Page 109 - CIBER-BBN2016-ENG

Most relevant scientific articles
• Aragonés A.C., Haworth N.L., Darwish N., Ciampi S., Bloomfield N.J., Wallace G.G. et al. Electrostatic catalysis of a Diels-Alder reaction. Nature. 2016;531(7592):88-91.
• Aragonés A.C., Aravena D., Cerda J.I., Acis-Castillo Z., Li H., Real J.A. et al. Large Conductance Switching in a Single-Molecule Device through Room Temperature Spin-Dependent Transport. Nano Letters. 2016;16(1):218-226.
• Rovira X., Trapero A., Pittolo S., Zussy C., Faucherre A., Jopling C. et al. OptoGluNAM4.1, a Photoswitchable Allosteric Antagonist for Real-Time Control of mGlu4 Receptor Activity. Cell Chemical Biology. 2016;23(8):929-934.
• Giannotti M.I., Abasolo I., Oliva M., Andrade F., García-Aranda N., Melgarejo M. et al. Highly Versatile Polyelectrolyte Complexes for Improving the Enzyme Replacement Therapy of Lysosomal Storage Disorders. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. 2016;8(39):25741-25752.
• Izquierdo-Serra M., Bautista-Barrufet A., Trapero A., Garrido-Charles A., Díaz-Tahoces A., Camarero N. et al. Optical control of endogenous receptors and cellular excitability using targeted covalent photoswitches. Nature Communications. 2016;7.
Highlights
In 2016, we have reported for the first time the electrostatic catalysis of a Diels–Alder reaction (http://dx.doi. org/10.1038/nature16989) and the large conductance switching of a single-molecule device (http://dx.doi. org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b03571).
In addition, we have extended the study of multiphoton excitation of azobenzene dyes that we pioneered two years ago (http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.joc.5b01402). We have also discovered new light-regulated pharmacological ligands for important targets in pain (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chembiol.2016.06.013) and a breakthrough method to conjugate light-regulated ligands to their endogenous receptors, that we have applied as a strategy for vision restoration (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12221).
We have obtained competitive funding from two European projects, one as coordinators (ERA-Net Synthetic Biology) and the other as partners of the European FET Flagship Human Brain Project. We have also obtained 2 grants from MINECO and several competitive fellowships for the lab members.
We have also published, in collaboration with other CIBER-BBN groups, results that demonstrate that polyelectrolyte complexes are highly versatile and feasible drug delivery system for improving the enzyme replacement therapy in lysosomal storage disorders (http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsami.6b08356).
In the framework of the “nanomechanics of Biosystems” line, we have developed, within a network of excellent international collaborators, the combination of AFM and X-Ray techniques (including in situ AFM using a home-built sample holder for X-Ray experiments) to study lipid membranes in physiological environment (http://doi.org/10.1107/S1600577515016318), that will allow to investigate receptor independent interaction of small molecules with model membranes.
We are furthermore establishing a new, distinctive research direction on nanomechanical properties of redox proteins (http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.5b06382) and their relevance to leukemia (E-Leukemia and E-leukemia+ CIBER-BBN intramural projects and NanoET-Leukemia).
BBN
Research Groups 109