|
|
Principal
Investigator (PI): Torbjörn Gräslund,
PhD |
Staff:
Camilla Hofström (Graduate student), Ali Sheikholvaezin
(Post-doc), Erik Vernet (Graduate student)
|
| Affibody molecules |
| 
|
| Affibody molecules are small and robust
affinity proteins. For many purposes they can be used
to replace antibodies and other conventional affinity
reagents and function in a similar manner. In addition,
their behavior in for some applications can be superior,
where the biophysical properties of the conventional affinity
reagents are unsatisfactory regarding, for example, folding,
stability, production and size. |
| Our work aims at generating affibody reagents
to desired antigens and to employ them in different applications.
Our current work has dealt with: |
| • |
Development of affibody reagents
binding to the intracellular oncogenic transcription factor
c-Jun. |
| • |
Comparison of affibody molecules and antibodies as reagents
in standard biochemical applications such as flow cytometry,
immunofluorescence microscopy and protein “pull-down”
experiments. |
| •
|
Engineering of affibody molecules specific for the oncogenic
HER-2 receptor to become stationary in the secretory compartments
of cells. This lead to hindering of receptor export and
to a decrease in cell growth. |
| The future focus of the
project is to further develop affibody-based reagents
to study and specifically interfere with biological
processes. |
| Other interests |
| • |
Development of strategies for cellular
transduction, including virus-based methods and strategies
based on cell penetrating peptides. |
| • |
Stable and specific knock-down of protein function using
siRNAs delivered by virus-based vectors. |
| •
|
Artificial transcription factors. |
| Some current publications |
|
• |
Gräslund T.,
Li X., Magnenat L., Popkov M., Barbas CF. 3rd.
Exploring strategies for the design of artificial transcription
factors: targeting sites proximal to known regulatory
regions for the induction of gamma-globin expression and
the treatment of sickle cell disease. J Biol Chem.
280(5):3707-14 (2005) |
|
• |
Hedhammar M., Gräslund
T., Hober S. (invited review). Protein Engineering
Strategies for Selective Protein Purification. Chem.
Eng. & Tech. 28(11): 1315-1325 (2005) |
|
• |
Hedhammar
M., Alm T., Gräslund T., Hober S. Single-step
recovery and solid-phase refolding of inclusion body proteins
using a polycationic purification tag.
Biotech. Journal 1(2):187-196 (2006) |
|
• |
Lundberg E., Höidén-Guthenberg
I., Larsson B., Uhlén M., Gräslund T.
Site-specifically conjugated anti-HER2 Affibody molecules
as one-step reagents for target expression analyses on
cells and xenograft samples. J Immunol Methods.
319(1-2):53-63 (2007) |
|
• |
Gordley RM., Smith
JD., Gräslund T., Barbas CF. Evolution of
programmable zinc finger-recombinases with activity in
human cells. J Mol Biol.367(3):802-13 (2007)
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|
• |
Lundberg E., Sundberg
M., Gräslund T., Uhlén M. and Andersson-Svahn
H. A novel solid phase method for fluorescent labeling
of antibodies. J Immunol Methods:322(1-2):40-9
(2007) |
|
• |
Vernet E, Konrad
A, Lundberg E, Nygren PA, Gräslund T. Affinity-based
entrapment of the HER2 receptor in the endoplasmic reticulum
using an affibody molecule. J Immunol Methods.
338(1-2):1-6. (2008) |
|
• |
Lundberg E, Brismar
H, Gräslund T. Selection and characterization
of Affibody ligands to the transcription factor c-Jun.
Biotechnol Appl Biochem. (2008). |
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