Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell lines are the pillars of a multi‐billion dollar biopharmaceutical industry producing recombinant therapeutic proteins. The effects of local chromatin organisation and epigenetic repression within these cell lines result in unpredictable and unstable transgene expression following random integration. Limited knowledge of the CHO genome and its higher‐order chromatin

Biologics such as peptides and proteins possess a number of attractive attributes that make them particularly valuable as therapeutics, including their high activity, high specificity and low toxicity. However, one of the key challenges associated with this class of drugs is their propensity to aggregate. Given the safety and immunogenicity concerns related to polypeptide aggregates, it is particularly

Melatonin is an indoleamine neurohormone made by the pineal gland. Its receptors, MTNR1A and MTNR1B, are members of the G‐protein‐coupled receptor (GPCR) family and are involved in sleep, circadian rhythm and mood disorders, and in the inhibition of cancer growth. These receptors therefore represent significant molecular targets for insomnia, circadian sleep disorders, and cancer. The yeast Saccharomyces

Growing industrial utilization of enzymes and the increasing availability of metagenomic data highlight the demand for effective methods of targeted identification and verification of novel enzymes from various environmental microbiota. Xylanases are a class of enzymes with numerous industrial applications and are involved in the degradation of xylose, a component of lignocellulose. The optimum temperature

This study investigates the relationship between collective motion and propulsion of bacterial consortia and their biopolymer production efficiency. Rheological tests were conducted for suspensions of two different methanotrophic bacterial consortia obtained after enrichment of sediment samples from mangrove sites in Brazil. We considered the linear viscoelasticity region and analyzed the values of

When discovered, extracellular vesicles (EVs) such as exosomes were thought of as junk carriers and a means by which the cell disposed of its waste material. Over the years, the role of EVs in cell communication has become apparent with the discovery that the nano‐scale vesicles also transport RNA, DNA, and other bioactive components to and from the cells. These findings were originally made in EVs

AcCHMO, a cyclohexanone monooxygenase from Acinetobacter calcoaceticus, is a typical type I Baeyer‐Villiger monooxygenase (BVMO). We previously obtained the AcCHMOM6 mutant, which oxidizes omeprazole sulfide (OPS) to the chiral sulfoxide drug esomeprazole. To further improve the catalytic efficiency of the AcCHMOM6 mutant, a focused mutagenesis strategy was adopted at the intersections of the FAD‐binding

Lactate production in anaerobic carbohydrate fermentations with mixed cultures of microorganisms is generally observed only in very specific conditions: the reactor should be run discontinuously and peptides and B vitamins must be present in the culture medium as lactic acid bacteria are typically auxotrophic for amino acids. State‐of‐the‐art anaerobic fermentation models assume that microorganisms

Enhancing angiogenesis is the prime target of current biomaterial‐based wound healing strategies. However, these approaches largely overlook the angiogenic role of the cells of the nervous system. Therefore, we explored the role of a collagen‐chondroitin sulfate scaffold functionalized with a pro‐angiogenic gene stromal‐derived factor‐1 alpha (SDF‐1α) – an SDF‐1α gene‐activated scaffold on the functional

Recent research has demonstrated that synthetic methanotroph‐photoautotroph cocultures offer a highly promising route to convert biogas into value‐added products. However, there is a lack of techniques for fast and accurate characterization of cocultures, such as determining the individual biomass concentration of each organism in real‐time. To address this unsolved challenge, we propose an experi

We describe the engineering design, computational modelling and empirical performance of a Moving Air‐Liquid Interface (MALI) bioreactor for the study of aerosol deposition on cells cultured on an elastic, porous membrane which mimics both air‐liquid interface exposure conditions and mechanoelastic motion of lung tissue during breathing. The device consists of two chambers separated by a cell layer

Clostridium tyrobutyricum produces butyric and acetic acids from glucose. The butyric acid yield and selectivity in the fermentation depend on NADH available for acetate reassimilation to butyric acid. In this study, benzyl viologen (BV), an artificial electron carrier that inhibits hydrogen production, was used to increase NADH availability and butyric acid production while eliminating acetic acid

The temperature sensitivity of vaccines and therapeutic proteins forces the distribution of life‐saving treatments to rely heavily on the temperature‐controlled (usually 2 – 8 °C) supply and distribution network known as the cold chain. Here, using avidin as a model, we demonstrate how surface engineering could significantly increase the thermal stability of therapeutic proteins. A combination of spectroscopic

Ultrafiltration/diafiltration (UF/DF) operations are employed for achieving desired therapeutic monoclonal antibody (mAb) formulations. Due to electrostatic interactions between the charged proteins, solute ions, and uncharged excipients, the final pH and concentration values are not always equal to those in the diafiltration buffer. At high protein concentrations, typical for industrial formulations

Cancer has always been a global problem, with more cases of cancer patients being diagnosed every year. Conventional cancer treatments, including radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery, are still unable to bypass their obvious limitations, and developing effective targeted therapies is still required. More than one century ago, the doctor William B. Coley discovered that cancer patients had tumor regression

Substantial presence of denitrifiers has already been reported in partial nitritation anammox (PNA) systems using the 16S rRNA gene, but little is known about the phylogenetic diversity based on denitrification pathway functional genes. Therefore, we performed a metagenomic analysis to determine the distribution of denitrification genes and the associated phylogeny in PNA systems and whether a niche