Accurate characterization of the interactions between biomolecules not only provides fundamental insights into cellular processes but also paves the way for drug discovery and development. With recent increases in thr...Accurate characterization of the interactions between biomolecules not only provides fundamental insights into cellular processes but also paves the way for drug discovery and development. With recent increases in throughput and sensitivity, biophysical technologies have become prominent tools for studying biomolecular interactions. Biophysical techniques that can reduce costs, shorten detection time, simplify the complexity of the system under analysis, and simultaneously provide high-quality data content are particularly favored. Here, we summarize the qualitative and quantitative analysis of biomolecular interactions using Micro Scale Thermophoresis(MST), as well as extend the application of MST functions to explore thermodynamics, enzyme kinetics and protein folding-unfolding processes. MST has emerged as a simple and powerful biophysical approach for identifying and quantifying binding events based on the movement of molecules along microscopic temperature gradients. The advantages of MST over other competitive biophysical techniques include freedom from immobilization, rapid analysis times, lower sample consumption, and the ability to analyze binding affinities in cell lysates. This article discusses the instrumental setups, principles, experimental workflows, and examples of MST application in practice.展开更多
Supramolecular polymer complexes with small molecules are self-assembled through non-covalent interactions and have been proposed for a wide variety of applications in materials science and nanoscience.Our research gr...Supramolecular polymer complexes with small molecules are self-assembled through non-covalent interactions and have been proposed for a wide variety of applications in materials science and nanoscience.Our research group has recently shown the possibility of forming highly ordered nanofibers of supramolecular complexes in their thermodynamically stable state using the electrospinning technique.The ultrafast solvent evaporation rate of electrospinning made possible the in-depth characterization of complexes that had never been prepared in their pure state before because of kinetic issues associated with their formation by conventional approaches.The improved understanding of the formation mechanism allowed us to extend the concept to other techniques featuring a fast solvent evaporation rate,such as electrospray and spin-coating.In this article,we review our most significant contributions in this research field.展开更多
基金This work was supported by State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs,Peking University。
文摘Accurate characterization of the interactions between biomolecules not only provides fundamental insights into cellular processes but also paves the way for drug discovery and development. With recent increases in throughput and sensitivity, biophysical technologies have become prominent tools for studying biomolecular interactions. Biophysical techniques that can reduce costs, shorten detection time, simplify the complexity of the system under analysis, and simultaneously provide high-quality data content are particularly favored. Here, we summarize the qualitative and quantitative analysis of biomolecular interactions using Micro Scale Thermophoresis(MST), as well as extend the application of MST functions to explore thermodynamics, enzyme kinetics and protein folding-unfolding processes. MST has emerged as a simple and powerful biophysical approach for identifying and quantifying binding events based on the movement of molecules along microscopic temperature gradients. The advantages of MST over other competitive biophysical techniques include freedom from immobilization, rapid analysis times, lower sample consumption, and the ability to analyze binding affinities in cell lysates. This article discusses the instrumental setups, principles, experimental workflows, and examples of MST application in practice.
基金supported by a grant and a graduate scholarship (MRL)from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada(NSERC)
文摘Supramolecular polymer complexes with small molecules are self-assembled through non-covalent interactions and have been proposed for a wide variety of applications in materials science and nanoscience.Our research group has recently shown the possibility of forming highly ordered nanofibers of supramolecular complexes in their thermodynamically stable state using the electrospinning technique.The ultrafast solvent evaporation rate of electrospinning made possible the in-depth characterization of complexes that had never been prepared in their pure state before because of kinetic issues associated with their formation by conventional approaches.The improved understanding of the formation mechanism allowed us to extend the concept to other techniques featuring a fast solvent evaporation rate,such as electrospray and spin-coating.In this article,we review our most significant contributions in this research field.
