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Recombinant protein quality: approaches for the quantitative evaluation of functional and structural features of purified proteins and antibodies

Edited by Prof Ario de Marco

Microbial Cell Factories welcomes submissions to this thematic series, covering all aspects of methodologies aimed at analyzing the preservation of the structure, solubility, and functionality of purified proteins and antibodies. Applications of new biophysical and imaging technologies are welcome, as well as the description of automated approaches. See here for further information, including how to submit.

This collection of articles has not been sponsored and articles have undergone the journal’s standard peer-review process. The Guest Editors declare no competing interests.

  1. The bacteriocin nisin is naturally produced by Lactococcus lactis as an inactive prepeptide that is modified posttranslationally resulting in five (methyl-)lanthionine rings characteristic for class Ia bacterioci...

    Authors: Dominik Weixler, Max Berghoff, Kirill V. Ovchinnikov, Sebastian Reich, Oliver Goldbeck, Gerd M. Seibold, Christoph Wittmann, Nadav S. Bar, Bernhard J. Eikmanns, Dzung B. Diep and Christian U. Riedel
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2022 21:11
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Microbial Cell Factories 2022 21:24

  2. Flonicamid (N-cyanomethyl-4-trifluoromethylnicotinamide, FLO) is a new type of pyridinamide insecticide that regulates insect growth. Because of its wide application in agricultural production and high solubility...

    Authors: Yun-Xiu Zhao, Li Wang, Ke-Xin Chen, Neng-Dang Jiang, Shi-Lei Sun, Feng Ge and Yi-Jun Dai
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2021 20:133
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. Enzymatic quantification of creatinine has become an essential method for clinical evaluation of renal function. Although creatinase (CR) is frequently used for this purpose, its poor thermostability severely ...

    Authors: Xue Bai, Daixi Li, Fuqiang Ma, Xi Deng, Manjie Luo, Yan Feng and Guangyu Yang
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2020 19:194
    Content type: Research Published on:

  5. The thorough understanding of the physiological and pathological processes mediated by extracellular vesicles (EVs) is challenged by purification methods which are cumbersome, not reproducible, or insufficient...

    Authors: Milica Popovic, Elisa Mazzega, Barbara Toffoletto and Ario de Marco
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2018 17:6
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. Signal peptide peptidases play an important role in the removal of remnant signal peptides in the cell membrane, a critical step for extracellular protein production. Although these proteins are likely a centr...

    Authors: Dongbo Cai, Hao Wang, Penghui He, Chengjun Zhu, Qin Wang, Xuetuan Wei, Christopher T. Nomura and Shouwen Chen
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2017 16:70
    Content type: Research Published on:

  7. Interferon (IFN)-α has been commonly used as an antiviral drug worldwide; however, its short half-life in circulation due to its low molecular weight and sensitivity to proteases impacts its efficacy and patie...

    Authors: Hao Jia, Yugang Guo, Xiaoping Song, Changsheng Shao, Jing Wu, Jiajia Ma, Mingyang Shi, Yuhui Miao, Rui Li, Dong Wang, Zhigang Tian and Weihua Xiao
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2016 15:209
    Content type: Research Published on:

  8. Lactic acid is a versatile chemical platform with many different industrial applications. Yeasts have been demonstrated as attractive alternative to natural lactic acid producers since they can grow at low pH,...

    Authors: Nadia Maria Berterame, Danilo Porro, Diletta Ami and Paola Branduardi
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2016 15:39
    Content type: Research Published on:

  9. Disulfide bonds are the most common structural, post-translational modification found in proteins. Antibodies contain up to 25 disulfide bonds depending on type, with sc...

    Authors: Anna Gaciarz, Johanna Veijola, Yuko Uchida, Mirva J. Saaranen, Chunguang Wang, Sohvi Hörkkö and Lloyd W. Ruddock
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2016 15:22
    Content type: Research Published on:

  10. Secretion of cytoplasmic expressed proteins into growth media has significant advantages. Due to the lack of an outer membrane, Bacillus subtilis is considered as a desirable ‘cell factory’ for the secretion of r...

    Authors: Guangqiang Wang, Yongjun Xia, Zhennan Gu, Hao Zhang, Yong Q. Chen, Haiqin Chen, Lianzhong Ai and Wei Chen
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2015 14:179
    Content type: Research Published on:

  11. An increasing number of proteins are being shown to assemble into amyloid structures that lead to pathological states. Among them, mammalian prions outstand due to their ability to transmit the pathogenic conf...

    Authors: Bruno Macedo, Ricardo Sant’Anna, Susanna Navarro, Yraima Cordeiro and Salvador Ventura
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2015 14:174
    Content type: Research Published on:

  12. Single domain antibodies derived from the variable region of the unique heavy chain antibodies found in camelids yield high affinity and regenerable recognition elements. Adding an additional disulfide bond th...

    Authors: Jinny L. Liu, Ellen R. Goldman, Dan Zabetakis, Scott A. Walper, Kendrick B. Turner, Lisa C. Shriver-Lake and George P. Anderson
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2015 14:158
    Content type: Research Published on:

  13. For membrane protein production, the Escherichia coli T7 RNA polymerase (T7 RNAP)-based protein production strain BL21(DE3) in combination with T7-promoter based expression vectors is widely used. Cells are routi...

    Authors: Zhe Zhang, Grietje Kuipers, Łukasz Niemiec, Thomas Baumgarten, Dirk Jan Slotboom, Jan-Willem de Gier and Anna Hjelm
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2015 14:142
    Content type: Technical Notes Published on:

  15. Lactococcus lactis, a lactic acid bacterium traditionally used to ferment milk and manufacture cheeses, is also, in the biotechnology field, an interesting host to produce proteins of ...

    Authors: Frédéric Samazan, Bachra Rokbi, Delphine Seguin, Fabienne Telles, Valérie Gautier, Gilbert Richarme, Didier Chevret, Paloma Fernández Varela, Christophe Velours and Isabelle Poquet
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2015 14:104
    Content type: Research Published on:

  16. The formation of protein inclusions is connected to the onset of many human diseases. Human RNA binding proteins containing intrinsically disordered regions with an amino acid composition resembling those of y...

    Authors: Susanna Navarro, Patrizia Marinelli, Marta Diaz-Caballero and Salvador Ventura
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2015 14:102
    Content type: Research Published on:

  17. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), also referred to as endotoxin, is the major constituent of the outer leaflet of the outer membrane of virtually all Gram-negative bacteria. The lipid A moiety, which anchors the LPS m...

    Authors: Uwe Mamat, Kathleen Wilke, David Bramhill, Andra Beate Schromm, Buko Lindner, Thomas Andreas Kohl, José Luis Corchero, Antonio Villaverde, Lana Schaffer, Steven Robert Head, Chad Souvignier, Timothy Charles Meredith and Ronald Wesley Woodard
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2015 14:57
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Erratum to this article has been published in Microbial Cell Factories 2015 14:81

  18. The hERG potassium channel is essential for repolarization of the cardiac action potential. Due to this vital function, absence of unintended and potentially life-threatening interactions with hERG is ...

    Authors: Karen Molbaek, Peter Scharff-Poulsen, Claus Helix-Nielsen, Dan A Klaerke and Per Amstrup Pedersen
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2015 14:15
    Content type: Research Published on:

  19. Recombinant protein-based therapeutics have become indispensable for the treatment of many diseases. They are produced using well-established expression systems based on bacteria, yeast, insect and mammalian c...

    Authors: Jennifer Lauber, René Handrick, Sebastian Leptihn, Peter Dürre and Sabine Gaisser
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2015 14:3
    Content type: Research Published on:

  20. Amphiphilic peptides are important building blocks to generate nanostructured biomaterials for drug delivery and tissue engineering applications. We have shown that the self-assembling peptide SA2 (Ac-AAVVLLLW...

    Authors: Mazda Rad-Malekshahi, Matthias Flement, Wim E Hennink and Enrico Mastrobattista
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2014 13:178
    Content type: Research Published on:

  21. Purified protein quality control is the final and critical check-point of any protein production process. Unfortunately, it is too often overlooked and performed hastily, resulting in irreproducible and mislea...

    Authors: Bertrand Raynal, Pascal Lenormand, Bruno Baron, Sylviane Hoos and Patrick England
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2014 13:180
    Content type: Review Published on:

  22. Cell display technologies (e.g. bacterial display) are attractive in directed evolution as they provide the option to use flow-cytometric cell sorting for selection from combinatorial libraries. The aim of thi...

    Authors: Filippa Fleetwood, Ken G Andersson, Stefan Ståhl and John Löfblom
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2014 13:179
    Content type: Research Published on:

  23. The isolation of recombinant antibody fragments from displayed libraries represents a powerful alternative to the generation of IgGs using hybridoma technology. The selected antibody fragments can then be easi...

    Authors: Selma Djender, Aurelie Schneider, Anne Beugnet, Ronan Crepin, Klervi Even Desrumeaux, Chiara Romani, Sandrine Moutel, Franck Perez and Ario de Marco
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2014 13:140
    Content type: Research Published on:

  24. Inclusion bodies (IBs) are aggregated proteins that form clusters when protein is overexpressed in heterologous expression systems. IBs have been considered as non-usable proteins, but recently they are being ...

    Authors: Andrea Castellanos-Mendoza, Ricardo M Castro-Acosta, Alejandro Olvera, Guadalupe Zavala, Miguel Mendoza-Vera, Enrique García-Hernández, Alejandro Alagón, Mauricio A Trujillo-Roldán and Norma A Valdez-Cruz
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2014 13:137
    Content type: Research Published on:

  25. Recombinant antibodies are highly successful in many different pathological conditions and currently enjoy overwhelming recognition of their potential. There are a wide variety of protein expression systems av...

    Authors: Ana Blanco-Toribio, Javier Lacadena, Natalia Nuñez-Prado, Ana Álvarez-Cienfuegos, Maider Villate, Marta Compte, Laura Sanz, Francisco J Blanco and Luis Álvarez-Vallina
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2014 13:116
    Content type: Research Published on:

  27. Protein assemblies, such as virus-like particles, have increasing importance as vaccines, delivery vehicles and nanomaterials. However, their use requires stable assemblies. An important cause of loss of stabi...

    Authors: Ricardo M Castro-Acosta, William A Rodríguez-Limas, Brenda Valderrama, Octavio T Ramírez and Laura A Palomares
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2014 13:25
    Content type: Research Published on:

  28. A number of valuable candidates as tuberculosis vaccine have been reported, some of which have already entered clinical trials. The new vaccines, especially subunit vaccines, need multiple administrations in o...

    Authors: Luciano Piubelli, Manuela Campa, Caterina Temporini, Elisa Binda, Francesca Mangione, Massimo Amicosante, Marco Terreni, Flavia Marinelli and Loredano Pollegioni
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2013 12:115
    Content type: Research Published on:

  29. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a common and leading cause for liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Current therapies to treat HCV infection are shown to be partially effective and poorly tolerated. Theref...

    Authors: Muhammad Ikram Anwar, Mazhar Iqbal, Mohammad S Yousef and Moazur Rahman
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2013 12:111
    Content type: Research Published on:

  30. Monoterpenes are a class of natural C10 compounds with a range of potential applications including use as fuel additives, fragrances, and chemical feedstocks. Biosynthesis of monoterpenes in heterologous systems ...

    Authors: James BYH Behrendorff, Claudia E Vickers, Panagiotis Chrysanthopoulos and Lars K Nielsen
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2013 12:76
    Content type: Technical Notes Published on:

  31. Biologically active inclusion bodies (IBs) have gained much attention in recent years. Fusion with IB-inducing partner has been shown to be an efficient strategy for generating active IBs. To make full use of ...

    Authors: Ziliang Huang, Chong Zhang, Shuo Chen, Fengchun Ye and Xin-Hui Xing
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2013 12:25
    Content type: Research Published on:

  32. The understanding of protein aggregation is a central issue in different fields of protein science, from the heterologous protein production in biotechnology to amyloid aggregation in several neurodegenerative...

    Authors: Diletta Ami, Antonino Natalello, Marina Lotti and Silvia Maria Doglia
    Citation: Microbial Cell Factories 2013 12:17
    Content type: Commentary Published on: