What is it about?
Sometimes enzymes can be adapted to make structures they would not normally make, and in this case bacterial enzymes can be used to significantly improve the serum lifetime of therapeutic proteins.
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Why is it important?
The use of a site specific addition of the polySia molecule is a marked improvement over the less precise chemical modification strategy often employed to improve serum half-life of protein drugs.
Perspectives
This project was a long time in the making, as the development of the enzymes for this purpose was a slow process. This proof of concept has lead to a second generation enzyme strategy that is being developed now.
Professor Warren Wakarchuk
University of Alberta
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Site-specific enzymatic polysialylation of therapeutic proteins using bacterial enzymes, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 2011, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1019266108.
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