Label-free biosensor instrument to study biomolecular interactions

无标签生物传感器仪器是一种完善的台式设备，用于定量评估生物分子相互作用，如蛋白质-蛋白质和小分子蛋白质相互作用。它们提供了解离常数以及缔合和解离的动力学参数。通常，将其中一个结合伙伴固定在支架上，从而减轻其在溶液中聚集可能导致的任何问题，并且通过表面等离子体共振或生物层干涉测量等物理方法量化溶液中另一个结合伙伴的关联。这种仪器在化学、制药和生物研究中是常用的。它们可以配备不同水平的吞吐量。慕尼黑大学（LMU）药学系的三个研究小组共同准备了这份申请。他们在研究生物分子相互作用方面已经有相当的专业知识，并为此目的使用不同的多用途仪器（核磁共振、ITC、荧光偏振），这些仪器都有优点，但也有缺点和局限性。药学系的研究已经发展到化学和药学院缺乏生物传感器仪器的地步，这已经成为一个集体障碍。新仪器将主要由三位申请人使用，也将供学院内外的其他用户使用。

Label-free biosensor instruments are well established benchtop set-ups to quantitatively assess biomolecular interactions such as protein-protein and small-molecule protein interactions. They give access to dissociation constants and to the kinetic parameters of associations and dissociations. Typically, one of the binding partners is immobilized on a support – thereby alleviating any issue that could result from its aggregation in solution – and the association of the other binding partner in solution is quantified by a physical method such as surface plasmon resonance or bio-layer interferometry. Such instruments are of common use in chemical, pharmaceutical and biological research. They may be equipped with variable levels of throughput. The three research groups that jointly prepared this application work at the Department of Pharmacy of the University of Munich (LMU). They already have considerable expertise in investigating biomolecular interactions and use for that purpose different instruments of variable versatility (NMR, ITC, fluorescence polarization) which all have advantages but also drawbacks and limitations. Research in the department of Pharmacy has gained momentum to the point that the lack of a biosensor instrument in the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy has become a collective impediment. The new instrument will be used primarily by the three applicants and will also be accessible to other users from the Faculty and beyond.