Advanced Supported Membrane Arrays for Probing Lipid-Protein Interactions with Surface Plasmon Resonance

化学系的分析和表面化学项目将支持加州大学河滨分校程全教授的研究项目。Cheng教授和他的学生将开发新型脂质微阵列，并将其与表面等离子体共振（SPR）成像显微镜相结合，以实时和无标签的方式研究脂质与蛋白质的相互作用。目前研究脂质-蛋白相互作用的方法在膜环境中捕获脂质成分的能力有限。大多数方法不能进行高通量分析。这已经成为分析脂质-蛋白相互作用的瓶颈。为了制造脂质微阵列，程教授和他的学生将在通常用于SPR成像的金表面涂上超薄二氧化硅涂层。该研究将集中在用光刻方法和煅烧的SPR芯片制造微阵列模板，制造具有流体性质的坚固的人工膜微阵列，为脂质受体提供真正的膜环境，以及用脂质微阵列/SPR技术研究磷酸肌苷-蛋白质相互作用。由于蛋白质和磷酸肌苷之间的相互作用对核功能和膜运输的调节至关重要，因此这项工作将提供新的工具，从而促进癌症和II型糖尿病领域的研究。该系统的高通量能力也将为筛选具有治疗意义的相互作用伙伴提供极好的机会。该项目将为研究生和本科生提供优秀的培训机会，在一个前沿的高度多学科的研究领域。

The Analytical and Surface Chemistry program in the Division of Chemistry will support the research program of Prof Quan Cheng of the University of California at Riverside. Prof. Cheng and his students will develop novel lipid microarrays and combine them with surface plasmon resonance (SPR) imaging microscopy to investigate lipid-protein interactions in a real-time and label-free fashion. Current methods for the study of lipid-protein interactions are limited in their ability to capture lipid components in a membrane environment. Most methods are not capable of high throughput analysis. This has become a bottleneck in the profiling of lipid-protein interactions. To fabricate lipid microarrays Prof. Cheng and his students will coat gold surfaces, commonly used for SPR imaging, with ultra thin silica coatings. The study will focus on the fabrication of microarray templates with lithographic approaches and calcinated SPR chips, fabrication of robust, artificial membrane microarrays with fluid nature that provide true membrane environment for hosting lipid receptors, and investigation of phosphoinositide-protein interactions with lipid microarray/SPR technique. Since the interactions between proteins and phosphoinositides are essential to the regulation of nuclear functions and membrane trafficking, the work will provide new tools and thus facilitate research in the areas of cancer and type II diabetes. The high-throughput capability of the proposed system will also offer excellent opportunities for the screening of interaction partners that are of therapeutic significance. The project will provide excellent training opportunities to graduate and undergraduate students in a cutting edge highly multidisciplinary area of research.