UCI researchers develop world's first plastic antibodies

UCI researchers develop world's first plastic antibodies
“Plastic antibodies” that UCI scientists used to stop the spread of bee venom in mice could be designed to combat deadlier toxins and pathogens. Photo by Hoang Xuan Pham

UC Irvine researchers have developed the first "plastic antibodies" successfully employed in live organisms - stopping the spread of bee venom through the bloodstream of mice.

Tiny polymeric particles - just 1/50,000th the width of a human hair - were designed to match and encase melittin, a peptide in bee venom that causes cells to rupture, releasing their contents. Large quantities of melittin can lead to and death.

The nanoparticles were prepared by "molecular imprinting" a technique similar to plaster casting: UCI chemistry professor Kenneth Shea and project scientist Yu Hoshino linked melittin with small molecules called monomers, solidifying the two into a network of long . After the plastic hardened, they removed the melittin, leaving nanoparticles with minuscule melittin-shaped holes.

When injected into mice given high doses of melittin, these precisely imprinted nanoparticles enveloped the matching melittin molecules, "capturing" them before they could disperse and wreak havoc - greatly reducing deaths among the rodents.

"Never before have synthetic antibodies been shown to effectively function in the bloodstream of living animals," Shea says. "This technique could be utilized to make plastic nanoparticles designed to fight more lethal toxins and pathogens."

Takashi Kodama of Stanford University and Hiroyuki Koide, Takeo Urakami, Hiroaki Kanazawa and Naoto Oku of Japan's University of Shizuoka also contributed to the study, published recently in the .

Unlike natural antibodies produced by live organisms and harvested for medical use, synthetic antibodies can be created in laboratories at a lower cost and have a longer shelf life.

"The bloodstream includes a sea of competing molecules - such as proteins, peptides and cells - and presents considerable challenges for the design of ," Shea says. "The success of this experiment demonstrates that these challenges can be overcome."

Provided by University of California - Irvine

Citation: UCI researchers develop world's first plastic antibodies (2010, June 21) retrieved 29 March 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2010-06-uci-world-plastic-antibodies.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

Explore further

Plastic antibody works in first tests in living animals

0 shares

Feedback to editors