Correlation Engine 2.0
Clear Search sequence regions


  • brain (15)
  • calcium (1)
  • calpain (2)
  • calpain 1 (2)
  • Capn1 protein (1)
  • female (1)
  • injuries (1)
  • mice (1)
  • molecular weight (1)
  • patient (1)
  • polymers (2)
  • poor prognosis (1)
  • prognosis (1)
  • signal (1)
  • traumatic (10)
  • Sizes of these terms reflect their relevance to your search.

    Currently, traumatic brain injury (TBI) is detected by medical imaging; however, medical imaging requires expensive capital equipment, is time- and resource-intensive, and is poor at predicting patient prognosis. To date, direct measurement of elevated protease activity has yet to be utilized to detect TBI. In this work, we engineered an activity-based nanosensor for TBI (TBI-ABN) that responds to increased protease activity initiated after brain injury. We establish that a calcium-sensitive protease, calpain-1, is active in the injured brain hours within injury. We then optimize the molecular weight of a nanoscale polymeric carrier to infiltrate into the injured brain tissue with minimal renal filtration. A calpain-1 substrate that generates a fluorescent signal upon cleavage was attached to this nanoscale polymeric carrier to generate an engineered TBI-ABN. When applied intravenously to a mouse model of TBI, our engineered sensor is observed to locally activate in the injured brain tissue. This TBI-ABN is the first demonstration of a sensor that responds to protease activity to detect TBI.

    Citation

    Julia A Kudryashev, Lauren E Waggoner, Hope T Leng, Nicholas H Mininni, Ester J Kwon. An Activity-Based Nanosensor for Traumatic Brain Injury. ACS sensors. 2020 Mar 27;5(3):686-692

    Expand section icon Mesh Tags

    Expand section icon Substances


    PMID: 32100994

    View Full Text