, who may wish to introduce the use of these methodologies in light of these changes, making molecular dynamic simulations more feasible for general scientific or medical research.

Strategies to bioengineer aptamer-driven nanovehicles as exceptional molecular tools for targeted therapeutics: A review

Aptamers are a class of folded nucleic acid strands capable of binding to different target molecules with high affinity and selectivity. Over the years, they have gained a substantial amount of interest as promising molecular tools for numerous medical applications, particularly in targeted therapeutics. However, only the different treatment approaches and current developments of aptamer-drug therapies have been discussed so far, ignoring the crucial technical and functional aspects of constructing a therapeutically effective aptamer-driven drug delivery system that translates to improved in-vivo performance. Hence, this paper provides a comprehensive review of the strategies used to improve the therapeutic performance of aptamer-guided delivery systems. We focus on the different functional features such as drug deployment, payload capacity, in-vivo stability and targeting efficiency to further our knowledge in enhancing the cell-specific delivery of aptamer-drug conjugates. Each reported strategy is critically discussed to emphasize both the benefits provided in comparison with other similar techniques and to outline their potential drawbacks with respect to the molecular properties of the aptamers, the drug and the system to be designed. The molecular architecture and design considerations for an efficient aptamer-based delivery system are also briefly elaborated.

Ion Binding Properties of a Naturally Occurring Metalloantibody

LT1009 is a humanized version of murine LT1002 IgG1 that employs two bridging Ca²⁺ ions to bind its antigen, the biologically active lipid sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P). We crystallized and determined the X-ray crystal structure of the LT1009 Fab fragment in 10 mM CaCl₂ and found that it binds two Ca²⁺ in a manner similar to its antigen-bound state. Flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (FAAS) confirmed that murine LT1002 also binds Ca²⁺ in solution and inductively-coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) revealed that, although Ca²⁺ is preferred, LT1002 can bind Mg²⁺ and, to much lesser extent, Ba²⁺. Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) indicated that LT1002 binds two Ca²⁺ ions endothermically with a measured dissociation constant (K_D) of 171 μM. Protein and genome sequence analyses suggested that LT1002 is representative of a small class of confirmed and potential metalloantibodies and that Ca²⁺ binding is likely encoded for in germline variable chain genes. To test this hypothesis, we engineered, expressed, and purified a Fab fragment consisting of naïve murine germline-encoded light and heavy chain genes from which LT1002 is derived and observed that it binds Ca²⁺ in solution. We propose that LT1002 is representative of a class of naturally occurring metalloantibodies that are evolutionarily conserved across diverse mammalian genomes.