Current Protein and Peptide Science - Volume 17, Issue 5, 2016

In eukaryotic cells, gene expressions on chromosome DNA are orchestrated by a dynamic chromosome structure state that is largely controlled by chromatin-regulating proteins, which regulate chromatin structures, release DNA from the nucleosome, and activate or suppress gene expression by modifying nucleosome histones or mobilizing DNA-histone structure. The two classes of chromatinregulating proteins are 1) enzymes Read More

Chromatin structure regulating processes mediated by the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) – dependent chromatin remodeling complex and the covalent histone-modifying complexes are critical to gene transcriptional control and normal cellular processes, including cell stemness, differentiation, and proliferation. Gene mutations, structural abnormalities, and epigenetic modifications that lead to aberrant expressio Read More

Posttranslational modifications of proteins critically regulate the function, localization, and stability of target proteins. Histone modification is one of the regulatory mechanisms that modulate the chromatin structure and thereby affect various DNA-templated processes, such as gene transcription, DNA replication, DNA recombination, and DNA repair in cells. These molecular processes contribute to basic cellular functi Read More

Chromatin remodeling complexes (chromatin remodelers) have been demonstrated as essential and powerful regulators for critical DNA-templated cellular processes, such as DNA replication, recombination, gene transcription/repression, and DNA damage repair. These molecular and genetic processes are important for a wide spectrum of cellular functions including, cell cycle, death, differentiation, pluripotency, and genome i Read More

Chromatin-regulating proteins modulate nucleosome structure by either modifying histones covalently or disrupting DNA-protein interaction directly with ATP hydrolysis. Evidence has shown that chromatin-regulating proteins play critical roles in regulation of molecular processes using DNA as template, including gene expression, DNA replication, DNA damage repair, and chromosome integrity. In most of human malignancies, c Read More

Human complement receptor type 2 (CR2; CD21) is a surface-associated glycoprotein which binds to a variety of endogenous ligands, including the complement component C3 fragments iC3b, C3dg and C3d, the low-affinity IgE receptor CD23, and the type I cytokine, interferon-alpha. CR2 links the innate complement-mediated immune response to pathogens and foreign antigens with the adaptive immune response by binding t Read More

The melanocortin receptor system consists of five closely related G-protein coupled receptors (MC1R, MC2R, MC3R, MC4R and MC5R). These receptors are involved in many of the key biological functions for multicellular animals, including human beings. The natural agonist ligands for these receptors are derived by processing of a primordial animal gene product, proopiomelanocortin (POMC). The ligand for the MC2R i Read More

The CW domain is a zinc binding domain, composed of approximately 50- 60 amino acid residues with four conserved cysteine (C) and two to four conserved tryptophan (W) residues. The members of the superfamily of CW domain containing proteins, comprised of 12 different eukaryotic nuclear protein families, are extensively expressed in vertebrates, vertebrate-infecting parasites and higher plants, where they are ofte Read More

Arginine, the most basic among the 20 amino acids, occurs less frequently than lysine in proteins despite being coded by six codons. Only a few important proteins of biological significance have been found to be abundant in arginine. It has been established that these arginine-rich proteins have been assigned important roles in the biological systems. Arginine-rich cationic proteins are known to stabilize macromolecular stru Read More