S. H. W. Notermans

The recently developed compound, tetramethylthiocycloheptyne sulfoximine (TMTHSI), has shown to be a promising strained alkyne for strain-promoted azide–alkyne cycloaddition (SPAAC), metal-free click chemistry. This research explores the properties of TMTHSI-based compounds via three aspects: (1) large-scale production, (2) unique stability in acidic conditions and its subsequent use in peptide synthesis, and (3) the functionalization of antibodies. Here, it is shown that (1) scale-up is achieved on a scale of up to 100 g. (2) TMTHSI is remarkably stable against TFA allowing for the site-specific functionalization of peptides on resin. Finally, (3) the functionalization of an antibody with a model payload is very efficient, with antibody conjugation demonstrating more beneficial features such as a high yield and limited hydrophobicity as compared to other alkyne reagent conjugates. These results illustrate the high potential of TMTHSI for diverse bioconjugation applications, with production already being GMP-compatible and a highly efficient conversion resulting in attractive costs of goods.

The taxonomy of fungi has become very important because they are used in various industrial, medical, food, and other biotechnological applications. They are also involved in plant diseases, human and animal medical problems, and food spoilage and toxigeneses. Hence, the correct identification of fungi has taken on added significance in recent years. The identification of filamentous fungi, which involves the isolation, subculturing, and morphological study of the colonial characteristics after a set time at a given temperature, can take up to 2 weeks or more. In addition, the microscopic characteristics of the fungus, particularly the hyphae and spores, are carefully studied. Since the identification of fungi is so time-consuming, new methods for rapid identification have been studied. Some of these methods include the use of biochemical techniques: chemical profiling of the secondary metabolites (including mycotoxins); scanning electron microscopic identification of surface textures; computer-assisted keys; immunological methods; enzyme, carbohydrate, and protein profiles; and various molecular identification 122techniques (G + C molar ratios, DNA-DNA hybridization, nucleic acid probes, rRNA sequences, restriction fragment length polymorphism [RFLP], polymerase chain reaction [PCR], randomly amplified polymorphic DNA [RAPD]) (1-4).