Ivana Nikić-Spiegel et al. use Trans-Cyclooct-2-en-L-Lysine (TCO*; SC-8008) to label certain parts of neuronal compartments (axon initial segment (AIS)). Together with a clickable dye, these become visible under the microscope. The developed method is particularly suitable for labelling complex and spatially limited proteins.
Journal of Cell Science (2023) 136: Direct fluorescent labeling of NF186 and NaV1.6 in living primary neurons using bioorthogonal click chemistry
Together with our cooperation partners from Mannheim University of Applied Sciences (HSM), we developed a completely new concept for vacuum-stable MALDI matrices.
Now it’s published in “Angewandte Chemie”
The trick is: we combined standard MALDI matrices with a caging group – this increases the vacuum stability. The caged group is then cleaved by the MALDI laser.
The vacuumstable MALDI-matrices are available at SiChem’s webshop: caged MALDI-Matrices
MSI (mouse brain) with vacuumstable MALDI-matrix measured after 0h and 72h
Chemistry Nobel Prize 2022 for Click Chemistry
Carolyn Bertozzi (Stanford University)
Morten Meldal (University of Copenhagen)
Barry Sharpless (Scripps Research Institute)
This year, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Carolyn Bertozzi of the University of Stanford, Morten Meldal of the University of Copenhagen, and Barry Sharpless of the Scripps Research Institute for their work on click chemistry and bioorthogonal reactions.
SiChem GmbH proudly offers a large number of reagents to perform click chemistry including several patented unnatural amino acids featuring strained double or triple bonds for incorporation into proteins and performing click chemistry inside cells and organisms. The Nobel committee mentioned the great use of click chemistry for preparing antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). SiChem offers many of the click chemistry tools required for bringing this exciting technique to the patient. SiChem also synthesizes click reagents on a kg scale for selected cooperation partners.
Background: Click chemistry involves spontaneous irreversible reactions of two molecules to form a new chemical entity. What makes them so special is that these reactions can happen in a large variety of environments including water. This simple form of chemistry is therefore highly useful to many applications in material science, drug synthesis and even in intact organisms. Carolyn Bertozzi made these reactions independent of co-reagents and demonstrated the feasibility of applications in intact cells and organisms without detectable side-effects on the biology, coining to the reactions “bioorthogonal”.
SiChem congratulates the Nobel Prize winners for their impactful work.
SiChem supplies all 3 institutes with useful tools for click chemistry. Have a look at SiChem’s Click-Chemistry portfolio.
In Würzburg, experienced scientists and young researchers from all over the world come together to discuss the state of the art regarding the use of genetic modifications (e.g. genetic code expansion) for future biomedical treatments.
The Translational Bioimaging Symposium 2022
Here, bioorthogonal click chemistry plays a key role – SiChem offers a wide range of useful tools for this kind of chemical reactions.
Milan Vrabel et al. believe that performing abiotic chemical reactions within particular organelles at the subcellular level opens up new avenues: by manipulating biological processes in a targeted manner, they can be studied in more detail and this strategy can also be used to develop organelle-targeted drug-delivery systems. (TCO-NHS / SC-8070 / SC-8072 / SC-8073)
Rastislav Dzijak et al.: JACS Au 2021, 1, 23−30 : Structurally Redesigned Bioorthogonal Reagents for Mitochondria-Specific Prodrug Activation
Gerti Beliu et al. from the University of Würzburg use SiChem’s unnatural amino acid Trans-Cyclooct-2-en-L-Lysine (TCO*A; SC-8008 labelled with tetrazine dyes) for dSTORM experiments. A complete labelling and imaging pipeline has been developed to visualize transmembrane proteins in living neurons.
Diogo Bessa-Neto et al. : NATURE COMMUNICATIONS (2021) 12: 6715: Bioorthogonal labeling of transmembrane proteins with non-canonical amino acids unveils masked epitopes in live neurons
Neutrophils are often made responsible for killing bacteria in chronic diseases such as cystic fibrosis (CF). Here, however, there is an unexplained phenomenon: although neutrophils are massively present, long-lasting bacterial infections occur at the same time. Magaroli et al. from Emory University are trying to get to the bottom of this phenomenon and are also measuring the activity of free extracellular neutrophil elastase (NE) using SiChem’s FRET-based NEmo-1 probes (SC-0200 / SC-0201).
Fluorescent probes that react with complementary bioorthogonal reagents and subsequently light up are excellent tools for bioimaging applications.
Vrabel et al. have synthesized a series of diverse coumarin-tetrazine probes that can react with SiChem’s TCOs and BCNs in seconds to act as labels in living cells. (SC-8106 / SC-8406)
Juraj Galeta, et al.: A Systematic Study of Coumarin–Tetrazine Light-Up Probes for Bioorthogonal Fluorescence Imaging
Chem. Eur. J. 2020, 26, 9945 – 9953
Bremen is rather known as a trading city – less as a high-tech location for internationally operating biotech companies. But there are quite a few innovative, research-based companies that offer their products and services worldwide. Some of them are now presented by the Wirtschaftsförderung Bremen – SiChem is one of them ! Stories about Bremen Business
SiChem receives BMWi grant (ZIM) together with TU Clausthal for developing Smart Simulated Moving Bed Chromatography (sSMB)
Personalised medicine is about treating patients as individually as possible. The drugs administered should have an optimal effect. Often, the patient is given precisely tailored treatment strategies with several drugs that work in combination. However, this also means that there will be fewer and fewer blockbusters that are produced and used in large batches. In the long term, we will see an increase in the number of drugs that have to be produced in smaller batch sizes but with the same quality requirements as large batches.
The production of such high-purity products is complex and is often achieved by batch chromatography as a selective and efficient technique. Process design and up-scaling are relatively simple. However, good separation performance is offset by high product losses, relatively low productivity and, above all, high solvent consumption.
This can be changed by continuous chromatography processes: productivity increases by a factor of 3 to 30 and solvent reduction by a factor of 10 are possible.
Currently, there is a number of available techniques, starting with Simulated Moving Bed Chromatography (SMB), through various sequential multi-column connections, to more specialized processes such as Multicolumn Countercurrent Solvent Gradient Purification (MCSGP)
Each process offers its own advantages and areas of application, but also limitations. In common with the continuous processes is that they deliver very high product quality at high throughput. However, the complexity of several techniques with up to 8 chromatography columns and 5 gradient pumps is very high. These separation techniques are therefore expensive and rarely used in small research-based pharmaceutical companies.
In this project, a simplified smart SMB (sSMB) shall be developed that requires only one column but still uses several adsorbents.
