Taylor's Group

Within the NHLBI-PEN Project, the group will:

• Develop antisense mRNA expression imaging agents for COX2 and iNOS as markers of inflammation and for therapeutic transgenes such as β-AR2.
• Construct imaging agents by linking a high affinity antisense PNA (peptide nucleic acid) to a nanoparticle that is adorned with a permeation peptide, such as NLS (Nuclear Localization Signal) or TAT (HIV-1 Tat protein transduction domain), and an optical, MR or radiolabel imaging agents. The high affinity antisense PNA will be identified and verified by binding experiments both in vitro and in vivo. For animal studies, the antisense PNA will be conjugated to DOTA or other ⁶⁴Cu chelators for in vivo PET imaging.
  
  

Taylor’s research group occupies an Organic Synthesis Laboratory and a Molecular Biology Laboratory in the newly built state-of -the-art laboratory science(LS) building, rooms LS 414 and LS 408 respectively.

Organic Synthesis Laboratory (LS-414):

The Organic Synthesis Laboratory constitutes 12 hoods equipped with a centralized N₂ , vacuum and compressed air lines. The chemical synthesis, purification and characterization of the anitsense PNAs and other small molecules is carried out in this lab. It encompasses an area for HPLC instruments, and a PNA/DNA synthesizer and a combinatorial peptide synthesizer. HPLC is carried out on a Beckman Coulter HPLC system equipped with UV-vis array detector that is capable of giving 1, 2 and 3 D chromatograms and the absorption spectrum of the eluents.

The automated DNA/PNA synthesizer is an ABI Expedite 8909 model system (Applied Biosystems, Foster city ,CA). PNAs and PNA-peptide conjugates are synthesized by Fmoc chemistry and then functionalized with reporter molecules for imaging. The APEX automated peptide synthesizer (Advanced ChemTech, Louisville, KY ) is used for synthesizing cell permeation peptides, such as polyarginine (Arg9), NLS (Nuclear Localization Signal) or the TAT HIV-1 peptide.

Bereket Y. Oquare, former Ph.D. Candidate, synthesizing antisense PNA

The Apex 396 Peptide synthesizer

For common facilities such as NMR, MS please follow the link below http://www.chemistry.wustl.edu/facilities.

Molecular Biology Laboratory (LS-408):

The Molecular Biology Laboratory is located at LS- 408. Mapping and quantification of antisense binding sites on mRNAs and the design of antisense cassettes for insertion into therapeutic transgenes is carried out in this lab. The lab has all that is necessary for culturing bacteria and human tissue (laminar flow hood), and working with radioactive materials such as ³²P and ¹³¹I. The lab is equipped with instrumentation to carry out various types of molecular biology experiments, such as temperature dependent PCR and high voltage gel electrophoresis.

Dr. Haufeng Fang performing a molecular biology experiment