Department of Environmental Protection, Estación Experimental del Zaidín, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, C/Prof. Albareda 1, 18008 Granada, Spain.
Microb Biotechnol. 2008 Mar;1(2):126-36. doi: 10.1111/j.1751-7915.2007.00013.x.
Almost any process in life is accompanied by heat changes which can be monitored by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Both techniques are now established tools in fundamental research but over the last decade a clear tendency towards more problem-driven applications is noted. This review aims at summarizing these problem-oriented applications of microcalorimetry and the solutions both techniques can provide to problems in biotechnology. The biotechnological issues to which microcalorimetry has been successfully applied are as diverse as rational drug design, overcoming drug resistance, optimization of long-term stability of proteins, estimation of the bioavailability of drugs, control of complex pharmaceutical products or the optimization of gene delivery efficiency. The main limitation of microcalorimetry, which is the relatively large amounts of sample necessary for analysis, is less important in the biotechnology sector which frequently uses large-scale produced bulk products for analysis. The recently developed high-throughput DSC and ITC microcalorimeters will additionally reduce the labour intensity of these techniques. Due to the precision of microcalorimetric analyses and the versatility of processes which can be studied, it is expected that ITC and DSC will soon be key technologies in biotechnological research.
几乎生命中的任何过程都伴随着热变化，可以通过等温热滴定法（ITC）和差示扫描量热法（DSC）进行监测。这两种技术现在都是基础研究中的成熟工具，但在过去十年中，明显出现了更多以问题为导向的应用趋势。本综述旨在总结微热量计的这些面向问题的应用，以及这两种技术可以为生物技术中的问题提供的解决方案。微热量计已成功应用于各种生物技术问题，如合理药物设计、克服药物耐药性、优化蛋白质的长期稳定性、药物生物利用度的估计、复杂药物产品的控制或基因传递效率的优化。对于生物技术领域来说，微热量计的主要限制，即分析所需的相对大量的样品，并不那么重要，因为生物技术领域经常使用大规模生产的散装产品进行分析。最近开发的高通量 DSC 和 ITC 微量热计将进一步降低这些技术的劳动强度。由于微热量计分析的精度和可以研究的过程的多功能性，预计 ITC 和 DSC 将很快成为生物技术研究的关键技术。
