Current Protein and Peptide Science - Volume 4, Issue 5, 2003

Regulation of proteolytic enzyme activity is an essential requirement for cells and tissues because proteolysis at the wrong time and location may be lethal. Two principal mechanisms to control the activity of proteases have been developed during evolution. The first is the co-evolution of endogenous inhibitors, typically occurring in cellular compartments separated from those containing active enzymes. The second is the Read More

Type II restriction endonucleases (ENases) cleave DNA with remarkable sequence specificity. Their discovery in 1970 and studies on molecular genetics and biochemistry carried out over the past four decades laid foundations for recombinant DNA techniques. Today, restriction enzymes are indispensable tools in molecular biology and molecular medicine and a paradigm for proteins that specifically interact with DNA as well a Read More

Physiological processes are regulated to a large extent by physical and chemical interactions between polypeptides. Although many small molecules have been discovered that can modulate such interactions and may be useful as drugs, the design of these agents purely from the knowledge of the details of a given protein-protein interaction, or through screening, remains difficult. Therefore, the peptidomimetic pr Read More

Amphiphilic α-helices play a fundamental role in protein - membrane association and show a segregation of polar and apolar amino acid residues. Based on correlations between amphiphilic properties and biological function, a number of theoretical approaches have been developed, which quantify α-helix amphiphilicity and then attempt to assign function. The most commonly used measure of amphiphilicity is the hydropho Read More

CD2 (cluster of differentiation 2) is a cell adhesion molecule expressed on T cells and is recognized as a target for CD48 (rats) and CD58 (humans). Tremendous progress has been achieved in understanding the function of CD2, the mechanism of molecular recognition and protein folding, thus, leading towards the use of this protein as a scaffold for protein design. CD2 has been shown to set quantitative thresholds in T cell activa Read More

The recent breakthroughs in genomics and proteomics and improvements of optical methods have made it possible to obtain localized, real-time information on intracellular proteins dynamics, through dynamic three-dimensional (3D) maps of the living cell with nanometric resolution of individual molecules. On one side, brighter variants of the Green Fluorescence Protein (GFP) have been engineered that have different e Read More