Current Protein and Peptide Science - Volume 10, Issue 4, 2009

Proteases constitute one of the primary targets in drug discovery. In the present review, we focus on extracellular proteases (ECPs) because of their differential expression in many pathophysiological processes, including cancer, cardiovascular conditions, and inflammatory, pulmonary, and periodontal diseases. Many new ECP inhibitors are currently under clinical investigation and a significant increase in new therapies base Read More

Milk and colostrum is a rich source of proteins/peptides which have crucial roles in both neonates and adults. Milk bioactive proteins and peptides are potential health-enhancing nutraceuticals for food. Many bioactive peptides/ proteins may be used as nutraceuticals, for example, in the treatment of cancer, asthma, diarrhea, hypertension, thrombosis, dental diseases, as well as mineral malabsorption, and immunodeficie Read More

Amphitrophic proteins are soluble, globular proteins that may - under certain conditions - interact reversibly with a plasma membrane. How this apparent duality in the properties of a protein is achieved has been a relatively littlestudied subject until recently. In this review we aim to summarize the current knowledge regarding some important amphitrophic systems in which the interaction with the membrane does n Read More

Metallothioneins (MTs) are low molecular, cysteine-rich proteins that have naturally-occurring Zn2+ in both clusters. They may serve as a reservoir of metals for synthesis of apoenzymes and zinc-finger transcription regulators. MTs are also involved with several important proteins e.g. p53, NF-κB, PKCl, and GTPase Rab3A. New biological roles for these proteins have been identified including those needed in the carcinogenic pro Read More

Fluorescence spectroscopy methods have been proved to be powerful tools for the quantitative investigation of homologous and heterologous interactions, rotational and translational diffusion, and structural dynamics of biological molecules in crowded media. In addition to their high sensitivity, these methods present the advantage that the selective fluorescent labeling of the biomolecules under study allows distingui Read More

Mammalian cells are prone to tumorigenesis when suffering the genotoxic stresses, and the existence of the tumor suppressors validly decrease this possibility. Gadd45α is one of the growth arrest and DNA damage-inducible (Gadd) 45 gene family members and serves as a stress sensor and tumor suppressor under most stress conditions, which is evidenced by cell cycle arrest, DNA repair, senescence or apoptosis triggered b Read More