Australian and American scientists know how to boil an egg. They say that you separate tangled proteins, and let them refold. Flinders University and the University of California, Irvine (UCI) have announced that their innovative approach could dramatically reduce the costs of food production, treatment of cancer, and other parts of the $160 trillion global biotechnology sector. This study was published in ChemBioChem (citations below). Researchers have devised a method to unboil hen eggs. Gregory Weiss (Image: UCI), a UCI professor in chemistry, molecular biology and biochemistry said that he had invented a method to boil a hen’s egg. We present a method for separating tangled proteins, and then allowing them to fold again. We begin with egg whites that are boiled at 90 temperatures for minutes. We then return one key protein to the egg’s working order. Prof. Weiss is not only a scientist who has had difficulty producing or recycling valuable molecular proteins, which have many applications but often “misfold” and become structurally incorrect shapes, rendering them unusable. Professor Weiss stated that it’s not that they are interested in the egg processing process. That’s only a demonstration of how effective this method is. There are many cases where gummy protein is so difficult to extract from your tubes. You need a way to speed up this process. Older methods are expensive and take too long. The scientists call this the equivalent to dialysis at molecular level. It takes about four days. Professor Weiss said that the new procedure takes only minutes and speeds things up by several thousand. Scientists add a urea compound to a boiling egg white in order to recreate lysozyme (a protein) and turn it into liquid. There are still proteins that have been clumped together into ineffable amounts. Researchers then use a vortex fluid machine, which was developed by Colin Raston at Flinders University. The microfluidic films are thin and flexible, so shear stress can be applied to tiny parts, causing them to return to their untangled state. ChemBioChem reports that this method “… could transform industrial production and research of proteins.” For example, drug companies create cancer antibodies using expensive hamster eggs. These cells do not misfold proteins often. It could be possible to quickly and inexpensively form common proteins using E.coli bacteria and yeast. This would allow for faster protein production and reduce cancer treatment costs. Recombinant protein-using industries, such as farmers and cheesemakers, could all benefit. UCI has applied for a patent and is currently working with commercial partners via its Office of Technology Alliances. Citation: Yuan, T. Z., Ormonde, C. F. G., Kudlacek, S. T., Kunche, S., Smith, J. N., Brown, W. A., Pugliese, K. M., Olsen, T. J., Iftikhar, M., Raston, C. L. and Weiss, G. A. (2015), “Shear-Stress-Mediated Refolding of Proteins from Aggregates and Inclusion Bodies.” ChemBioChem. doi: 10.1002/cbic.201402427. Video: How to Unboil an Egg
