Protein and Peptide Letters - Volume 22, Issue 9, 2015

An increasing number of studies demonstrate the ability of peptides to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB), opening perspectives for a new class of therapeutics for central nervous system diseases. However, information on the BBB transport of peptides suffer from a wide variety in used methods and experimental set-up. Therefore, it is currently difficult, if not impossible, to classify peptides according to their BBB influx c Read More

Previous studies have proved that a novel antioxidant system composed of various antioxidant peptides (AOPs) exists in the skin of ranid frogs, keeping the redox homeostasis. However, only a small number of AOPs have been identified so far. Here, a total of 47 cDNA sequences encoding 21 different AOPs belonging to 11 families were cloned from the skin cDNA library of Limnonectes fragilis. Among them, fragilin-A1 (VKR Read More

The thermotolerant endo-1,4-β-glucanase gene, of Thermotoga petrophila RKU-1, was cloned and over-expressed in E. coli strain BL21 CodonPlus. Enzyme was purified to homogeneity, producing a single band on SDS-PAGE corresponding to 38 kDa, by purification steps of heat treatment combined with ion-exchange column chromatography. The purified enzyme was optimally active, with specific activity of 530 Umg-1 aga Read More

Urine, by accumulating all kinds of changes, was proposed to be a better source for biomarker discovery. As one of the most common post-translational modifications, phosphorylation plays a vital role in many biological activities. However, the urine phosphoproteome has been largely neglected due to the low abundance of phosphoproteins and the presence of various phosphatases in urine. The low level of backgroun Read More

Thioredoxin (TRX) catalyzes redox reactions via the reversible oxidation of the conserved active center CGPC and it is involved in multiple biological processes, some of them linked to redox activity while others not. TRX is a globular, thermodynamically stable and monomeric alpha/beta protein with a structure characterized by a central beta-sheet surrounded by alpha-helices. In this review we discuss central aspects of folding, Read More

Phospholipases A2 (PLA2s) are enzymes responsible for inflammatory effects, edema formation, myotoxicity, neurotoxicity and other manifestations from envenoming. In this paper we report the isolation and biochemical characterization of Lmr-PLA2, the first acidic PLA2 found in Lachesis muta rhombeata venom. Furthermore, this study compared biological effects of Lmr-PLA2 and crotoxin B (CB), a PLA2 from Cr Read More

A new thermostable caseinolytic serine protease was purified from the latex of Euphorbia heterophylla L. to electrophoretic homogeneity by a procedure involving successive steps of pretreatment of the latex, PEG fractionation, CM-cellulose chromatography and DEAE-cellulose chromatography. The purified protease was found to be a monomeric protein of molecular weight 77.2 kDa. It exhibited caseinolytic acti Read More

The peptidic nature of anti-IAPs N-terminus Smac-derived peptides precludes their utilization as potential therapeutic anticancer agents. Recent advances in the development of novel Smacderived peptidomimetics and non-peptidic molecules with improved anti-IAPs activity and resistance to proteolytic cleavage have been reported and led to a number of candidates that are currently in clinical trials including LCL-161, SM-406 Read More

Shiga toxin family comprises toxins belonging to two major groups, Stx1 and Stx2, produced by the bacteria Shigella dysenteriae and some strains of Escherichia coli. Shiga toxins are the leading cause of diarrhea associated with life threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). StxA is a ribosome inactivating protein (RIP) which inhibits the protein synthesis in most species of prokaryotes and eukaryotes. An in vitro expres Read More

With the particular conjugation structure in the heme prosthetic group, Cyt c shows unusual functions similar to chlorophyll while irradiated by specific wavelength of UV-Vis lights. To further reveal mechanism of the photo-irradiation of Cyt c, we then studied various external factors that may influence the photo induced process. The absorbance intensity increase of band (317 nm) and Q band (520 nm and 549 nm)indicat Read More