Developing eco-friendly pesticides
Cube Biotech lifts agriculture to the next level
The global population is still growing. Humanity just passed the eight billion mark and is expected to grow at least until the 2060s. With more mouths to feed than ever before, and an environment to proctect, traditional agriculture is no longer sufficient. However, human ingenuity knows no bounds and Cube Biotech is right at the front to battle global hunger.
We teamed up with Bayer Crop Sciences to pave the road for the production of eco-friendly and bio-degradable pesticides that only target pests yet leaves humans and plants unaffected.
The idea was to destroy the nervous system of harmful insects in a precise way. To achieve this, a specific point of attack in the nervous system of insects was chosen.
The main target: The insect specific homolog of potassium channel named Slo1 / slowpoke!
We teamed up with Bayer Crop Sciences to pave the road for the production of eco-friendly and bio-degradable pesticides that only target pests yet leaves humans and plants unaffected.
The idea was to destroy the nervous system of harmful insects in a precise way. To achieve this, a specific point of attack in the nervous system of insects was chosen.
The main target: The insect specific homolog of potassium channel named Slo1 / slowpoke!
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Summary of the Nature publication
Two substances were tested if they serve as potential insecticides:
- Verruculogen - a fungal neurotoxin
- Emodepside - an anthelmintic drug
Furthermore, the human homolog of Slo1 was compared intensively to Drosophila melanogaster homolog of Slo1. This was to ensure that both proteins, while still related, contain enough differences that ligands like pesticides in question only bind to one of them and not the other.
For all these tests, among them many Cryo-EM measurements, massive amounts of highly pure Slo1 protein was needed. And there is no better partner for that than Cube Biotech!
Source: Raisch et al. 2021
Cube Biotech's role in the project
We provided the researchers with plenty amounts of recombinant Slo1 protein for their projects. It was of utmost importance that the membrane protein samples were of highest purity and homogeneity for e.g. the Cryo-EM measurements. In summary Cube Biotech took on the following task and challenges for the project.
- Transfection of T. Ni insect cells with the Slo1 gene containing plasmid
- Optimization and conduction of recombinant Slo1 membrane protein expression
- Screening for the best suited detergent for Slo1 membrane protein solubilization
- Stabilizing bulk amounts of Slo1 membrane protein in LMNG detergent micelles
- Purifying bulk amounts of Slo1 membrane protein using Rho1D4 purification beads.
You would like to learn more about Cube Biotech's membrane protein services? Dr. Lena Merfeld will explain why Cube Biotech is your best option to tackle a tricky membrane protein!