STEM史密斯学院与西北大学的新研究药物的私人定制

Smith School

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Northwestern

Engineering cellular biology, minus the actual cell, is a growing area of interest in biotechnology and synthetic biology. It’s known as cell-free protein synthesis, or CFPS, and it has potential to provide sustainable ways to make chemicals, medicines and biomaterials.

工程细胞生物学，是生物技术和合成生物学中不断增长的非常有意思的领域。 它被称为无细胞蛋白质合成或CFPS，它有可能提供制造化学品，药物和生物材料的可持续方案。

Unfortunately, a long-standing gap in cell-free systems is the ability to manufacture glycosylated proteins – proteins with a carbohydrate attachment. Glycosylation is crucial for a wide range of important biological processes, and the ability to understand and control this mechanism is vital for disease treatment and prevention.

不幸的是，无细胞系统的缺陷是能够制造糖基化蛋白质 – 具有碳水化合物附着的蛋白质。 糖基化对于广泛的重要生物过程至关重要，理解和控制这种机制的能力对于疾病治疗和预防至关重要。

cell biology

Matthew DeLisa, the William L. Lewis Professor of Engineering in the Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Michael Jewett, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern University, have teamed up on a novel approach that bridges this gap.

史密斯化学与生物分子工程学院的William L. Lewis工程教授Matthew DeLisa和西北大学化学与生物工程副教授Michael Jewett合作开发了一种弥合这一差距的新方法。

Their system, the first of its kind, capitalizes on the recent advances in CFPS while adding the crucial glycosylation component in a simplified, “one-pot” reaction.

他们的系统利用了CFPS的最新进展，同时在简化的“one-pot”反应中添加了关键的糖基化成分。

In the future, their cell-free glycoprotein synthesis system could be freeze-dried and reactivated for point-of-use protein synthesis by simply adding water.

将来，他们的无细胞糖蛋白合成系统可以通过简单地加水来冷冻干燥并重新激活用于使用点的蛋白质合成。

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“If you really want to have a useful, portable and deployable vaccine or therapeutic protein technology that’s cell free, you have to figure out the carbohydrate attachment,” DeLisa said. “That’s, in essence, what we’ve done in a very powerful way.”

“如果你真的想要一种有用的，便携式和可部署的疫苗或无细胞的治疗性蛋白质技术，你必须弄清楚碳水化合物的附着，”DeLisa说。 “从本质上讲，这就是我们以非常强大的方式所做的事情。”

This work could impact development of decentralized manufacturing strategies. Rapid access to protein-based medicines in remote settings could change lives; new biomanufacturing paradigms suitable for use in low-resource settings might promote better access to costly drugs through local, small-batch production.

这项工作可能会影响分散制造战略的发展。 在偏远地区快速获得基于蛋白质的药物可以改变生活; 适用于资源匮乏环境的新的生物制造范例可能会促进通过本地小批量生产更好地获取昂贵的药物。

Jewett’s lab at Northwestern has invested much of its research efforts into cell-free synthetic biology, which leverages nature’s most elegant biomachinery outside the confines of the cell, so a collaboration was a natural extension of both labs’ work.

Jewett在西北大学的实验室已将其大部分研究工作投入到无细胞合成生物学中，该生物学在细胞范围之外利用了大自然最优雅的生物机械，因此合作是两个实验室工作的自然延伸。

“In bacterial cell engineering, you’re constantly in a tug of war,” Jewett said. “You’re introducing a mechanism or capability that’s of interest to you as a scientist, but what the cell is trying to do for itself is grow and survive.”

对于他们的新方法，该团队从优化的大肠杆菌CLM24实验室菌株制备细胞提取物，该菌株选择性地富含关键的糖基化成分。 得到的提取物实现了简化的反应方案，该团队称其为无细胞糖蛋白合成（CFGpS）。