Protein and Peptide Letters - Volume 22, Issue 12, 2015

Two putative α-D-galactosidases (α-GALs) belonging to glycosyl hydrolase family 27, and originating from the rather unexplored bacterial strain Pedobacter heparinus, were cloned and biochemically characterized. The recombinant enzymes designated as PhAGal729 and PhAGal2920 showed comparable biochemical properties: the optimum pH values were determined to be pH 5.0 and 5.5, and temperature optima lay betwee Read More

Lysophosphatidyletnolamine (LPE) is one of enigmatic lipids of bacteria. It is generated from major membrane lipid - phosphatidylethanolamine at severe changes of the bacterial growth conditions. Accumulation of this phospholipid in cells of Gram-negative enterobacterium Yersinia pseudotuberculosis results in the enhanced thermostability of OmpF-like porin (YOmpF) from the same bacteria. The respective integral Read More

It is estimated that several million people are currently infected worldwide by the protozoan parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes Chagas disease. After mammalian host infection, a fundamental event is the differentiation from infective trypomastigotes into replicative amastigotes (amastigogenesis) inside host-cells. To unravel the particularities of both forms, it is essential to identify molecules presented in each for Read More

The present study dealt with the isolation, identification and characterization of pigments from red snow samples of the Quito coastal front glacier (S 62º 27,217’, W 059º 45,960’) in Greenwich, Archipelago South Shetland, Antarctica, during summer 2013. As a strain of Shewanella was found to be the most common and abundant species with maximum red color production, the pigment -contained in the protein fraction- was isol Read More

Novokinin is a vasorelaxing peptide designed according to the structure of ovokinin(2-7) that is released from ovalbumin by chymotryptic digestion. It has attracted much attention due to its variety of pharmacological and biological characteristics. The purpose of this research was to judge the effect and the mechanism of novokinin on porcine coronary arteries. The isometrical tension of coronary arterial rings getted from porci Read More

β-lactoglobulin (BLG), the major bovine whey protein, is a well-characterized globular protein. It is a model protein for studying the structural transition and aggregation. BLG unfolds and aggregates through chemical and physical processes. It is a predominantly β-sheet protein but, the non-native α-helical intermediate accumulates in its folding pathway. The present study aims to understand more about which stage of t Read More

SsoPox, a ~35 kDa enzyme from Sulfolobus solfataricus, can hydrolyze and inactivate a variety of organophosphate (OP)-compounds. The enzyme is a potential candidate for the development of prophylactic and therapeutic agent against OP-poisoning in humans. However, the therapeutic use of recombinant SsoPox suffers from certain limitations associated with the use of recombinant protein pharmaceuticals. Some of these l Read More

The formation of amyloid-like fibrils was studied by using the well-known serine protease trypsin as a model protein in the presence of ethanol as organic solvent. Trypsin forms amyloid-like fibrils in aqueous ethanol at pH = 7.0. The dye Congo red (CR) was used to detect the presence of amyloid-like fibrils in the samples. The binding of CR to fibrils led to an increase in absorption intensity and a red shift in the absorption b Read More

Kinins are important vasoactive peptides, but the role of the B1 receptor subtype in the vascular control is poorly understood. This study analyzed the nitric oxide (NO) release, L-arginine (L-Arg) uptake and the expression of the cationic amino acid transporter (CAT) -1 in endothelial cells obtained from B1 receptor knockout (B1-/-) and wild type (WT) mice. NO production was assessed through a fluorescent dye in living cell Read More

Dihydroorotase (DHOase) is the third enzyme in the de novo biosynthesis pathway of pyrimidine nucleotides. DHOase is divided into two types (I and II). Type II DHOase generally contains a binuclear metal center in its active site. Recently, the crystal structure of DHOase domain in human CAD protein (huDHOase) has revealed three metal ions in the protein’s active site. However, whether type II DHOase can have the critic Read More

Trypsin is a protease, which is commonly used for the digestion of protein samples in proteomic experiments. The process of trypsin autolysis is known to produce autolytic peptides as well as active enzyme forms with one or more intra-chain splits. In consequence, their variable presence can influence the digestion of a protein substrate in the reaction mixture. Besides two major and well-studied forms named β-trypsin an Read More

PEGylation is considered a successful technique to enhance the therapeutic and biotechnological potentials of peptides, proteins, toxins and drugs. The conjugation of polyethylene glycol (PEG) increases the size and molecular weight of conjugated molecule and improves its pharmacokinetics and pharmacodinamics by increasing water solubility, protecting from enzymatic degradation, reducing renal clearance and limiting im Read More