Solid-phase synthesis of oxaliplatin-TAT peptide bioconjugates

Platinum-based drugs play a crucial role in the fight against cancer. Oxaliplatin, which is used in the treatment of colorectal carcinoma, was the last platinum-based agent to be approved worldwide. However, the efficiency of the therapy is limited for example by a low accumulation of the drug in cancer cells. Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) are known to ease the cellular membrane transport and are used as vectors for low-molecular-weight drugs and drug carriers; of them, TAT peptides are the best-studied group. In this work, a TAT-peptide fragment (YGRKKRRQRRR) was for the first time conjugated to a platinum(IV) analog of oxaliplatin as a vehicle for membrane penetration. Solid-phase peptide synthesis and subsequent coupling with the platinum complex afforded mono- and difunctionalized conjugates, which were separated by preparative HPLC and characterized by analytical HPLC, ESI-MS, and (1)H NMR spectroscopy. Both conjugates are active in the low micromolar range in CH1 and SW480 human cancer cells, requiring much lower concentrations than the untargeted analogs for equal effects.     

Non-stationary forward flux sampling

We present a method, Non-Stationary Forward Flux Sampling, that allows efficient simulation of rare events in both stationary and non-stationary stochastic systems. The method uses stochastic branching and pruning to achieve uniform sampling of trajectories in phase space and time, leading to accurate estimates for time-dependent switching propensities and time-dependent phase space probability densities. It is suitable for equilibrium or non-equilibrium systems, in or out of stationary state, including non-Markovian or externally driven systems. We demonstrate the validity of the technique by applying it to a one-dimensional barrier crossing problem that can be solved exactly, and show its usefulness by applying it to the time-dependent switching of a genetic toggle switch.