Toxoplasma gondii infection in pregnant women may result in abortion and foetal abnormalities, and may be life-threatening in immunocompromised hosts. To identify the potential infection markers of this disease, 2-DE and Western blot methods were employed to study the parasite circulating antigens and host-specific proteins in the sera of T. gondii-infected individuals. The comparisons were made between serum protein profiles of infected (n=31) and normal (n=10) subjects. Antigenic proteins were identified by immunoblotting using pooled sera and monoclonal anti-human IgM-HRP. Selected protein spots were characterised using mass spectrometry. Prominent differences were observed when serum samples of T. gondii-infected individuals and normal controls were compared. A significant up-regulation of host-specific proteins, α(2)-HS glycoprotein and α(1)-B glycoprotein, was also observed in the silver-stained gels of both active and chronic infections. However, only α(2)-HS glycoprotein and α(1)-B glycoprotein in the active infection showed immunoreactivity in Western blots. In addition, three spots of T. gondii proteins were detected, namely (i) hypothetical protein chrXII: 3984434-3 TGME 49, (ii) dual specificity protein phosphatase, catalytic domain TGME 49 and (iii) NADPH-cytochrome p450 reductase TGME 49. Thus, 2-DE approach followed by Western blotting has enabled the identification of five potential infection markers for the diagnosis of toxoplasmosis: three are parasite-specific proteins and two are host-specific proteins.
This paper presents the development and experimental analysis of a curved microelectrode platform for the DEP deformation of breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-231). The platform is composed of arrays of curved DEP microelectrodes which are patterned onto a glass slide and samples containing MDA-MB-231 cells are pipetted onto the platform's surface. Finite element method is utilised to characterise the electric field gradient and DEP field. The performance of the system is assessed with MDA-MB-231 cells in a low conductivity 1% DMEM suspending medium. We applied sinusoidal wave AC potential at peak to peak voltages of 2, 5, and 10 Vpp at both 10 kHz and 50 MHz. We observed cell blebbing and cell shrinkage and analyzed the percentage of shrinkage of the cells. The experiments demonstrated higher percentage of cell shrinkage when cells are exposed to higher frequency and peak to peak voltage electric field.
Micelle to solvent stacking was implemented for the recently established NACE-C(4) D method to determine tamoxifen and its metabolites in standard samples and human plasma of breast cancer patients. For stacking, the standard samples and extract after liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) were prepared in methanol and the resulting sample solution was pressure injected after a micellar plug of SDS. Factors that affected the stacking such as SDS concentration, micelle, and sample plug length were examined. The sensitivity enhancement factor (peak height from stacking/peak height from typical injection of sample in BGE) was 15-22. The method detection limits with LLE were in the range of 5-10 ng/mL, which was lower than the established method (where the LLE extract was also prepared in methanol) with reported method detection limits of 25-40 ng/mL. The intraday and interday repeatability were in the range of 1.0-3.4% and 3.8-6.5%, respectively.
One of the most cited limitations of capillary (and microchip) electrophoresis is the poor sensitivity. This review continues to update this series of biennial reviews, first published in Electrophoresis in 2007, on developments in the field of on-line/in-line concentration methods in capillaries and microchips, covering the period July 2014-June 2016. It includes developments in the field of stacking, covering all methods from field amplified sample stacking and large volume sample stacking, through to isotachophoresis, dynamic pH junction, and sweeping. Attention is also given to on-line or in-line extraction methods that have been used for electrophoresis.
One of the most cited limitations of capillary and microchip electrophoresis is the poor sensitivity. This review continues to update this series of biannual reviews, first published in Electrophoresis in 2007, on developments in the field of online/in-line concentration methods in capillaries and microchips, covering the period July 2016-June 2018. It includes developments in the field of stacking, covering all methods from field-amplified sample stacking and large-volume sample stacking, through to isotachophoresis, dynamic pH junction, and sweeping. Attention is also given to online or in-line extraction methods that have been used for electrophoresis.
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from lipid-rich fleshy mesocarp tissue of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) fruit and is of global economic and nutritional relevance. While the understanding of oil biosynthesis in plants is improving, the fundamentals of oil biosynthesis in oil palm still require further investigations. To gain insight into the systemic mechanisms that govern oil synthesis during oil palm fruit ripening, the proteomics approach combining gel-based electrophoresis and mass spectrometry was used to profile protein changes and classify the patterns of protein accumulation during these complex physiological processes. Protein profiles from different stages of fruit ripening at 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18 and 20 weeks after anthesis (WAA) were analysed by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE). The proteome data were then visualised using a multivariate statistical analysis of principal component analysis (PCA) to get an overview of the proteome changes during the development of oil palm mesocarp. A total of 68 differentially expressed protein spots were successfully identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation-time of flight (MALDI-TOF/TOF) and functionally classified using ontology analysis. Proteins related to lipid production, energy, secondary metabolites and amino acid metabolism are the most significantly changed proteins during fruit development representing potential candidates for oil yield improvement endeavors. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD009579. This study provides important proteome information for protein regulation during oil palm fruit ripening and oil synthesis.
Rapid and direct online preconcentration followed by CE with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (CE-C(4)D) is evaluated as a new approach for the determination of glyphosate, glufosinate (GLUF), and aminophosphonic acid (AMPA) in drinking water. Two online preconcentration techniques, namely large volume sample stacking without polarity switching and field-enhanced sample injection, coupled with CE-C(4)D were successfully developed and optimized. Under optimized conditions, LODs in the range of 0.01-0.1 microM (1.7-11.1 microg/L) and sensitivity enhancements of 48- to 53-fold were achieved with the large volume sample stacking-CE-C(4)D method. By performing the field-enhanced sample injection-CE-C(4)D procedure, excellent LODs down to 0.0005-0.02 microM (0.1-2.2 microg/L) as well as sensitivity enhancements of up to 245- to 1002-fold were obtained. Both techniques showed satisfactory reproducibility with RSDs of peak height of better than 10%. The newly established approaches were successfully applied to the analysis of glyphosate, glufosinate, and aminophosphonic acid in spiked tap drinking water.
An efficient method for the simultaneous enantioseparation of cyproconazole, bromuconazole, and diniconazole enantiomers was developed by CD-modified MEKC using a dual mixture of neutral CDs as chiral selector. Three neutral CDs namely hydroxypropyl-beta-CD, hydroxypropyl-gamma-CD, and gamma-CD were tested as chiral selectors at different concentrations ranging from 10, 20, 30 and 40 mM, but enantiomers of the studied fungicides were not completely separated. The best dual chiral recognition mode for the simultaneous separation of cyproconazole, bromuconazole, and diniconazole enantiomers was achieved with a mixture of 27 mM hydroxypropyl-beta-CD and 3 mM hydroxypropyl-gamma-CD in 25 mM phosphate buffer (pH 3.0) containing 40 mM SDS to which methanol-acetonitrile (10%:5% v/v) was added as organic modifiers. The best separation was based on the appearance of 10 peaks simultaneously, with good resolution (R(s) 1.1-15.9), and peak efficiency (N>200,000). Good repeatabilities in the migration time, peak area, and peak height were obtained in terms of RSD ranging from (0.72 to 1.06)%, (0.39 to 3.49)%, and (1.90 to 4.84)%, respectively.
A new approach for the quantification of tamoxifen and its metabolites 4-hydroxytamoxifen, N-desmethyltamoxifen, and 4-hydroxy-N-desmethyltamoxifen (endoxifen) in human plasma samples using NACE coupled with contactless conductivity detection (C(4) D) is presented. The buffer system employed consisted of 7.5 mM deoxycholic acid sodium salt, 15 mM acetic acid, and 1 mM 18-crown-6 in 100% methanol. The complete separation of all targeted compounds (including endoxifen racemate) could be achieved within 6 min under optimized conditions. The proposed method was validated and showed good linearity in the range from 100 to 5000 ng/mL with correlation coefficients between 0.9922 and 0.9973, LODs in the range of 25-40 ng/mL, and acceptable reproducibility of the peak area (intraday RSD 2.2-3.1%, n = 4; interday (3 days) RSD 6.0-8.8%, n = 4). The developed method was successfully demonstrated for the quantification of tamoxifen and its metabolites in human plasma samples collected from breast cancer patients undertaking tamoxifen treatment.
A new multi-stacking pre-concentration procedure based on field-enhanced sample injection (FESI), field-amplified sample stacking, and transient isotachophoresis was developed and implemented in a compact microchip electrophoresis (MCE) with a double T-junction glass chip, coupled with an on-chip capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (C4 D) system. A mixture of the cationic target analyte and the terminating electrolyte (TE) from the two sample reservoirs was injected under FESI conditions within the two sample-loading channels. At the double T-junction, the stacked analyte zones were further concentrated under field-amplified stacking conditions and then subsequently focused by transient-isotachophoresis and separated along the separation channels. The proposed multi-stacking strategy was verified under a Universal Serial Bus (USB) fluorescence microscope employing Rhodamine 6G as the model analyte. This developed approach was subsequently used to monitor the target quinine present in human plasma samples. The total analysis time for quinine was approximately 200 s with a sensitivity enhancement factor of approximately 61 when compared to the typical gated injection. The detection and quantification limits of the developed approach for quinine were 3.0 μg/mL and 10 μg/mL, respectively, with intraday and interday repeatability (%RSDs, n = 5) of 3.6 and 4.4%. Recoveries in spiked human plasma were 98.1-99.8%.
Mechanical and non-mechanical breakages of bacterial cells are usually the preliminary steps in intracellular protein purification. In this study, the recombinant green fluorescent protein (GFP) was purified from intact Escherichia coli cells using preparative PAGE. In this purification process, cells disruption step is not needed. The cellular content of E. coli was drifted out electrically from cells and the negatively charged GFP was further electroeluted from polyacrylamide gel column. SEM investigation of the electrophoresed cells revealed substantial structural damage at the cellular level. This integrated purification technique has successfully recovered the intracellular GFP with a yield of 82% and purity of 95%.
Effective protein extraction is essential especially in producing a well-resolved proteome on 2D gels. A well-resolved placental cotyledon proteome, with good reproducibility, have allowed researchers to study the proteins underlying the physiology and pathophysiology of pregnancy. The aim of this study is to determine the best protein extraction protocol for the extraction of protein from placental cotyledons tissues for a two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2D-GE). Based on widely used protein extraction strategies, 12 different extraction methodologies were carefully selected, which included one chemical extraction, two mechanical extraction coupled protein precipitations, and nine chemical extraction coupled protein precipitations. Extracted proteins were resolved in a one-dimensional gel electrophoresis and 2D-GE; then, it was compared with set criteria: extraction efficacy, protein resolution, reproducibility, and recovery efficiency. Our results revealed that a better profile was obtained by chemical extraction in comparison to mechanical extraction. We further compared chemical extraction coupled protein precipitation methodologies, where the DNase/lithium chloride-dense sucrose homogenization coupled dichloromethane-methanol precipitation (DNase/LiCl-DSH-D/MPE) method showed good protein extraction efficiency. This, however, was carried out with the best protein resolution and proteome reproducibility on 2D-gels. DNase/LiCl-DSH-D/MPE was efficient in the extraction of proteins from placental cotyledons tissues. In addition, this methodology could hypothetically allow the protein extraction of any tissue that contains highly abundant lipid and glycogen.
Low-gradient magnetic separation (LGMS) of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) has been proven as one of the techniques with great potential for biomedical and environmental applications. Recently, the underlying principle of particle capture by LGMS, through a process known as magnetophoresis, under the influence of hydrodynamic effect has been widely studied and illustrated. Even though the hydrodynamic effect is very substantial for batch processes, its impact on LGMS operated at continuous flow (CF) condition remained largely unknown. Hence, in this study, the dynamical behaviour of LGMS process operated under CF was being studied. First, the LGMS experiments using poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate)-functionalized-MNP as modelled particle system were performed through batchwise (BW) and CF modes at different operating conditions. Here BW operation was used as a comparative study to elucidate the transport mechanism of MNP under the similar environment of CF-LGMS process, and it was found out that the convection induced by magnetophoresis (timescale effective is ∼1200 s) is only significant at far-from-magnet region. Hence, it can be deduced that forced convection is more dominant on influencing the transport behaviour of CF-LGMS (with resident time ≤240 s). Moreover, we found that the separation efficiency of CF-LGMS process can be boosted by the higher number of magnets, the higher MNP concentration and the lower flowrate of MNP solution. To better illustrate the underlying dynamical behaviour of LGMS process, a mathematical model was developed to predict its kinetic profile and separation efficiency (with average error of ∼2.6% compared to the experimental results).
Bacterial secreted proteins are known to be involved in virulence and may mediate important host-pathogen interactions. In this study, when the stationary phase culture supernatant of Burkholderia pseudomallei was subjected to 2-DE, 113 protein spots were detected. Fifty-four of the secreted proteins, which included metabolic enzymes, transcription/translation regulators, potential virulence factors, chaperones, transport regulators, and hypothetical proteins, were identified using MS and database search. Twelve of these proteins were apparently reactive to antisera of mice that were immunised with B. pseudomallei secreted proteins. These proteins might be excellent candidates to be used as diagnostic markers or putative candidate vaccines against B. pseudomallei infections.