生物化学技术

Analysis of the metabolome with coverage of all of the possibly detectable components in the sample, rather than analysis of each individual metabolite at a given time, can be accomplished by metabolic analysis. Targeted and/or nontargeted approaches are applied as needed for particular ...

The recent introduction of electrospray ionization techniques that are suitable for peptides and whole proteins has allowed for the design of mass spectrometric protocols that provide accurate sequence information for proteins. The advantages gained by these approaches over t ...

Structural molecular biology over the past several decades has progressed from studies of the individual proteins, subunits, and domains that accomplish specific biochemistry to seeking to understand the dynamic bio-molecular complexes and assemblies that are responsible f ...

As researchers strive to understand the interplay between the complex molecular systems that make up living cells, tools for characterizing the interactions between the various players involved have developed. Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) plays an important role in bui ...

Neutron scattering and diffraction provide detailed information on the structure and dynamics of biological materials across time and length scales that range from picoseconds to nanoseconds and from 1 to 10,000 �, respectively. The particular sensitivity of neutrons to the isotop ...

Proteins in thermal equilibrium are associated with conformational distributions rather than single, static structures. Although there are no experimental methods to measure the full protein conformational distribution, several methods exist to probe important aspects. ...

In this chapter, we describe Raman microspectrophotometry applied to crystals of biomolecules. Raman spectra collected in crystallo provide structural information highly complementary to X-ray diffraction, relate the crystalline state to the solution state, and allow the id ...

Investigation of structure–function relationships in protein complexes, specifically protein–ligand interactions, carry great significance in elucidating the structural and mechanistic bases of molecular recognition events and their role in regulating cell proce ...

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensors are optical sensors that use special electromagnetic waves (surface plasmon-polaritons) to probe interactions between an analyte in solution and a biomolecular recognition element immobilized on the SPR sensor surface. Major appl ...

High-density ZnO nanorods of 60–80 nm in diameter and 500–700 nm in length grown on the silver-coated tip of a borosilicate glass capillary (0.7 μm in diameter) demonstrate a remarkable linear response to proton H3O+ concentrations in solution. These nanorods were used to create a highly sensiti ...

An innovative nanoprobe-based device that can measure and adjust the pH, can mimic biochemistry, can create microscale vortices in water, and can be used to trap single molecules is presented. Because the analytes in question to trap and detect are small in dimensions, we start by presenting scal ...

Exocytosis, the fusion of intracellular vesicles with the membrane and subsequent release of vesicular contents, is important in intercellular communication. The release event is a rapid process (milliseconds), hence detection of released chemicals requires a detection sche ...

Nanopore analysis of single molecules can be performed by measuring the modulation in ionic current passing through the nanopore while an individual biomolecule such as DNA or RNA is resident in, translocating through, or otherwise interacting with the pore. The corresponding current ...

The translocation of small molecules and polymers is an integral process for the functioning of living cells. Many of the basic physical, chemical, and biological interactions have not yet been studied because they are not directly experimentally accessible. We have shown that a combinat ...

This chapter focuses on single-molecule imaging (SMI) in living cells using green fluorescent protein (GFP) or its related fluorescent protein tags (GFPs). Use of GFPs is a convenient technique to achieve molecular imaging of most proteins in living cells. However, because of difficulti ...

DNA microarray has become a mainstream technology to explore gene expression profiles, identify novel genes involved in a biological process of interest and predict their function, and determine biomarkers that are relevant to a given phenotype or disease. Typical two-channel micro ...

Molecular imaging is a newly merged multidisciplinary subject that requires contributions from biology, medical physics, and chemistry/radiochemistry. Integrin αvβ3, a cell adhesion molecule, plays pivotal roles in regulating tumor angiogenesis and the growth of new blood ve ...

Diffraction limits the biological structures that can be imaged by normal light microscopy. However, recently developed techniques are breaking the limits that diffraction poses and allowing imaging of biological samples at the molecular length scale. Fluorescence photoact ...

Nonviral gene delivery has been gaining considerable attention recently. Although the efficacy of DNA transfection, which is a major concern, is low in nonviral vector-mediated gene transfer compared with viral ones, nonviral vectors are relatively easy to prepare, less immunogenic ...

The construction of safe, efficient, and modifiable synthetic DNA nanoparticles is an emerging technology that has achieved important milestones of success in the past 5 years. Advances in chemical conjugation, purification, and controlled synthesis have allowed researchers to ...