Young Madison A, Furr Daniel P, McKeough Riley Q, Elliott Gloria D, Trammell Susan R
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Department of Physics and Optical Science, Charlotte, NC 28226, USA.
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Charlotte, NC 28226, USA.
Biomed Opt Express. 2020 Jan 14;11(2):801-816. doi: 10.1364/BOE.376630. eCollection 2020 Feb 1.
Protein-based drugs have been developed to treat a variety of conditions and assays use immobilized capture proteins for disease detection. Freeze-drying is currently the standard for the preservation of proteins, but this method is expensive and requires lengthy processing times. Anhydrous preservation in a trehalose amorphous solid matrix offers a promising alternative to freeze-drying. Light assisted drying (LAD) is a processing method to create an amorphous trehalose matrix. Proteins suspended in a trehalose solution are dehydrated using near-infrared laser light. The laser radiation accelerates drying and as water is removed the trehalose forms a protective matrix. In this work, LAD samples are characterized to determine the crystallization kinetics of the trehalose after LAD processing and the distribution of amorphous trehalose in the samples. These characteristics influence the long-term stability of the samples. Polarized light imaging revealed that LAD processed samples are stable against crystallization during low-humidity storage at room temperature. Scanning white light interferometry and Raman spectroscopy indicated that trehalose was present across samples in an amorphous form. In addition, differential scanning microcalorimetry was used to measure the thermodynamic characteristics of the protein lysozyme after LAD processing. These results demonstrate that LAD does not change the properties of this protein.
基于蛋白质的药物已被开发用于治疗多种病症，并且检测方法使用固定化捕获蛋白进行疾病检测。冷冻干燥是目前蛋白质保存的标准方法，但该方法成本高昂且处理时间长。在海藻糖无定形固体基质中进行无水保存为冷冻干燥提供了一种有前景的替代方法。光辅助干燥（LAD）是一种制备无定形海藻糖基质的加工方法。悬浮在海藻糖溶液中的蛋白质使用近红外激光进行脱水。激光辐射加速干燥，随着水分被去除，海藻糖形成保护基质。在这项工作中，对LAD样品进行表征，以确定LAD处理后海藻糖的结晶动力学以及样品中无定形海藻糖的分布。这些特性影响样品的长期稳定性。偏振光成像显示，LAD处理的样品在室温低湿度储存期间对结晶具有稳定性。扫描白光干涉测量和拉曼光谱表明，海藻糖以无定形形式存在于整个样品中。此外，差示扫描量热法用于测量LAD处理后蛋白质溶菌酶的热力学特性。这些结果表明，LAD不会改变这种蛋白质的性质。
