Applications

One technology, many possibilities

There are many flavours of PepLock, and one problem they all address: keeping a biomolecule attached, oriented and working on a surface.

Proposed applications. PepLock is an early-stage technology. Applications beyond the confirmed formats are proposed, not yet validated.

Any technology that puts biology to work on a surface has the same requirement. The molecule has to attach robustly, in the right orientation, and stay there through everything the surface is later exposed to. Diagnostics, therapeutics discovery, biocatalysis, cell culture, bioprocessing and advanced materials all share this problem. Most still solve it by adsorption, or by coupling chemistry developed case by case for each molecule and each material.

PepLock turns attachment into a property of the molecule itself. A PepLock-tagged protein or peptide attaches to the surface in a single aqueous step, site-specifically and with consistent orientation, and the attachment withstands washes, detergents, salts, acids, bases and chaotropes. Where attachment has been the bottleneck, PepLock is designed to remove it. Below is where we believe that matters most.

Diagnostics

Capture antibodies, antigens and peptides are usually adsorbed or chemically coupled to the assay surface. Orientation is uncontrolled, so part of the binder is presented in ways that cannot capture target, and coupling adds steps to every lot.

PepLock-tagged binders and peptides attach to the assay surface in one aqueous step, site-specifically and with consistent orientation. In peptide serology, PepLock-tagged peptides show robust binding and improved epitope presentation.

Lateral flow
ELISA
Multiplex assays
Biosensors
Peptide serology

A white lateral flow cassette with a sample drop at its well and a magnified inset showing tethered capture molecules standing on the strip. — A lateral flow strip with PepLock-tagged capture molecules on the test line. Illustration.

Biologics and binders

Antibodies, nanobodies and engineered binders work only when their binding sites face outward. Random coupling through surface residues can block those sites, and capture-protein systems add a second protein to every surface.

PepLock gives each binder site-specific attachment with consistent orientation, and no capture protein is needed. PepLock has been demonstrated with human IgG, mouse IgG and nanobodies (VHH and VNAR).

Antibodies
Nanobodies
Engineered binders

A Y-shaped green antibody standing upright on a glowing tether on a dark bead, binding arms open, with a smaller nanobody beside it. — Binders presented with their binding sites outward. Illustration.

Enzymes and biocatalysts

Immobilised enzymes are what make biocatalysis practical: the catalyst can be recovered, reused and run continuously. Yet immobilisation is still where many processes stall. Random chemical attachment can bury the active site, adsorbed enzyme leaches from the support, and every new enzyme means a new round of optimisation.

With PepLock, immobilisation is designed into the enzyme. A PepLock-tagged enzyme attaches itself to the support at a position chosen in the design, and the attachment holds through the washes and harsh buffers of a working process. We see that opening the way to immobilised biocatalysts that keep their activity, catalytic surfaces that can be reused rather than replaced, and flow processes that run for longer between changeovers.

Reusable immobilised biocatalysts
Continuous-flow biocatalysis
Enzyme-based sensing

A glass column packed with pale beads between steel end fittings, with a magnified inset of one bead showing tethered enzymes and small blue substrate molecules. — Immobilised enzymes in a packed flow column. Illustration.

Coatings and programmable material properties

Materials rarely come with every property they need. A plastic may need to shed water, a membrane to hold a capture reagent, a device surface to resist microbial growth. Each property means a coating of its own: developed for that one material, applied as an extra step, and prone to wearing off.

Programmable material properties turn that around. The property is specified in a molecule, and the material takes it on by binding that molecule. The coating is a peptide or protein layer, so it can be designed, varied and produced like any other biologic, and it attaches in one durable step with no new chemistry for each substrate. Changing the property means changing the design, not the process.

Surface charge
Wettability
Antimicrobial and antifouling coatings
Functional coatings for assays and devices

A clear plastic slab, half bare and half covered by a fine green coating, with a water droplet spread flat on the bare half and beaded up on the coated half. — A material property carried by a PepLock-tagged peptide layer. Illustration.

Cell engineering and synthetic biology

Cells read their surroundings through the molecules presented to them. Cytokines, growth factors, adhesion ligands and other signalling molecules decide whether a cell attaches, divides, differentiates or dies. Soluble factors are expensive and short-lived, and presenting those cues on culture plastics, beads, scaffolds and devices is difficult.

Improved tools could solve the challenge of binding signalling molecules to surfaces, the same way every time. These surfaces can guide the development of stem cells, hold immune cells in an engineered niche, or grow organoids on a scaffold, following cues laid out in a pattern. Multiple complex signals can be combined by encoding the anchor into the signalling proteins themselves, avoiding harsh binding chemistry.

Immobilised cytokines and growth factors
Directed-differentiation surfaces
Organoid and tissue-model scaffolds
Programmable surfaces for cells and materials

Spreading mammalian cells on a dark culture surface among small upright green proteins on glowing tethers, one cell reaching toward a protein. — Signalling molecules anchored on a culture surface, with cells responding to them. Illustration.

Bioprocessing and industrial biochemistry

Process lines and flow reactors run for weeks through cleaning cycles, pressure and changing buffers. Any protein working on a surface in that environment, a catalyst, a capture ligand, an antifouling layer, has to hold on. Immobilised proteins that leach or lose activity add cost, contaminate product and interrupt production.

PepLock attachment withstands washes, detergents, salts, acids, bases and chaotropes, which is the regime industrial surfaces live in. That points to biocatalytic reactors that stay productive through cleaning, capture surfaces that survive clean-in-place, and process equipment whose working surfaces are functionalised by design rather than coated after the fact.

Flow reactors
Process lines
Durable capture surfaces
Antifouling process surfaces

A clear-walled section of stainless-steel process pipe with liquid flowing past a lawn of tiny glowing tethered proteins lining its inner wall. — Functional surfaces inside process equipment. Illustration.

Research

Discovery depends on presenting proteins and probes on beads, plates, membranes and sensors in a known, reproducible way. In practice each new construct brings another round of attachment optimisation, variable orientation, and results that are hard to compare across formats.

A PepLock-tagged protein attaches the same way on every format, in one aqueous step and with consistent orientation, and it handles like any other reagent through tubes, tips and storage plates. Conventional coupling modifies the molecule at whatever residues are accessible, and a modified molecule may not behave like the original. With PepLock the attachment point is chosen in the design and the rest of the molecule is left as it was, so the same construct could move from bead to plate to sensor to flow cytometry with results that compare across formats.

Immobilised proteins and probes
ELISA and bead assays
Electrochemistry and biosensors
Flow cytometry
Protein and peptide arrays

Four formats on a bench, a dark bead, a plate well, a gold electrode chip and a clear cell, each carrying the same green protein on a glowing tether, with a microscope turret above. — The same construct across bead, plate, sensor and flow formats. Illustration.

The data is real. It's behind a short conversation

Available under NDA, followed by a technical demonstration. We are speaking with licensing partners and investors.

Request the data pack How it works

Or email peplock@biotome.com.au