Delivery of STING agonists for cancer immunotherapy
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 9;87:103105. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103105. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTAgonists of the cyclic guanosine monophosphate-adenosine monophosphate synthase (cGAS)-Stimulator of Interferon Genes (STING) pathway, a critical mediator of innate immune response to foreign invaders with DNA, have gained significant interest in cancer immunotherapy. STING agonists are envisioned as a way of complementing the antitumor activity of the patient's immune system and immune checkpoint blockade therapy. However, their clinical development has been challenging due to the poor pharmacokinetic and physicoch...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 10, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Jianping Wang Fanfei Meng Yoon Yeo Source Type: research
The biomolecular corona of nanomedicines: effects on nanomedicine outcomes and emerging opportunities
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 9;87:103101. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103101. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTUpon administration, nanomedicines adsorb a corona of endogenous biomolecules on their surface, which can affect nanomedicine interactions with cells, targeting, and efficacy. While strategies to reduce protein binding are available, the high selectivity of the adsorbed corona is enabling novel applications, such as for biomarker discovery and rare protein identification. Additionally, the adsorbed molecules can promote interactions with specific cell receptors, thus conferring the nanomedicine new endogenous target...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 10, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Anna Salvati Source Type: research
Spatially structured microbial consortia and their role in food fermentations
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 9;87:103102. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103102. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTMicrobial consortia are important for the fermentation of foods. They bring combined functionalities to the fermented product, but stability and product consistency of fermentations with complex consortia can be hard to control. Some of these consortia, such as water- and milk-kefir and kombucha, grow as multispecies aggregates or biofilms, in which micro-organisms taking part in a fermentation cascade are spatially organized. The spatial organization of micro-organisms in these aggregates can impact what metabolic ...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 10, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Sabine Michielsen Gabriel T Vercelli Otto X Cordero Herwig Bachmann Source Type: research
Emerging trends in production of plant natural products and new-to-nature biopharmaceuticals in yeast
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 6;87:103098. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103098. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTNatural products represent an inestimable source of valuable compounds for human health. Notably, those produced by plants remain challenging to access due to their low production. Potential shortages of plant-derived biopharmaceuticals caused by climate change or pandemics also regularly tense the market trends. Thus, biotechnological alternatives of supply based on synthetic biology have emerged. These innovative strategies mostly rely on the use of engineered microbial systems for compound synthesis. In this rega...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 7, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Thomas Perrot Jillian Marc Enzo Lezin Nicolas Papon S ébastien Besseau Vincent Courdavault Source Type: research
Emerging trends in production of plant natural products and new-to-nature biopharmaceuticals in yeast
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 6;87:103098. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103098. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTNatural products represent an inestimable source of valuable compounds for human health. Notably, those produced by plants remain challenging to access due to their low production. Potential shortages of plant-derived biopharmaceuticals caused by climate change or pandemics also regularly tense the market trends. Thus, biotechnological alternatives of supply based on synthetic biology have emerged. These innovative strategies mostly rely on the use of engineered microbial systems for compound synthesis. In this rega...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 7, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Thomas Perrot Jillian Marc Enzo Lezin Nicolas Papon S ébastien Besseau Vincent Courdavault Source Type: research
Emerging trends in production of plant natural products and new-to-nature biopharmaceuticals in yeast
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 6;87:103098. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103098. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTNatural products represent an inestimable source of valuable compounds for human health. Notably, those produced by plants remain challenging to access due to their low production. Potential shortages of plant-derived biopharmaceuticals caused by climate change or pandemics also regularly tense the market trends. Thus, biotechnological alternatives of supply based on synthetic biology have emerged. These innovative strategies mostly rely on the use of engineered microbial systems for compound synthesis. In this rega...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 7, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Thomas Perrot Jillian Marc Enzo Lezin Nicolas Papon S ébastien Besseau Vincent Courdavault Source Type: research
Microbial synthesis of terpenoids for human nutrition - an emerging field with high business potential
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 5;87:103099. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103099. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTBecause of their complicated biosynthesis and hydrophobic nature, fermentative production of terpenoids did not play a significant role on a commercial scale until a few years ago. Driven by technological progress in metabolic engineering and process biotechnology, terpene-based food ingredients such as flavors, sweeteners, and vitamins produced by fermentation have now become viable and commercially competitive options. In recent years, several companies have developed microbial platforms for commercial terpene pro...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 6, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Jules Beekwilder Florence M Schempp Matthew Q Styles Oskar Zelder Source Type: research
Metabolic engineering and fermentation of microorganisms for carotenoids production
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 5;87:103104. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103104. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTCarotenoids are natural pigments that exhibit a wide range of red, orange, and yellow colors and are extensively used in the food, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, and aquaculture industries. While advances in systems metabolic engineering have established a foundation for constructing carotenoid-producing microbial cell factories at a laboratory scale, translating these technologies to industrial scales remains a big challenge. Moreover, there is a need to devise cost-effective methods for downstream processing and purif...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 6, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Hyunmin Eun Sang Yup Lee Source Type: research
Evaluating functionalities of food components by a model simulating human intestinal microbiota constructed at Kobe University
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 5;87:103103. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103103. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTIn this era of pandemics, reducing the risk of lifestyle-related diseases (LRD) by functional foods is of paramount importance. The conventional process of functional food development almost invariably involves in vitro, animal, and human intervention trials, but differences in intestinal environments between humans and experimental animals make it difficult to develop functional foods that are truly effective in humans. Thus, it is necessary to construct a model that simulates the human intestinal environment to ev...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 6, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Ro Osawa Itsuko Fukuda Yasuhito Shirai Source Type: research
Microbial synthesis of terpenoids for human nutrition - an emerging field with high business potential
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 5;87:103099. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103099. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTBecause of their complicated biosynthesis and hydrophobic nature, fermentative production of terpenoids did not play a significant role on a commercial scale until a few years ago. Driven by technological progress in metabolic engineering and process biotechnology, terpene-based food ingredients such as flavors, sweeteners, and vitamins produced by fermentation have now become viable and commercially competitive options. In recent years, several companies have developed microbial platforms for commercial terpene pro...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 6, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Jules Beekwilder Florence M Schempp Matthew Q Styles Oskar Zelder Source Type: research
Metabolic engineering and fermentation of microorganisms for carotenoids production
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 5;87:103104. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103104. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTCarotenoids are natural pigments that exhibit a wide range of red, orange, and yellow colors and are extensively used in the food, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, and aquaculture industries. While advances in systems metabolic engineering have established a foundation for constructing carotenoid-producing microbial cell factories at a laboratory scale, translating these technologies to industrial scales remains a big challenge. Moreover, there is a need to devise cost-effective methods for downstream processing and purif...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 6, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Hyunmin Eun Sang Yup Lee Source Type: research
Evaluating functionalities of food components by a model simulating human intestinal microbiota constructed at Kobe University
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 5;87:103103. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103103. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTIn this era of pandemics, reducing the risk of lifestyle-related diseases (LRD) by functional foods is of paramount importance. The conventional process of functional food development almost invariably involves in vitro, animal, and human intervention trials, but differences in intestinal environments between humans and experimental animals make it difficult to develop functional foods that are truly effective in humans. Thus, it is necessary to construct a model that simulates the human intestinal environment to ev...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 6, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Ro Osawa Itsuko Fukuda Yasuhito Shirai Source Type: research
Advances in mass spectrometry-enabled at single-cell resolution
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 2;87:103096. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103096. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTBiological organisms are multifaceted, intricate systems where slight perturbations can result in extensive changes in gene expression, protein abundance and/or activity, and metabolic flux. These changes occur at different timescales, spatially across cells of heterogeneous origins, and within single-cells. Hence, multimodal measurements at the smallest biological scales are necessary to capture dynamic changes in heterogeneous biological systems. Of the analytical techniques used to measure biomolecules, mass spec...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 3, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Rashmi Kumar Kevin J Zemaitis James M Fulcher Ljiljana Pa ša-Tolić Source Type: research
Advances in mass spectrometry-enabled at single-cell resolution
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 2;87:103096. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103096. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTBiological organisms are multifaceted, intricate systems where slight perturbations can result in extensive changes in gene expression, protein abundance and/or activity, and metabolic flux. These changes occur at different timescales, spatially across cells of heterogeneous origins, and within single-cells. Hence, multimodal measurements at the smallest biological scales are necessary to capture dynamic changes in heterogeneous biological systems. Of the analytical techniques used to measure biomolecules, mass spec...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 3, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Rashmi Kumar Kevin J Zemaitis James M Fulcher Ljiljana Pa ša-Tolić Source Type: research
Engineering metalloproteinase inhibitors: tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases or antibodies, that is the question
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2024 Mar 1;86:103094. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103094. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTTargeting metalloproteinases (MPs) has been the center of attention for developing therapeutics due to their contribution to a wide range of diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular, neurodegenerative disease, and preterm labor. Protein-based MP inhibitors offer higher stability and selectivity, which is critical for developing efficient therapeutics with low off-target effects. Tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs), natural inhibitors of MPs, and antibodies provide excellent protein scaffolds for engine...
Source: Current Opinion in Biotechnology - March 2, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: Masoud Kalantar Gregory A Hilpert Ethan R Mosca Maryam Raeeszadeh-Sarmazdeh Source Type: research
