Current Protein and Peptide Science - Volume 3, Issue 4, 2002

Protein tyrosine phosphatases, SH2 and PTB domains are crucial elements for cellular signal transduction and regulation. Much effort has been directed towards elucidating their specificity in the past decade using a variety of approaches. Combinatorial library methods have contributed significantly to the understanding of substrate and ligand specificity of phosphoprotein recognizing domains.This review gives a brief ove Read More

Most patients with cancer are treated with chemotherapy but die from progressive disease or toxicities of therapy. Current chemotherapy regimens primarily use cytotoxic drugs which damage cell DNA or impair cell proliferation in both malignant and normal tissues. After several treatment courses, the patients' tumor cells often overexpress multi-drug resistance genes which prevent further tumor cytoreduction. Novel agen Read More

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are a pivotal family of zinc enzymes responsible for degradation of the extracellular matrix (ECM) components including basement membrane collagen, interstitial collagen, fibronectin, and various proteoglycans, during normal remodeling and repair processes. The potent proteolytic activities of MMPs is mainly regulated by the balance with specific tissue inhibitors of Matrix metallopr Read More

Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) was originally isolated from the ovine brain in 1989 as a novel hypothalamic hormone that potently activates adenylate cyclase to produce cyclic AMP in pituitary cells. This neuropeptide belongs to the secretin / glucagon / vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) superfamily, and exists in two amidated forms as PACAP38 (38-amino acid residues) and PACAP27 derived from t Read More

Quantitation of protein 3-D structure similarity is crucial in such fields as evolutionary studies, structural modeling and prediction of biological function. There are various approaches, many of which are tailored to specific problems. This review summarizes the recent developments in this field with particular interest in two main areas: i) improvements to and statistical interpretation of the root-man-square distance betwee Read More

The mitochondrial F1Fo ATP synthase complex has a key role in cellular energy metabolism. The general architecture of the enzyme is conserved among species and consists of a globular catalytic moiety F1, protruding out of the inner side of the membrane, a membrane integral proton translocating moiety Fo, and a stalk connecting F1 to F o. The Xray crystallographic analysis of the structure of the bovine mitochondrial Read More

The exact mechanism by which four Fe-Protoporphyrin-IX (heme) moieties and four nascent globin chains combine to form human hemoglobin (α2β2) remains a mystery. Recent Soret spectral static and kinetic studies of the incorporation of CN-Hemin derivatives into an array of human globin species have provided in vitro evidence of an ordered assembly pathway, through an αheme-βglobin intermediate, that ensures c Read More

A variety of factors contribute to the complex course of inflammation. Microbiological, immunological and toxic agents can initiate the inflammatory response by activating a variety of humoral and cellular mediators. In the early phase of inflammation, excessive amounts of cytokines and inflammatory mediators are released. These factors activate, in addition to other signaling pathways, the lipid synthesis p Read More