Laser Tweezers In Drug Designing |

ABSTRACT:

Compact and three dimensional folding is must forproteins to carry out their unique specific functions. Whenever this foldinggoes wrong it leads to diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Gaucher’sdisease. Mis folding is often toxic to living cells. Researchers across theglobe are working day and night tirelessly to design new drugs, but despiteimportance, inadequacy of bulk methods to study folding pathways blurs thepossibilities of finding out a genuine appropriate molecule. The ensemblemeasurement methods provide only average information about the folding process.Recent advances in Laser tweezers, a single molecule manipulation technique hasrevisited the protein folding with a new approach with several advantages overthe traditional approach. Complications of synchronization required in theensemble kinetic experiments are avoided in single-molecule approach detectingconformation transitions in real time. One single experiment is enough toobtain both energetics and kinetics of a macromolecule transition in singlemolecular approach.. In the latest research scientists has used lasers fordesigning drugs for brain disorders. There was an exciting evidence of twoprotein structures joining up in the brain, which acts as an amplifier for aslight increase in calcium concentration, thereby initiating a trigger releaseof neurotransmitter from one neuron to another. Laser tweezers work byharnessing the momentum of laser light to trap objects ranging from 0.3 to 30microns in diameter and utilizes molecular handles for mechanical manipulationof individual protein, trapping molecule in the focused laser beam. The forcesarising out of momentum of light can be used as per need. The present articledeals with the principle, methodology as well as the review of research done onthe use of laser tweezers for drug designing from 1986 to the present time