Elucidating the Impact of Payload Conjugation on the Cell-Penetrating Efficiency of the Endosomal Escape Peptide dfTAT: Implications for Future Designs for CPP-Based Delivery Systems.

Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) are promising tools for the intracellular delivery of various biological payloads. However, the impact of payload conjugation on the cell-penetrating activity of CPPs is poorly understood. This study focused on dfTAT, a modified version of the HIV-TAT peptide with enhanced endosomal escape activity, to explore how different payloads affect its cell-penetrating activity. We systematically examined dfTAT conjugated with the SnoopTag/SnoopCatcher pair and found that while smaller payloads such as short peptides do not significantly impair dfTAT's cell delivery activity, larger payloads markedly reduce both its endocytic uptake and endosomal escape efficiency. Our results highlight the role of the payload size and bulk in limiting CPP-mediated delivery. While further research is needed to understand the molecular underpinnings of these effects, our findings pave the way for developing more effective CPP-based delivery systems.

Modeling and Simulation of an Energy Integrated Distillation Column in a Bond Graph Approach.

The bond graph methodology for modelling an integrated energy distillation column is applied in this paper. The distillation column is built by five trays for a binary mixture. However, due to its modular construction in a bond graph, the number of trays can be increased. In order to link the analysis tools of systems modeled in the bond graph to the mathematical model given to a distillation column, a junction structure of the proposed bond graph is presented. Hence, this junction structure is a way to obtain the state space representation of the modeled column in bond graphs. Likewise, it is well known that distillation columns determine a class of nonlinear systems, so throughout this paper, these systems in a bond graph approach can be analyzed. In order to learn the behavior of the distillation column in the physical domain, simulation results using 20-Sim software are shown. In addition, with the simulation of two case studies consisting of two mixtures with different relative volatilities, the versatility of the column model in a bond graph is presented. In both cases, the increase in the feed flow, the mole fraction of the light component in the feed or the distillate reflux that enriches the concentration of light in the column determine an increase in the mole fraction of light in the distillate and in the bottom reflow. Further, the control design for a distillation column in the physical domain can be extended.