Protein and Peptide Letters - Volume 21, Issue 7, 2014

Aminoacyl-tRNA protein transferases post-translationally conjugate an amino acid from an aminoacyl-tRNA onto the N-terminus of a target polypeptide. The eubacterial aminoacyl-tRNA protein transferase, L/F transferase, utilizes both leucyl-tRNALeu and phenylalanyl-tRNAPhe as substrates. X-ray crystal structures with substrate analogues, the minimal substrate phenylalanyl adenosine (rA-Phe) and inhibitor puro Read More

Geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase (GGPP synthase or GGPPS) is among the short-chain prenyltransferases, catalyzing the formation of the acyclic precursor GGPP for the biosynthesis of a variety of isoprenoids. GGPPSs have been extensively studied in plants, eubacteria, archaebacteria, yeast and mammals, but up to now information about an insect GGPPS is still scarce. Here we cloned the cDNA encoding an insect GGPP Read More

Ubiquitin carboxyl hydrolase L1 (UCH-L1) is an abundant multifunctional neuron protein. It plays an important role in maintaining the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS), vital for recognizing and degrading dysfunctional proteins in organisms. In recent decades, UCH-L1 has been implicated in the pathogenesis of many diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders, cancer and diabetes. However, the mechanisms of UCH-L Read More

Hatching enzyme (HE) is secreted from the blastula stage during fertilization and can cleave the egg membrane. The structural identification and proteolytic effects on the collagen and fibrinogen were investigated in this study. Approximate 20 kDa of Asn-linked oligosaccharides were attached to the HE. Five peptide fragments of the starfish HE were homogenous to those of the coat matrix protein of starfish Patiria pectinifera. Read More

Protein-protein interactions between the C-terminal domain of Myosin Binding Subunit (MBS) of MLC Phosphatase (MBSCT180; C-terminal 180 aa) and the N-terminal coiled coil (CC) leucine zipper (LZ) domain of PKGI α, PKG-Iα1-159 play an important role in the process of Smooth Muscle Cell relaxation. The paucity of three-dimensional structural information for MBSCT180 prevents an atomic level understanding of the MBS–P Read More

Lethal Toxin Neutralizing Factor (LTNF) isolated from Opossum (Didephis virginiana) has been shown to exhibit anti-venom and anti-allergic property. The small synthetic peptide- LT10 derived from N-terminal of LTNF also showed this property in vivo. We applied molecular modeling, docking and molecular dynamic (MD) simulation techniques to compute the interaction of LT10 peptide with few snake venom enzymes, namely PLA Read More

A comparison between three-dimensional structures of a wild-type xylanase AoXyn11A and a hybrid xylanase AEx11A revealed that a disulfide bridge (Cys5-Cys32) and an N-glycosylation site (Asn42) were imported into AEx11A by N-terminal substitution of AoXyn11A with EvXyn11TS. Two mutant genes AEx11A C5T and AEx11A N42Q were constructed by mutating Cys5- and Asn42-encoding codons of AEx11A into Thr5- an Read More

Aspergillus fumigatus is a saprophytic fungus as well as a so-called opportunist pathogen. Its biochemical potential and enzyme production justify intensive studies about biomolecules secreted by this microorganism. We describe the alkaline serine peptidase production, with optimum activity at 50°C and a pH of 7.5 and a reduction in proteolytic activity in the presence of the Al+3 ions. When using intramolecularly quenched fl Read More

The objective of this study was to design and synthesize a new CPP-PNA conjugate that would be able to penetrate endothelial cells, bind STAT1 mRNA and thereby block the activity of STAT1 (the Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 1), which is important in cases of vessel inflammation. In the course of the study, the TAMRA-PTD-4- Hal(traziole-Gly-PNA)-conjugate was successfully synthesized using a specifi Read More

RadA is an archaeal orthologue of human recombinase Rad51. This superfamily of recombinases, which also includes eukaryal meiosis-specific DMC1 and remotely related bacterial RecA, form filaments on single-stranded DNA in the presence of ATP and promote a strand exchange reaction between the single-stranded DNA and a homologous doublestranded DNA. Due to its feasibility of getting crystals and similarity (> 40% Read More

Identifying protein complexes in protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks is a fundamental problem in computational biology. High-throughput experimental techniques have generated large, experimentally detected PPI datasets. These interactions represent a rich source of data that can be used to detect protein complexes; however, such interactions contain much noise. Therefore, these interactions should be validated Read More

A 64-kDa dimeric lectin was purified from Phaseolus vulgaris cv. Japanese mottled beans. The purification protocol involved ion exchange chromatography with Q-Sepharose and SP-Sepharose and size exclusion chromatography on Superdex 75. The lectin was adsorbed on both Q-Sepharose and SP-Sepharose columns. Finally, the lectin gave a sharp absorbance peak which corresponded to 64 kDa based on results Read More