4385results about "Microorganisms" patented technology

The invention provides variant heavy chain variable domains (VH) with increased folding stability. Libraries comprising a plurality of these polypeptides are also provided. In addition, compositions and methods of generating and using these polypeptides and libraries are provided.

The present invention discloses a method for targeting maytansinoids to a selected cell population, the method comprising contacting a cell population or tissue suspected of containing the selected cell population with a cell-binding agent maytansinoid conjugate, wherein one or more maytansinoids is covalently linked to the cell-binding agent via a non-cleavable linker and the cell-binding agent binds to cells of the selected cell population.

Disclosed are methods of producing eukaryotic disulfide bond-containing polypeptides in bacterial hosts, and compositions resulting therefrom. Co-expression of a eukaryotic foldase and a disulfide bond-containing polypeptide in a bacterial host cell is demonstrated. In particular embodiments, the methods have been used to produce mammalian pancreatic trypsin inhibitor and tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) in soluble, biologically-active forms, which are isolatable from the bacterial periplasm. Also disclosed are expression systems, recombinant vectors, and transformed host cells.

Chimeric receptor genes suitable for endowing lymphocytes with antibody-type specificity include a first gene segment encoding a single-chain Fv domain of a specific antibody and a second gene segment encoding all or part of the transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains, and optionally the extracellular domain, of an immune cell-triggering molecule. The chimeric receptor gene, when transfected to immune cells, expresses the antibody-recognition site and the immune cell-triggering moiety into one continuous chain. The transformed lymphocytes are useful in therapeutic treatment methods.

Mitochondrial targets for drug screening assays and for therapeutic intervention in the treatment of diseases associated with altered mitochondrial function are provided. Complete amino acid sequences [SEQ ID NOS:1-3025] of polypeptides that comprise the human heart mitochondrial proteome are provided, using fractionated proteins derived from highly purified mitochondrial preparations, to identify previously unrecognized mitochondrial molecular components.

The present invention provides an engineered multidomain protein including at least two nonidentical engineered domains, each of which contains a protein-protein interaction interface containing amino acid sequence segments derived from two or more existing homologous parent domains, thereby conferring on the engineered domains assembly specificities distinct from assembly specificities of the parent domains. In particular, the engineered domains form heterodimers with one another preferentially over forming homodimers. Methods of designing and using the engineered proteins are also included.

The invention provides systems, including apparatus, methods, and kits, for the microfluidic manipulation and / or detection of particles, such as cells and / or beads. The invention provides systems, including apparatus, methods, and kits, for the microfluidic manipulation and / or analysis of particles, such as cells, viruses, organelles, beads, and / or vesicles. The invention also provides microfluidic mechanisms for carrying out these manipulations and analyses. These mechanisms may enable controlled input, movement / positioning, retention / localization, treatment, measurement, release, and / or output of particles. Furthermore, these mechanisms may be combined in any suitable order and / or employed for any suitable number of times within a system. Accordingly, these combinations may allow particles to be sorted, cultured, mixed, treated, and / or assayed, among others, as single particles, mixed groups of particles, arrays of particles, heterogeneous particle sets, and / or homogeneous particle sets, among others, in series and / or in parallel. In addition, these combinations may enable microfluidic systems to be reused. Furthermore, these combinations may allow the response of particles to treatment to be measured on a shorter time scale than was previously possible. Therefore, systems of the invention may allow a broad range of cell and particle assays, such as drug screens, cell characterizations, research studies, and / or clinical analyses, among others, to be scaled down to microfluidic size. Such scaled-down assays may use less sample and reagent, may be less labor intensive, and / or may be more informative than comparable macrofluidic assays.

The present invention is directed to an antigen found on the surface of rat and human pancreatic cancer cells and provides antibodies of high specificity and selectivity to this antigen as well as hybridomas secreting the subject antibodies. Methods for both the diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer are also provided. This tissue marker of pancreatic adenocarcinoma, an approximately 43.5 kD surface membrane protein designated PaCa-Ag1, is completely unexpressed in normal pancreas but abundantly expressed in pancreatic carcinoma cells. Moreover, a soluble form of PaCa-Ag1 exists, having a molecular weight about 36 to about 38 kD, that is readily identified in sera and other body fluids of pancreatic cancer patients, using a subject antibody.

The present invention relates to eukaryotic host cells having modified oligosaccharides which may be modified further by heterologous expression of a set of glycosyltransferases, sugar transporters and mannosidases to become host-strains for the production of mammalian, e.g., human therapeutic glycoproteins. The invention provides nucleic acid molecules and combinatorial libraries which can be used to successfully target and express mammalian enzymatic activities such as those involved in glycosylation to intracellular compartments in a eukaryotic host cell. The process provides an engineered host cell which can be used to express and target any desirable gene(s) involved in glycosylation. Host cells with modified oligosaccharides are created or selected. N-glycans made in the engineered host cells have a Man5GlcNAc2 core structure which may then be modified further by heterologous expression of one or more enzymes, e.g., glycosyltransferases, sugar transporters and mannosidases, to yield human-like glycoproteins. For the production of therapeutic proteins, this method may be adapted to engineer cell lines in which any desired glycosylation structure may be obtained.

The present invention relates to novel mutant thioesterase enzymes and naturally-occurring equivalents thereof, compositions made from such enzymes and uses of thioesterase enzymes. In particular, the present invention provides mutant thioesterase enzymes that have altered properties, for example, altered substrate specificity, altered activity, altered selectivity, and / or altered proportional yields in the product mixtures. The present invention also provides polynucleotides encoding such mutant thioesterase enzymes, and vectors and host cells comprising such polynucleotides. The invention further provides for novel uses of thioesterases in the production of various fatty acid derivatives, which are useful as, or as components of, industrial chemicals and fuels.

Food products and supplements comprising the essential unsaturated fatty acids EPA or DHA at high concentrations relative to other n-3 HUFAs and with relatively low levels of saturated fatty acids (myristic and palmitic acids) are provided. These compositions can be made in commercial quantities in a cost effective manner by culture of selected microorganisms. The food products and supplements are suited to human health needs which are unable to be met from fish oil origins. Also provided are EPA containing food products obtained from animals.

The invention relates to identifying and evaluating target coding sequences for control of plant parasitic nematodes by inhibiting one or more biological functions, and their use. The invention provides methods and compositions for identification of such sequences and for the control of a plant-parasitic nematode population. By feeding one or more recombinant double stranded RNA molecules provided by the invention to the nematode, a reduction in disease may be obtained through suppression of nematode gene expression. The invention is also directed to methods for making transgenic plants that express the double stranded RNA molecules, and the plant cells and plants obtained thereby.

The invention relates to a process for the enzymatic, stereoselective reduction of ketone compounds to provide chiral alcohols, for example the compound of formula Ib:

The present invention relates to animal protein-free cell culture media comprising polyamines and a plant- and / or yeast-derived hydrolysate. The invention also relates to animal protein-free culturing processes, wherein cells can be cultivated, propagated and passaged without adding supplementary animal proteins in the culture medium. These processes are useful in cultivating cells, such as recombinant cells or cells infected with a virus, and for producing biological products by cell culture processes.

An emulsion is useful in allowing a wide variety of gene products to be expressed via eukaryotic in vitro expression. The emulsion comprises a silicone based surfactant, a hydrophobic phase and a hydrophilic phase; wherein the hydrophilic phase comprises a plurality of compartments containing a functional in vitro eukaryotic expression system.

A composite biological agent with ternary microorganism for composting process of agricultural waste is composed of a composite biological agent I, a composite biological agent II, and a composite biological agent III, which is characterized in that the composite biological agent I is composed of bacillus, actinomycetes, microzyme and lactobacillus, the composite biological agent II is composed of trichoderma, ergillus, penicillium and trametes versicolor, and the composite biological agent III is composed of photosynthetic bacterium, azotobacter, phosphorus bacteria, and silicate bacterium. 30-60% composite biological agent I, 30-60% composite biological agent II, 10-20% composite biological agent III are mixed or applied to the process of composting process of agricultural waste in phases. Each component ratio and recruitment of biological agents can be both properly adjusted with different dung materials and dung purpose, thereby achieving purpose of using microorganism resources efficiently and raising fermentation efficiency.

The instant invention provides an economical flow-through method for determining amount of target proteins in a sample. An antibody preparation (whether polyclonal or monoclonal, or any equivalent specific binding agent) is used to capture and thus enrich a specific monitor peptide (a specific peptide fragment of a protein to be quantitated in a proteolytic digest of a complex protein sample) and an internal standard peptide (the same chemical structure but including stable isotope labels). Upon elution into a suitable mass spectrometer, the natural (sample derived) and internal standard (isotope labeled) peptides are quantitated, and their measured abundance ratio used to calculate the abundance of the monitor peptide, and its parent protein, in the initial sample

Methods for the evolution of NADPH specific ketol-acid reductoisomerase enzymes to acquire NADH specificity are provided. Specific mutant ketol-acid reductoisomerase enzymes isolated from Pseudomonas that have undergone co-factor switching to utilize NADH are described.

The present invention provides a miniaturized integrated nucleic acid diagnostic device and system. The device of the invention is generally capable of performing one or more sample acquisition and preparation operations, in combination with one or more sample analysis operations. For example, the device can integrate several or all of the operations involved in sample acquisition and storage, sample preparation and sample analysis, within a single integrated unit. The device is useful in a variety of applications, and most notably, nucleic acid based diagnostic applications and de novo sequencing applications.

The present invention relates to modulators of ATP-Binding Cassette (“ABC”) transporters or fragments thereof, including Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (“CFTR”), compositions thereof, and methods therewith. The present invention also relates to methods of treating ABC transporter mediated diseases using such modulators.

The present invention relates to a novel method for the production of short chain polypeptides, including polypeptides having up to 3 disulfide bonds and / or structures rich in basic amino acid residues, and open structured short chain polypeptides, e.g. glucagon, glucagon like peptides and their functional analogues, in genetically modified yeast cells, said genetically modified yeast cells, and a method for the preparation of said yeast cells.

Compositions and methods are disclosed for substantially dry storage at ambient temperatures of biological samples such as nucleic acids and cells in a form from which nucleic acids can be recovered, using a dissolvable or dissociable dry storage matrix that permits recovery of biologically active materials. Compositions and methods are also disclosed for automated storing, tracking retrieving and analyzing of nucleic acid samples. RFID-tagged biological sample storage devices featuring dissolvable or dissociable matrices are described for use as supports of biological samples, which matrices can be dried and subsequently rehydrated for sample recovery. Also disclosed are computer-implemented systems and methods for managing sample data.

Novel chimeric constructions and methods for their use are provided for expression of exogenous genes in a plant chloroplast. Particularly, expression is achieved by the use of a chloroplast or bacterial 5′ untranslated region in the expression cassette. The expression cassette may be integrated into the chloroplast genome by the use of chloroplast DNA flanking sequences, or may replicate autonomously if provided with a chloroplast origin of replication. Plants and cells containing the transformed chloroplasts are also provided. The constructs may be used with both monocotyledenous and dicotyledenous chloroplasts.

The invention provides a transgenic soybean event MON 87708 plant and plants, plant cells, seeds, plant parts, and commodity products derived from event MON 87708. The invention also provides polynucleotides specific for event MON 87708 and plants, plant cells, seeds, plant parts, and commodity products comprising polynucleotides specific for event MON 87708. The invention also provides methods related to event MON 87708.

Featured are devices and systems embodying one or more electrically-addressable-solid-state nanopores useful for sensing and / or characterizing single macromolecules as well as sequencing DNA or RNA. In one aspect of the present invention, there is featured a linear or 2-D electrically-addressable array of nanopores, where the nanopores are located at points of intersections between V-shaped grooves formed in an upper surface of the insulating member and a V-shaped groove formed in a lower surface of the insulating member. In another aspect of the present invention the solid-state nanopore of the present invention the width and / or length of the nanopore is defined or established by sharp edges of cleaved crystals that are maintained in fixed relation during the formation of the insulating member including the nanopore.

A liquid encapsulant component which contains an active, sensitive encapsulant, such as a live microorganism or an enzyme dissolved or dispersed in a liquid plasticizer is admixed with a plasticizable matrix material. The matrix material is plasticizable by the liquid plasticizer and the encapsulation of the active encapsulant is accomplished at a low temperature and under low shear conditions. The active component is encapsulated and / or embedded in the plasticizable matrix component or material in a continuous process to produce discrete, solid particles. The liquid content of the liquid encapsulant component provides substantially all or completely all of the liquid plasticizer needed to plasticize the matrix component to obtain a formable, extrudable, cuttable, mixture or dough. Removal of liquid plasticizer prior to extrusion is not needed to adjust the viscosity of the mixture for formability. Release of an active component from the matrix may be delayed or controlled over time so that the active component is delivered when and where it is needed to perform its intended function. Controlled release, discrete, solid particles which contain an encapsulated and / or embedded component such as a heat sensitive or readily oxidizable pharmaceutically, biologically, or nutritionally active component are continuously produced without substantial destruction of the matrix material or encapsulant.

The invention relates to plant transcription factor polypeptides, polynucleotides that encode them, homologs from a variety of plant species, and methods of using the polynucleotides and polypeptides to produce transgenic plants having advantageous properties compared to a reference plant, including improved abiotic stress tolerance. Sequence information related to these polynucleotides and polypeptides can also be used in bioinformatic search methods to identify related sequences and is also disclosed.