Hi

At first look it seems that someone is using FimaNAc concept with a different photosensitizer TPPS4, this is still at an academic stage but could we consider it a potential competition? How are we protected around FimaNAc?

Hope we can discuss this “objectively”

This was published April 2018 and the work was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany)


The paper is titled:
Restoring functional neurofibromin by protein transduction

Link:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-24310-5

Quotes:

“Protein transduction into cultured fibroblasts was performed employing cell penetrating peptides along with photochemical internalization. This combination of transduction strategies ensures the intracellular uptake and the translocation to the cytoplasm of neurofibromin”

“Cotreating cells with a photosensitizer and light induced disruption of endosomes and lysosomes called photochemical internalization (PCI) leads to a cytosolic distribution of the internalized proteins in vitro.”

“The combined treatment with photochemical internalization (PCI) to release endosomally trapped protein to the cytosol of the cells required 24 hours preincubation time with the photosensitizer TPPS4. Therefore, experiments combining protein transduction, PCI and cellular orientation on nano-micro structured surfaces were designed to last 96 hours as shown in the experimental timescale (Fig. 1a). In case of a siRNA NF1 knockdown, additional 48 hours were prepended.”

“An uptake of huge proteins as neurofibromin (~320 kDa) remains a challenging task. We showed that the problems can be overcome in vitro by using endo-lysosome disrupting techniques as specialized transduction reagents along with light triggered photochemical internalisation (PCI).”


“We used TPPS4 as photosensitizer (PS). This PS is activated by an exposure to visible blue light that penetrates tissue only over a distance of few millimeters with a strong decrease of the intensity. To perform a suitable PCI treatment, a uniform exposure in all cells should be achieved for that the effect of an endolysosomal release is directly linked to the light intensity. Here, the use of different PS with other activation wavelengths might extenuate this problem. Further modifications of the recombinant neurofibromin e.g. the fusion of one or more HIV TAT transduction domains might enhance the cellular and cytoplasmic uptake as well. This could obliterate the need of an external treatment and therefore pave the way for in vivo testing for the replacement of lacking very large proteins in monogenic diseases as such as NF1.”