Site-specific PEGylation of Human Growth Hormone by Mutated Sortase A

Human growth hormone（hGH）, a classic therapeutic protein, which promotes growth and wound healing, is released from the pituitary gland. As a protein drug, its short half-life is its main barrier to therapeutic efficacy. Various strategies have been designed to prolong its serum half-life, the most conunon of which is the conjugation with polyethylene glycol（PEG）, as this has been shown to significantly extend protein＇s serum half-life. However, PEGylation often results in random conjugation, which can lead to impaired protein function and hinder purification, characterization and evaluation of the PEGylated protein. Therefore, site specific PEGylation is a promising direction for PEG-protein conjugation. Here we took advantages of the mutated sortase A（7M） enzyme, which can enzymati- cally ligate the universal a-amino acids to a C-terminal tagged protein. This then allows specific modification of the C-terminal of hGH with PEG. This site-specific bound PEG-hGH has similar efficacy, receptor binding and cell proliferation as wild-type hGH; however, pharmacokinetic analysis demonstrates that its serum half-life is almost 24 times that of wild-type hGH. Herein, we provided a promising advancement in the development of site specific PEGylated therapeutic proteins.

Modification of Cu/ZSM-5 catalyst with CeO_2 for selective catalytic reduction of NO_x with ammonia

Cu/ZSM-5 and CeO_2-modified Cu/ZSM-5 catalysts were prepared by a wetness impregnation method. The addition of CeO_2 was found to enhance the NO_x selective catalytic reduction（SCR） activity of the catalyst at low temperatures, but the high-temperature activity was weakened. The catalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction（XRD）, nitrogen physisorption, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry（ICP-OES）, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy（XPS）, electron paramagnetic resonance（EPR）, H_2 temperature-programmed reduction（TPR） and NH_3 temperature-programmed desorption（TPD）. The results showed that more CuO clusters instead of isolated Cu^（2＋） species were obtained on the modified catalyst. These active CuO clusters, as well as the Cu-Ce synergistic effect, improved the redox property of the catalyst and low-temperatures SCR activity via promoting the oxidation of NO to NO_2 and fast SCR reaction. The loss in high-temperatures activity was attributed to the enhanced competitive oxidation of NH_3 by O_2 and decreased surface acidity of the catalyst.