Novel Fluorescent Nanosensor Proteins

Category: Biology and Medicine

Reference Number: 00454

Description

Two innovative sensor-protein platforms have been developed by UH researchers. These sensors are designed for highly sensitive fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based molecular assays. Both sensors are suited for homogeneous assays, with one of the sensors designed for noncompetitive assays, and the other for competitive assays. A wide range of molecular recognition domains (e.g., peptide epitopes) can be incorporated into these nanosensor proteins using recombinant DNA technology to create a vast variety of unique sensors. These nanosensor proteins can be mass produced inexpensively in bacteria. The assays can be performed in solution (in lieu of solid-phase assays) with high sensitivity and throughput. The disclosed fluorescent sensor protein concepts should find a broad range of applications in disease diagnosis and drug screening, detection of bio-terrorism agents, as well as in basic research of protein-protein interactions.

Applications

• Disease diagnosis
• Drug screening
• Biosensors
• Detection of bio-terrorism agents
• Analysis of protein-protein interactions

Main Advantages

• Simple, robust and sensitive
• Suited for homogeneous molecular assays
• Versatile – can be tailored to create a broad range of unique sensor protein

Inventor(s)

Dr. Wei Wen (Winston) Su
Department of Molecular Biosciences & Bioengineering
College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources

Contact Information

For licensing information, please contact Lisa Matsunaga at matsunag@hawaii.edu

For all other inquiries, please write to:

Office of Technology Transfer & Economic Development
University of Hawai’i
2800 Woodlawn Drive, Suite 280
Honolulu, HI 96822