Advances in affinity ligand-functionalized nanomaterials for biomagnetic separation.

The downstream processing of proteins remains the most significant cost in protein production, and is largely attributed to rigorous chromatographic purification protocols, where the stringency of purity for biopharmaceutical products sometimes exceeds 99%. With an ever burgeoning biotechnology market, there is a constant demand for alternative purification methodologies, to ameliorate the dependence on chromatography, while still adhering to regulatory concerns over product purity and safety. In this article, we present an up-to-date view of bioseparation, with emphasis on magnetic separation and its potential application in the field. Additionally, we discuss the economic and performance benefits of synthetic ligands, in the form of peptides and miniaturized antibody fragments, compared to full-length antibodies. We propose that adoption of synthetic affinity ligands coupled with magnetic adsorbents, will play an important role in enabling sustainable bioprocessing in the future.

Low piconewton towing of CNS axons against diffusing and surface-bound repellents requires the inhibition of motor protein-associated pathways.

Growth cones, dynamic structures at axon tips, integrate chemical and physical stimuli and translate them into coordinated axon behaviour, e.g., elongation or turning. External force application to growth cones directs and enhances axon elongation in vitro; however, direct mechanical stimulation is rarely combined with chemotactic stimulation. We describe a microfluidic device that exposes isolated cortical axons to gradients of diffusing and substrate-bound molecules, and permits the simultaneous application of piconewton (pN) forces to multiple individual growth cones via magnetic tweezers. Axons treated with Y-27632, a RhoA kinase inhibitor, were successfully towed against Semaphorin 3A gradients, which repel untreated axons, with less than 12 pN acting on a small number of neural cell adhesion molecules. Treatment with Y-27632 or monastrol, a kinesin-5 inhibitor, promoted axon towing on substrates coated with chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans, potent axon repellents. Thus, modulating key molecular pathways that regulate contractile stress generation in axons counteracts the effects of repellent molecules and promotes tension-induced growth. The demonstration of parallel towing of axons towards inhibitory environments with minute forces suggests that mechanochemical stimulation may be a promising therapeutic approach for the repair of the damaged central nervous system, where regenerating axons face repellent factors over-expressed in the glial scar.

Synthesis of superparamagnetic particles with tunable morphologies: the role of nanoparticle-nanoparticle interactions.

Superparamagnetic microparticles are extensively used in the purification of biomolecules due to the speed and ease of magnetic separation. It is desirable that the microparticles used in biological affinity separations have both high surface area and high magnetic mobility to facilitate a high binding capacity of target biomolecules and their rapid removal from solution, respectively. Scaling laws for conventional spherical superparamagnetic microparticles are such that increasing the microparticle specific surface area results in a significant decrease in the magnetic mobility. More favorable combinations of these key parameters can be found if alternative microparticle morphologies are developed for use in affinity separations. Emulsion-templated self-assembly of iron oxide nanoparticles into microparticles using oil-in-water emulsions was carried out using a modified Couette shear mixer with separate inlet ports for the oil and aqueous phases, enabling high throughput microparticle synthesis. By controlling the dissolved nanoparticle concentration and nanoparticle surface activity at the droplet interfaces, the resulting microparticles were tuned to spherical, dimpled, or crumpled morphologies. The specific binding capacity and magnetic mobility of each type of microparticle were measured by a peroxidase-based colorimetric assay and by their magnetic field-induced motion in a viscous fluid, respectively. Superparamagnetic microparticles with dimpled and crumpled morphologies were found to have higher specific binding capacities compared to spherical microparticles, while maintaining high magnetic field velocities due to their high iron oxide content. Superparamagnetic microparticles with these novel morphologies would make excellent tools for affinity-based bioseparations where binding capacity and magnetic mobility are key factors.

Magnetic tweezers-based force clamp reveals mechanically distinct apCAM domain interactions.

Cell adhesion molecules of the immunoglobulin superfamily (IgCAMs) play a crucial role in cell-cell interactions during nervous system development and function. The Aplysia CAM (apCAM), an invertebrate IgCAM, shares structural and functional similarities with vertebrate NCAM and therefore has been considered as the Aplysia homolog of NCAM. Despite these similarities, the binding properties of apCAM have not been investigated thus far. Using magnetic tweezers, we applied physiologically relevant, constant forces to apCAM-coated magnetic particles interacting with apCAM-coated model surfaces and characterized the kinetics of bond rupture. The average bond lifetime decreased with increasing external force, as predicted by theoretical considerations. Mathematical simulations suggest that the apCAM homophilic interaction is mediated by two distinct bonds, one involving all five immunoglobulin (Ig)-like domains in an antiparallel alignment and the other involving only two Ig domains. In summary, this study provides biophysical evidence that apCAM undergoes homophilic interactions, and that magnetic tweezers-based, force-clamp measurements provide a rapid and reliable method for characterizing relatively weak CAM interactions.