Autotaxin has lysophospholipase D activity leading to tumor cell growth and motility by lysophosphatidic acid production

Autotaxin (ATX) is a tumor cell motility–stimulating factor, originally isolated from melanoma cell supernatants. ATX had been proposed to mediate its effects through 5′-nucleotide pyrophosphatase and phosphodiesterase activities. However, the ATX substrate mediating the increase in cellular motility remains to be identified. Here, we demonstrated that lysophospholipase D (lysoPLD) purified from fetal bovine serum, which catalyzes the production of the bioactive phospholipid mediator, lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), from lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC), is identical to ATX. The Km value of ATX for LPC was 25-fold lower than that for the synthetic nucleoside substrate, p-nitrophenyl-tri-monophosphate. LPA mediates multiple biological functions including cytoskeletal reorganization, chemotaxis, and cell growth through activation of specific G protein–coupled receptors. Recombinant ATX, particularly in the presence of LPC, dramatically increased chemotaxis and proliferation of multiple different cell lines. Moreover, we demonstrate that several cancer cell lines release significant amounts of LPC, a substrate for ATX, into the culture medium. The demonstration that ATX and lysoPLD are identical suggests that autocrine or paracrine production of LPA contributes to tumor cell motility, survival, and proliferation. It also provides potential novel targets for therapy of pathophysiological states including cancer

Ultrasensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein using large gold nanoparticle-enhanced surface plasmon resonance

The COVID-19 pandemic has created urgent demand for rapid detection of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Herein, we report highly sensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein (N protein) using nanoparticle-enhanced surface plasmon resonance (SPR) techniques. A crucial plasmonic role in significantly enhancing the limit of detection (LOD) is revealed for exceptionally large gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with diameters of hundreds of nm. SPR enhanced by these large nanoparticles lowered the LOD of SARS-CoV-2 N protein to 85 fM, resulting in the highest SPR detection sensitivity ever obtained for SARS-CoV-2 N protein