PUXANO technology platforms

By combining biotechnology, nanotechnology, and data science, PUXANO offers a proprietary technology platform designed to accelerate structure-based protein research, from sequence to structure. Our technologies address key bottlenecks in the standard structural biology pipeline, including construct design, protein expression, purification, and high-resolution structure determination. The innovative nature of our platform is evidenced by the numerous competitive regional and international research grants awarded to PUXANO since its inception.

PXN Grids: A Diverse and Specialized Electron Microscopy Grid Portfolio

PXN Grids are advanced, customizable electron microscopy grids designed for high-throughput cryo-EM sample screening. Developed by our expert nanoengineering team in a dedicated cleanroom, these grids are fabricated using semiconductor-grade techniques. We can fully customize grid design, material, and composition, tailoring each grid to meet specific research needs. Options include square or hexagonal mesh frameworks in varying sizes, thin films (metallic or carbon) with holey patterns ranging from 2000 µm to 250 nm, and film thicknesses between 30 and 100 nm. Additionally, we can deposit continuous thin films, such as graphene, which can be functionalized to create affinity grids.

Our proprietary grid portfolio is designed to overcome key challenges in cryo-EM, such as preferred particle orientation, uneven particle distribution, low protein yield, and suboptimal ice thickness. In addition to ultraflat holey cryo-EM and high-quality graphene grids, we have developed different speciality grids including Multi-hole grids with varying hole sizes, nanoparticle-specific cryo-EM grids, Tilted grids, Tilted graphene grids and Affinity grids functionalized with VHHs/Fabs. These advanced grids, in combination with tailored grid priming techniques and customized image processing protocols, offer greater control over sample preparation and significantly enhance the success of cryo-EM projects. The PUXANO grids can be purchased as a product here.

AI protein design

Computational tools play a pivotal role in streamlining design-to-structure workflows, and at PUXANO, we are driving innovation in this area through the development of specialized platform named PROCONDOR. Our platform integrates seamlessly with open-source tools like AlphaFold 2, OpenFold, Boltz, RF Diffusion, Genie, ProteinMPNN, and Relion, and are tailored specifically for protein design and structure determination tasks. For several open source models we have retrained models and/or up-or down-stream modules developed to address specific questions in antigen design, membrane protein research or cryoEM (epitope mapping). Procondor workflows are stacked into multiple layers: protein target analysis which comprises the retrieval, analysis, and integration of data from various public and proprietary databases, providing comprehensive insights into specific protein targets. These insights are used to generate multiple protein design strategies, whether focused on preserving the native sequence or optimizing functional regions, all pursued in parallel. Each design strategy is executed via a combination of bioinformatic and de novo generative AI tools, leading to hundreds of designs. These undergo a rigorous in silico selection, significantly minimizing the need for extensive experimental validation (maximum of 24 designs), which are the starting point for a second iteration that maximizes yield, stability, immunogenicity and other features. Our wet labs are organized in such a manner that we can run larger design campaigns in parallel, thereby focusing on protein expression, stability, monodispersity, activity and functionality.

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