This year we celebrate seventy years since the establishment of the Institute of Biophysics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (IBP) (founded on January 1, 1955). If we look into the biography of Professor Emil Paleček (born on October 3, 1930), one of the most world-recognized personalities associated with the Institute and one of the most cited Czech scientists, known as the founder of nucleic acids electrochemistry, we are drawn to the same year, i.e. 1955, as the year in which Emil Paleček finished his studies in biochemistry and joined the IBP, where he worked with admirable vitality, enthusiasm and dedication until his death (October 30, 2018). In the context of celebration of founding of the Institute, we would like to commemorate in this article a personality who significantly influenced the history of the Institute alongside the important discoveries and research directions that defined his extremely successful career. We prefer this form, which is a sort of a mini-review of the most important results of the laboratory obtained under EP's leadership over 63 years, presented in mutual context and natural relations. For his life's work, Professor Paleček received many prestigious awards, with the Czech Head Award in 2014 and the Neuron Foundation Award in 2017 being the most distinguished.

• Keywords
• Electrochemistry, Glycans, Modification, Nucleic acids, Proteins, Structure,
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Review MeSH

An Electrochemical Detection of Metallothioneins at the Zeptomole Level in Nanolitre VolumesWe report on improvement of the adsorptive transfer stripping technique (AdTS) coupled with the differential pulse voltammetry Brdicka reaction to determine a thiol-protein. The current technique has been unable to generate reproducible results when analyzing very low sample volumes (nanolitres). This obstacle can be overcome technically by modifying the current transfer technique including cooling step of the adsorbed analyte. We tested the technique on determination of a promising tumour disease marker protein called metallothionein (MT). The detection limit (3 S/N) of MT was evaluated as 500 zeptomoles per 500 nL (1 pM) and the quantification limit (10 S/N) as 1,500 zeptomoles per 500 nL (3 pM). Further, the improved AdTS technique was utilized to analyze blood serum samples from patients with breast cancer. Based on the results obtained it can be concluded that the improved technique can be used to detect a thiolprotein in very low sample volumes and can also prevent interferences during the washing and transferring step.

• Keywords
• Brdicka reaction, Proteomics, adsorptive transfer stripping technique, differential pulse voltammetry, human blood serum, metallothionein, thiols, tumour disease, zeptomole,
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH