Bioconjugation is a chemical tool used to couple two molecules together in which at least one of the reactants is a biomolecule. Commonly used biomolecules for conjugation are antibodies or proteins, and bioconjugation can also occur in other biomolecules such as nucleic acids, sugars, and viral particles. A variety of entities can be conjugated to these biomolecules, including biomolecules, small or large synthetic molecules, microparticles, etc. Hybrid molecules generated by bioconjugation biochemistry exhibit a combination of properties and functions inherent to each of its individual components. Bioconjugation typically involves the modification of biomolecules by the addition of complementary functional groups through chemical reactions using different linkers. These groups can be naturally occurring functional groups on biomolecules or introducing artificial chemical groups. The most reactive functional groups in biomolecules are associated with heteroatoms N, O, and S, which are nucleophilic due to unshared electron pairs and can spontaneously react with compatible electrophilic active groups on crosslinkers and modification reagents. If the desired functional group is not available, specialized reagents can be used to facilitate the creation of appropriate functional groups for bioconjugation.
Bioconjugations are often used in the fields of biotechnology, medicine, and nanotechnology to detect, determine, target, and track biomolecules. Various applications of bioconjugation include attaching fluorescent probes to antibodies for flow cytometry and microscopy imaging, attaching antibodies to beads for immunoprecipitation, attaching antibodies to drugs for therapeutic development, and cross-linking proteins to detect their biological interactions. Drug conjugates are chemotherapeutic or cytotoxic agents that are covalently linked to a targeting ligand (commonly an antibody or peptide) via a linker. The ligands are utilized to deliver the cytotoxic agents to target sites. In the design of drug conjugates, the targeting ligands can be conjugated directly to agents or to the surface of drug delivery systems, such as liposomes, micelles, etc. An antibody or peptide is covalently coupled to a drug via a linker to form an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) or peptide-drug conjugate (PDC). The linker is one of the most important parts of conjugates, which should have the characteristics of good stability in circulation, good pharmacokinetics, and efficient release of cytotoxic payloads in target cells. In addition to ADCs and PDCs, more types of conjugates have been designed for the development of novel therapeutic agents with high efficacy. Peptide-oligonucleotide conjugates (POCs) are covalent constructs that consist of a nucleic acid moiety to a peptide moiety. POCs are designed to improve the cellular uptake, tissue delivery, and bioavailability of therapeutic nucleic acids such as antisense oligonucleotides and small interfering RNAs, thereby increasing overall efficiency.
Amerigo Scientific offers a wide range of bioconjugation products such as crosslinking reagents, peptide conjugates, modified biomolecules, ADC controls, and various ready-to-use labeling and bioconjugation kits, for the development of conjugation-based drug candidates, detection agents, or research tools.
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