Protein and Peptide Letters - Volume 18, Issue 8, 2011

The small, highly basic nuclear proteins called protamine that package DNA in the sperm of all mammals, most vertebrates and many plant species were discovered nearly 150 years ago. These amazing little proteins have been found to exhibit little structural or functional similarity to any other known chromatin or DNA binding protein. The protamines, which are categorized into two closely related families, protamine P1 and pro Read More

Despite their relatively arginine-rich composition, protamines exhibit a high degree of structural variation. Indeed, the primary structure of these histone H1-related sperm nuclear basic proteins (SNBPs) is not random and is the depository of important phylogenetic information. This appears to be the result of their fast rate of evolution driven by positive selection. The way by which the protein variability participates in the transiti Read More

During spermiogenesis, human sperm undergo a dramatic reorganization of the chromatin in which canonical histones are replaced by two types of protamines, protamine 1 (P1) and protamine (P2). P1 and P2 are expressed approximately at a 1:1 ratio in healthy men. Alteration of this ratio is associated with male infertility. Patients with an abnormal P1/P2 ratio generally exhibit diminished semen quality, lower fertilization abilit Read More

Protamine 2 (P2) is synthesised as a precursor protein (pre-P2) which by proteolysis is processed to generate the mature components of the protamine 2 family of proteins (HP2, HP3 and HP4). In infertile patients, abnormal processing of the protamine 2 precursors has been suggested by the detection of an increased presence of precursor forms. However, the presence of small detectable amounts of precursor proteins h Read More

During spermiogenesis, the elongating rat spermatid chromatin undergoes a gradual process of condensation which is initiated in the round spermatids at “step 7” of cytodifferentation in stage VII and extending to elongated spermatids at “step 19” of cytodifferentiation in stage VIII. The mechanism of chromatin condensation in the elongating spermatids is an elaborate process that encompasses several biochemical and Read More

Single molecule studies of protamine-DNA interactions have characterized the kinetics of protamine binding to DNA and the morphology of the toroidal subunits that comprise sperm chromatin. The results provided by these studies are reviewed, the advantage of using single molecule techniques is discussed, and the implications of the results to the structure, kinetics of toroid formation, and stability of the DNA-protami Read More

During late stages of spermatogenesis in mammals, most histones bound to DNA are replaced by protamines (PRM), which results in formation of supercondensed and genetically inert sperm chromatin. At fertilization, mature spermatozoon penetrates oocyte and chromatin is remodeled “back” from nucleoprotamine to nucleohistone state. While being crucial for activation of male genome and ultimately for initiation of e Read More

This is report of mutational analysis of higher plant 5'-methylthioadenosine nucleosidase (MTAN). We identified and characterized the gene encoding yellow lupine (Lupinus luteus) MTAN (LlMTAN). The role of active site amino acids residues Glu24, Phe134, Glu188 and Asp211 was analyzed by site-directed mutagenesis. The Glu24Gln and Asp211Asn substitutions completely abolished the enzyme activity. The Glu188 Read More

The development of a stable L-BDH chimera was attempted by exchanging whole domains between two native structural analogs, L-BDH and meso-BDH, because the S-configuration specificity of L-BDH is valuable from the standpoint of its application but its activity is unstable, whereas meso-BDH is stable. The domain chimeras obtained indicated that the leaf-like structures constituting three domains were likely to be m Read More

Signal peptides recognition by bioinformatics approaches is particularly important for the efficient secretion and production of specific proteins. We concentrate on developing an integrated fuzzy Fisher clustering (IFFC) and designing a novel classifier based on IFFC for predicting secretory proteins. IFFC provides a powerful optimal discriminant vector calculated by fuzzy intra-cluster scatter matrix and fuzzy inter-cluster scat Read More

Based on B cell epitope predictions, a recombinant antigen with multiple epitopes from four Hepatitis C Virus fragments (C, NS3, NS4 and NS5) were engineered. The recombinant gene was then highly expressed in E. coli. The nonmodified and C-terminal-modified recombinant proteins were used for coating and biotin labeling, respectively, to establish the double-antigen sandwich ELISA. Ten positive reference samples confir Read More

The O-acyl isopeptide method has recently gained attention as an efficient protocol for the synthesis of ‘difficult sequence‘ peptides. Herein, synthesis of three oligopeptides of different length, a pentapeptide Gly-Leu-Leu-Ser-Val, a heptapeptide fragment 285-291 of transmembrane (M7-24-T40) Ala-Val-Leu-Ser-Leu-Pro-Leu and a decapeptide, Gly- Leu-Leu-Ser-Val-Leu-Gly-Ser-Val-Ala were demonstrated in solution phase b Read More