Degree Type
Honors Capstone Project
Date of Submission
Spring 5-1-2019
Capstone Advisor
Ivan Korendovych
Honors Reader
Carlos Castañeda
Capstone Major
Biology
Capstone College
Arts and Science
Audio/Visual Component
no
Capstone Prize Winner
no
Won Capstone Funding
no
Honors Categories
Sciences and Engineering
Subject Categories
Biochemistry | Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology | Life Sciences
Abstract
The Korendovych lab recently demonstrated for the first time that short peptides can selfassemble in the presence of metal ions to produce efficient catalysts in a variety of chemical reactions ranging from ester hydrolysis to oxygen activation. Original catalysts were produced by solid phase peptide synthesis. Solid phase synthesis can become the limiting factor for an experiment because it takes over two days to make and purify one peptide. Depending on characteristics of a peptide, the purification process can become a challenge involving a tedious process of protocol optimization. Screening of several peptides is time-consuming as it involves analysis of each individual peptide separately. In this work, we propose a high-throughput alternative to solid-phase peptide synthesis by peptide expression in E. coli system, followed by screening for hydrolysis in vitro. Initial experiments show high expression yields. This technique provides us with a tool to screen thousands of possible peptide sequences for activity. Also in this work, we aim to create a new, non-invasive tracer for early in vivo detection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) by Positron Emission Tomography (PET). HCC is the most common type of liver cancer in the world and the survival rate is low due to late diagnosis from a lack of specific detection methods. Currently, the tracer 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) fails to detect HCC early, thus there is a need to design a specific tracer with the capability of detecting liver cancer earlier. We propose the fusion of yttrium, a metal capable of positron emission, to the anti-glypican-3 single chain antibody fragment (anti-GPC3 scFv) through the yttrium binding protein HollEE. The anti-GPC3 scFv is an antibody designed to specifically target HCC cells. Fusing a yttrium bound protein complex to an antibody specific for HCC cells, would enable quick, noninvasive detection of HCC in early stages of the disease
Recommended Citation
Heritage, Claudia, "Protein Engineering For Biomedical Applications" (2019). Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All. 1340.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/1340
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
