Current Protein and Peptide Science - Volume 7, Issue 2, 2006

Azo dyes, which are characterized by one or more azo bonds, are a predominant class of colorants used in tattooing, cosmetics, foods, and consumer products. These dyes are mainly metabolized by bacteria to colorless aromatic amines, some of which are carcinogenic, by azoreductases that catalyze a NAD(P)H-dependent reduction. The resulting amines are further degraded aerobically by bacteria. Some Read More

Insulin-resistance is a major problem associated with diabetes and that is increasing rapidly worldwide. Insulin is a peptide hormone secreted by the β-cells of the pancreatic islets of Langerhans in response to increased circulating levels of glucose and amino acids and it is essential for appropriate tissue development, growth, and maintenance of wholebody glucose homeostasis by regulating carbohydrate, lipid and prot Read More

EBNA 3C is one of only nine proteins expressed by the tumourigenic γ-herpesvirus Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) during the infection and immortalization of human B lymphocytes. In fact, the expression of EBNA 3C has been shown to be essential for the B-cell transformation process to take place. The mechanism by which EBNA 3C contributes to viral pathogenicity has therefore been the subject of intensive research over many ye Read More

In the past two decades a large initiative has been put forth to understand the biological and pathogenic properties of the human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1); this has ultimately led to the development of various experimental vaccination and therapeutic strategies to combat HTLV-1 infection. The focus of this work is to outline key targets for the design of therapeutics for HTLV-1, such as fusion mediat Read More

By utilizing recently developed full-length cDNA technologies, large-scale cDNA sequencing was carried out by several cDNA projects. Now full-length cDNA resources cover the major part of the protein-coding human genes. Comprehensive analyses of the collected full-length cDNA data revealed not only the complete sequences of thousands of novel gene transcripts but also novel alternatively spliced isoforms of hithert Read More

The application of recombinant immunotoxin and radioimmunoconjugate in Cancer therapy has revived the "magic bullet" concept predicted a century ago. Many of the recombinant antibodies have received FDA approval for various indication of cancer in recent years and numerous others are in clinical trials.

The ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation pathway exerts a wide spectrum of effects and modulates a variety of biological processes including cell cycle progression, transcriptional regulation, signal transduction, antigen presentation, apoptosis (or programmed cell death), oncogenesis, preimplantation, and DNA repair. Recently, the importance of deubiquitination mechanism has been emerged as an essential regulatory Read More