A Brief Story of Biosensor Technology

Marco Mascini

The vast literature in the last 40 years related to the keyword Biosensor reveals without doubt that the scientific field is attractive! We realized at once that several researchers with different background are involved in this field of research, from chemistry to physics, to microbiology and of co...

Appendix I. Substrates and Inhibitors Useful in Protease Characterization

France Brunelle and Dominique Michaud

substrate a chromogenic or fluorogenic nature useful in subsequent quantitation of hydrolytic activity. Based on the position of the substituent(s), synthetic substrates may be classified in two groups: endoprotease (or proteinase) substrates, in which both the amino and carboxy termini ...

Appendix II. Plant Protease Inhibitors: Availabe mRNA Sequences

Binh Nguyen-Quoc

The GenBank Database was searched with the Wisconsin Package, Version 9.1 (Madison Genetics Computer Group, Madison WI), using the following keywords: protease inhibitor, proteinase inhibitor, cystatin, trypsin inhibitor, chymotrypsin inhibitor, Kunitz, BowmanBirk and serpin. Several hun...

Appendix III. Tertiary Structures of Proteases and Protease Inhibitors Available in the Brookhaven and National Laboratory Protein Data Bank

France Brunelle and Dominique Michaud

Application of Chloroplast D1 Protein in Biosensors for Monitoring Photosystem II-Inhibiting Herbicides

Elena V. Piletska, Sergey A. Piletsky and Regis Rouillon

Environmental pollution by toxic chemicals has become one of the world’s most serious problems. Among the most widespread pesticides is photosynthesis inhibiting herbicides, such as atrazine, metribuzin, diuron, bromacil, ioxynil and dinoseb. They all belong to different families but have a co...

Biodevices for Space Research

Dania Esposito, Cecilia Faraloni, Floriana Fasolo, Andrea Margonelli, Giuseppe Torzillo, Alba Zanini and Maria Teresa Giardi

This review focuses on the realisation of optical sensors able to monitor the effect of complex space radiation on biological components, based on the biosensor concept. A biosensor is a device that can reveal a biochemical variable using a biological component interfaced with a transducer. It issue...

Biogenesis and Structural Dynamics of the Photosystem II Complex

Josef Komenda, Stanisiava Kuviková, Lenka Lupínková and Jiri Masojídek

Photosystem II (PSII) represents a multicomponent protein complex located in the thylakoid membrane of cyanobacteria, green algae and higher plants. Due to the ability to oxidize water, its development was responsible for the rise of oxygen atmosphere on Earth, which started about 3 billion year...

Biotechnological and Computational Approaches for the Development of Biosensors

Giulio Testone, Donato Giannino, Domenico Mariotti, Prashant Katiyar, Mayank Garg, Emanuela Pace and Maria Teresa Giardi

For ages, humans have developed technologies to exploit living organisms and their metabolism to produce food (e.g., bread, cheese and wine). Modern biotechnology implies the industrial use of scientific knowledge of cellular and molecular processes to make or modify products, to improve plants and ...

Chloroplast Genomics of Land Plants and Algae

Margarita S. Odintsova and Nadezhda P. Yurina

The review summarizes recent data from chloroplast genomics research, namely the structure and gene content in completely sequenced chloroplast genomes of land plants and algae. It aims to highlight the structural similarity of chloroplast DNAs (cpDNA) gene content and arrangement in various lineage...

Comparison of Photosynthetic Organisms of the Evolution Scale for Protein Biochips

Maria Teresa Giardi, Dania Esposito and Giuseppe Torzillo

Many chromophore molecules, such as bacteriochlorophylls, bacteriopheophytins and quinones, are arranged in Reaction Centers with a relevant distance and energy status such to ensure unidirectional electron transfer. Therefore even a single Reaction Center is a sophisticated molecular device su...

Comparison of the Immobilization Techniques for Photosystem II

Régis Rouillon, Sergey A. Piletsky, Elena V. Piletska, Pierre Euzet and Robert Carpentier

The main methods of immobilization employed to stabilize the life time of photosynthetic material are studied. Various parameters and properties concerning the immobilization procedures are evaluated: method, biological material, techniques to measure the photosynthetic activity, storage and ope...

Control of Phytophagous Insect Pests Using Serine Proteinase Inhibitors

John A. Gatehouse, Angharad M.R. Gatehouse and David P. Bown

The role of proteinase inhibitors (PIs) in plant defense against predators and pathogens is now well established. Although diverse endogenous functions for these proteins have been proposed, ranging from regulators of endogenous proteinases to storage proteins, evidence for many of the r...

Cystatin-Based Control of Insects, with Special Reference to Oryzacystatin

Soichi Arai and Kaiko Abe

Cystatins were initially defined as proteins that specifically inhibit cysteine proteinases in general,¹ but this understanding has recently undergone certain changes. Recent advances in enzymology revealed the existence of a variety of cysteine proteinases, resulting in their...

Development of Biosensors for the Detection of Hydrogen Peroxide

Louisa Giannoudi, Elena V. Piletska and Sergey A. Piletsky

Biosensors are a term used for a number of devices either used to monitor living systems or incorporating biotic elements. In this work, the principal applications in the history of their development are reviewed primarily for their use as sensors for detection of analytes such as hydrogen perox...

Engineering Protease Inhibitors by Phage Display

Jules Beekwilder and Maarten Jongsma

Recent literature on the use of protease inhibitors (PIs) for pest control has made it clear that insects are well adapted to cope with a large range of these inhibitors. They have evolved proteases which are insensitive to the action of host plant inhibitors and are able to activate the...

Engineering the D1 Subunit of Photosystem II: Application to Biosensor Technology

Udo Johanningmeier, Ivo Bertalan, Lydia Hilbig, Jana Schulze, Stefan Wilski, Edda Zeidler and Walter Oettmeier

Photosystem II (PSII) is a light driven machine, which supplies our atmosphere with oxygen and, if properly engineered, can be developed into a specific sensor for various pollutants. Its reaction center subunit D1 has long been a target for genetic engineering. It is known to bind a variety of he...

Expression of Protease Inhibitor in Sweetpotato

Dapeng Zhang, Giselle Cipriani, Isabelle Rety, Ali Golmirzae, Nicole Smit and Dominique Michaud

_Sweetpotato [Ipomoea batatas L. (Lam.)] is a dicotyledenous plant belonging to the family Convolvulaceae, the morning glory family.¹ Among food crops of the world, sweetpotato ranks seventh in production, with a total global growing area of 9.2 million ha and...

Expression of Protease Inhibitors in Potato

Conrad Cloutier and Dominique Michaud

Potato crops are produced worldwide with an estimated production of 18 M ha in 148 countries (FAO, http://www.fao.org). Potato ranks number 4 as a plant cultivated for human food production, with approximately 1 billion consumers and over 295 M metric tons (mT) produced in 1997. Annual p...

Interference of Protease Inhibitors on Non-Target Organisms

Louise A. Malone and Elisabeth P.J. Burgess

When plants are genetically modi- fied with proteinase inhibitor (PI)-encoding genes, the intended targets for these PIs are either herbivorous pests or pathogenic microorganisms attacking the plant. In any agricultural system, a number of non-target organisms will also be exposed to the...

Introduction: The Emergence of a New Technology

Maria Teresa Giardi

The possibility of producing a new generation of technological devices that integrate the knowledge coming from various fields (chemistry, biology, computer science, electronics, engineering) is attracting an increase attention. This trend has introduced in a new technological science called “...

Mimicking the Plastoquinone-Binding Pocket of Photosystem II Using Molecularly Imprinted Polymers

Florent Breton, Elena V. Piletska, Kal Karim, Régis Rouillon and Sergey A. Piletsky

The photosystem II (PSII) is a complex system consisting of at least 10 proteins. The electron-flow events in PSII are mediated via prostetic groups (plastoquinones QA and QB) bound to two proteins called D1 and D2. A large group of photosynthesis-inhibiting herbicides consisting of arylureas, t...

Multiple Protease/Inhibitor Interactions in Plant-Pest Systems

Savita Visal-Shah, France Brunelle and Dominique Michaud

Recent advances in the field of protease inhibitor (PI)-based control of pests and pathogens revealed the high complexity of protease/inhibitor interactions in hostpest systems.¹⁵ Such interactions have been thoroughly studied, in particular in plant-pest systems, where dynami...

Photosystem II Biosensors for Heavy Metals Monitoring

Régis Rouillon, Sergey A. Piletsky, Florent Breton, Elena V. Piletska and Robert Carpentier

The biotesting based on the photosynthetic material is new and potentially commercially viable method of pollutant detection. The photosynthetic apparatus including photosystem II (PSII) is particularly sensitive to heavy metals. In this chapter, the mechanisms of heavy metals action on photosys...

Photosystem II-Based Biosensors for the Detection of Photosynthetic Herbicides

Maria Teresa Giardi and Emanuela Pace

Photosystem II (PSII) is the supramolecular pigment-protein complex in the chloroplast, which catalyses the light-induced transfer of electrons from water to plastoquinone in a process that evolves oxygen. The PSII complex is also known to bind several groups of herbicides. In the world, pesticide p...

Photosystem II: Composition and Structure

Aspasia Spyridaki, Emmanuel Psylinakis and Demetrios F. Ghanotakis

Photosystem II (PSII) is a light driven, water-plastoquinone oxidoreductase which catalyses the most thermodynamically demanding reaction in biology.1 This highly endergonic reaction splits water into molecular oxygen, protons and electrons, thereby sustaining an aerobic atmosphere on earth and ...