Task 4. General research on minicells

[JulietteB-cri]

Looking for literature to identify important features of minicells and every information we'd find interesting (e.g biosafety, separation....)

[Zoepin]

Control plasmid expression

Can we find a system in which a plasmid can be expressed in minicells but is repressed in the cell

Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sR_t_51BXD6_T6ndTjFq_Or_HSk02A3eA2T_zXS4XCM/edit#

[JulietteB-cri]

Minicells characterization:

• activity
• separation from parent cells
• biosafety aspects

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZgQC-5zg47L0FoVe3ZeTydk3SmUjTviazVsQatwSamk/edit

[SarahHagg]

Bacteria-derived minicells for cancer therapy.

DOI: 10.1016/j.canlet.2020.07.024

‘Interestingly, for the targeted delivery of drugs to cancer cells, the minicell surface can be easily modified with a bi-specific antibody, where one arm is linked to the minicell surface and the other arm binds to the specific receptor that is exclusively present on cancer cells.’

‘The cell envelope of minicells does not have the same uniform composition as parental cells, because a minicell represents only a portion of its parental cell [22]. As compared with the intact E. coli parental cells, the cytoplasmic membranes derived from minicells are enriched with cardiolipin and certain polar membrane proteins, and their cell wall is enriched with inert peptidoglycan.’

‘The ribosomes present in minicells are functional and synthesize proteins in the cell-free system with synthetic mRNA’

‘minicells derived from E. coli, B. subtilis and S. Typhimurium UT1 are motile under a phase contrast microscope’

Bacterially Derived 400 nm Particles for Encapsulation and Cancer Cell Targeting of Chemotherapeutics.

DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2007.03.012

‘Targeting of minicells was achieved using bispecific antibodies (BsAb), in which one arm recognizes the O-antigen component of the mini- cell surface LPS and the other, a cell-surface receptor specific for the mammalian cell to be targeted, for exam- ple, EGFR (El-Rayes and LoRusso, 2004) or HER2/neu re- ceptor (Slamon et al., 1987) on breast and ovarian cancer cells, respectively. Linkage of these two antibodies via their Fc regions was achieved by the use of protein A/G.’

‘Following internalization, TEM studies of minicell-treated cancer cells and mouse macrophage cells showed that the minicells were localized in intracellular vacuoles (Figure 2B). As many as five to eight minicells were localized in a single vacuole, with a single cell carrying as many as 40 to 50 minicells. At later time points, minicell integrity was lost and membrane fragments carrying LPS were evident within vacuoles, indicating minicell breakdown (Figure 2Bc).’ (2)

‘Cell integrity was unaltered’

[research555]

Check out my Benchling folder https://benchling.com/immio/f/lib_K2lEGWEx-imran-internship/etr_yEQwLT03-overview-and-progression/edit