Current Protein and Peptide Science - Volume 6, Issue 2, 2005

The enzyme 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO) initiates the synthesis of leukotrienes. For this reason, 5-LO activity is important for immune defense, whereas improper regulation contributes to pathogenesis, including chronic inflammation, asthma and atherosclerosis. Like all lipoxygenases, the 5-LO protein consists of two domains, a regulatory domain and a catalytic domain. Naturally, the regulatory domain determines catalytic acti Read More

This work briefly describes available sensors for cAMP and cGMP. Many sensors are based on derivatization of naturally occurring products such as immunoglobulins, protein kinases, etc. Only a few published works deal with chemosensors, which are built up by “total” chemical synthesis. This field stays opened for combinatorial chemist. The best sensors are protein kinases genetically modified with mutants of green fluoresce Read More

The folding space for all the protein sequences is limited. Therefore it was observed that many proteins, whose sequences are not related, have similar fold characteristics. The fold databases like SCOP and CATH have classified various protein folds. However, in-depth analysis of the functional features of these folds was not done. We analyzed about twenty unique SH3-like folded proteins in their structural environme Read More

Peptides based on the amino acid sequences found at protein-protein interaction sites make excellent leads for antagonist development. A statistical picture of amino acids involved in protein-protein interactions indicates that proteins recognize and interact with one another through the restricted set of specialized interface amino acid residues, Pro, Ile, Tyr, Trp, Asp and Arg. These amino acids represent residues from ea Read More

The rapid increase in experimental data along with recent progress in computational methods has brought modern biology a step closer toward solving one of the most challenging problems: prediction of protein function. Comprehension of protein function at its most basic level requires understanding of molecular interactions. Currently, it is becoming universally accepted that the scale of the accumulated data for analy Read More

The immunoglobulin (Ig) domain is a highly conserved domain predominantly observed in cell surface proteins due to its ability to resist proteolysis. By mutation and selection the Ig domain has evolved to serve diverse biological functions including growth and development, signaling, adhesion and protein-carbohydrate interactions. Collectively, proteins with Ig-like domain constitute the immunoglobulin superfamily (IgSF). The Ig Read More

The accumulation of misfolded or damaged proteins causes the failure of normal cell structure and functions necessary for growth and viability. To abort this adverse development, defective proteins must be rapidly repaired by molecular chaperones or destroyed by energy-dependent cytoplasmic proteases. A balance among these processes ultimately maintains cellular homeostasis. In eukaryotes, the 26S proteasome Read More