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The mechanisms that regulate the activity of the nonreceptor tyrosine kinase Ack1 (activated Cdc42-associated kinase) are poorly understood. The amino-terminal region of Ack1 is predicted to contain a sterile ...
Mycobacterium tuberculosis topoisomerase I (MtTOP1) and Escherichia coli topoisomerase I have highly homologous transesterification domains, but the two enzymes have distinctly different C-terminal domains. To in...
Since chitin is a highly abundant natural biopolymer, many attempts have been made to convert this insoluble polysaccharide into commercially valuable products using chitinases and β-N-acetylglucosaminidases (Glc...
The LGI2 (leucine-rich, glioma inactivated 2) gene, a prime candidate for partial epilepsy with pericentral spikes, belongs to a family encoding secreted, beta-propeller domain proteins with EPTP/EAR epilepsy-...
Genes involved in hepatic metabolism have a sex-different expression in rodents. To test whether male and female rat livers differ regarding lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, whole-genome transcript profiles ...
Minichromosome maintenance proteins (Mcm) 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 are related by sequence and form a variety of complexes that unwind DNA, including Mcm4/6/7. A Mcm4/6/7 trimer forms one half of the Mcm2-7 hexamer...
Proteinase-activated-receptor-2 (PAR2) is a seven transmembrane receptor that can activate two separate signaling arms: one through Gαq and Ca2+ mobilization, and a second through recruitment of β-arrestin scaffo...
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a virulent bacillus causing tuberculosis, a disease responsible for million deaths each year worldwide. In order to understand its mechanism of pathogenesis in humans and to help con...
Increasing our understanding of antibiotic resistance mechanisms is critical. To enable progress in this area, methods to rapidly identify and characterize antibiotic resistance conferring enzymes are required.
Filamentous fungi in the genus Aspergillus produce a variety of natural products, including aflatoxin, the most potent naturally occurring carcinogen known. Aflatoxin biosynthesis, one of the most highly characte...
The diversity and function of ligninolytic genes in soil-inhabiting ascomycetes has not yet been elucidated, despite their possible role in plant litter decay processes. Among ascomycetes, Trichoderma reesei is a...
Sulfhydryl oxidases are flavin-dependent enzymes that catalyse the formation of de novo disulfide bonds from free thiol groups, with the reduction of molecular oxygen to hydrogen peroxide. Sulfhydryl oxidases ...
When cells are exposed to high salinity conditions, they develop a mechanism to extrude excess Na+ from cells to maintain the cytoplasmic Na+ concentration. Until now, the ATPase involved in Na+ transport in cyan...
When eukaryotic cells are deprived of amino acids, uncharged tRNAs accumulate and activate the conserved GCN2 protein kinase. Activated Gcn2p up-regulates the general amino acid control pathway through phospho...
The β-carbonic anhydrase (CA, EC 4.2.1.1) enzymes have been reported in a variety of organisms, but their existence in animals has been unclear. The purpose of the present study was to perform extensive sequen...
A small heat shock protein AgsA was originally isolated from Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium. We previously demonstrated that AgsA was an effective chaperone that could reduce the amount of heat-aggregate...
SIN3 is a transcriptional repressor protein known to regulate many genes, including a number of those that encode mitochondrial components.
Cysteine sulfenic acid (Cys-SOH) plays important roles in the redox regulation of numerous proteins. As a relatively unstable posttranslational protein modification it is difficult to quantify the degree to wh...
Sphaeroides Heme Protein (SHP) was discovered in the purple photosynthetic bacterium, Rhodobacter sphaeroides, and is the only known c-type heme protein that binds oxygen. Although initially not believed to be wi...
The expression of the drug-metabolizing enzyme cytochrome P450 3A4 (CYP3A4) is regulated by the pregnane × receptor (PXR), which is modulated by numerous signaling pathways, including the cyclin-dependent kina...
The archaeal exosome is formed by a hexameric RNase PH ring and three RNA binding subunits and has been shown to bind and degrade RNA in vitro. Despite extensive studies on the eukaryotic exosome and on the prote...
Maltose-1-phosphate was detected in Mycobacterium bovis BCG extracts in the 1960's but a maltose-1-phosphate synthetase (maltokinase, Mak) was only much later purified from Actinoplanes missouriensis, allowing th...
Although numerous non-radioactive methods are in use to measure the catalytic activity of protein kinases, most require specialized equipment and reagents and are not sufficiently sensitive for the detection o...
Kynurenine aminotransferase (KAT) catalyzes the transamination of kynunrenine to kynurenic acid (KYNA). KYNA is a neuroactive compound and functions as an antagonist of alpha7-nicotinic acetylcholine receptors...
Activation of fatty acids by acyl-CoA synthetase enzymes is required for de novo lipid synthesis, fatty acid catabolism, and remodeling of biological membranes. Human long-chain acyl-CoA synthetase member 6, ASCL...
The genome of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans contains more than 30 putative globin genes that all are transcribed. Although their translated amino acid sequences fit the globin fold, a variety of amino-acid ...
Unconjugated bilirubin (UCB) is an unstable substance with very low aqueous solubility. Its aqueous pKa values affect many of its interactions, particularly their pH-dependence. A companion paper shows that on...
Correct aqueous pKa values of unconjugated bilirubin (UCB), a poorly-soluble, unstable substance, are essential for understanding its functions. Our prior solvent partition studies, of unlabeled and [14C] UCB, in...
We have recently demonstrated that modulation of the gap junction protein, connexin43, can affect the response of osteoblasts to fibroblast growth factor 2 in a protein kinase C-delta-dependent manner. Others ...
Microbial degradation of azo dyes is commonly initiated by the reduction of the azo bond(s) by a group of NADH or NADPH dependant azoreductases with many requiring flavin as a cofactor. In this study, we repor...
An important variability of contractile and metabolic properties between muscles has been highlighted. In the literature, the majority of studies on beef sensorial quality concerns M. longissimus thoracis. M. rec...
Natural rubber is a biopolymer with exceptional qualities that cannot be completely replaced using synthetic alternatives. Although several key enzymes in the rubber biosynthetic pathway have been isolated, ma...
Type four secretion systems (TFSS) are bacterial macromolecular transport systems responsible for transfer of various substrates such as proteins, DNA or protein-DNA complexes. TFSSs encode two or three ATPase...
Thiamine diphosphate (ThDP)-dependent enzymes form a vast and diverse class of proteins, catalyzing a wide variety of enzymatic reactions including the formation or cleavage of carbon-sulfur, carbon-oxygen, ca...
Orthophosphate recognition at allosteric binding sites is a key feature for the regulation of enzyme activity in mammalian glycogen phosphorylases. Protein residues co-ordinating orthophosphate in three bindin...
Some functions of 4.1R in non-erythroid cells are directly related with its distinct sub-cellular localisation during cell cycle phases. During mitosis, 4.1R is implicated in cell cycle progression and spindle...
Plant latex is the cytoplasm of highly specialized cells known as laticifers, and is thought to have a critical role in defense against herbivorous insects. Proteins abundantly accumulated in latex might there...
In the last ten years, deficiencies in tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCAC) enzymes have been shown to cause a wide spectrum of human diseases, including malignancies and neurological and cardiac diseases. A prereq...
The phosphoethanolamine methyltransferase, PfPMT, of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, a member of a newly identified family of phosphoethanolamine methyltransferases (PMT) found solely in some pr...
Protein-SH groups are amongst the most easily oxidized residues in proteins, but irreversible oxidation can be prevented by protein glutathionylation, in which protein-SH groups form mixed disulphides with glu...
Leptin is an adipocyte-derived hormone that acts via its hypothalamic receptor (LEPRb) to regulate energy balance. A downstream effect essential for the weight-regulatory action of leptin is the phosphorylatio...
Phosphoenolpyruvate synthetase (PEPS; EC 2.7.9.2) catalyzes the synthesis of phosphoenolpyruvate from pyruvate in Escherichia coli when cells are grown on a three carbon source. It also catalyses the anabolic con...
Estrogen receptor α (ERα) phosphorylation is important for estrogen-dependent transcription of ER-dependent genes, ligand-independent receptor activation and endocrine therapy response in breast cancer. Howeve...
The Toc159 family of proteins serve as receptors for chloroplast-destined preproteins. They directly bind to transit peptides, and exhibit preprotein substrate selectivity conferred by an unknown mechanism. Th...
We have previously identified endonuclein as a cell cycle regulated WD-repeat protein that is up-regulated in adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. Now, we aim to investigate its biomedical functions.
FGFRL1, the gene for the fifth member of the fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) family, is found in all vertebrates from fish to man and in the cephalochordate amphioxus. Since it does not occur in more ...
Methionine aminopeptidase (MetAP) is a ubiquitous enzyme required for cell survival and an attractive target for antibacterial and anticancer drug development. The number of a divalent metal required for catal...
β-carotene 15,15'-monooxygenase (BCMO1) catalyzes the crucial first step in vitamin A biosynthesis in animals. We wished to explore the possibility that a carbocation intermediate is formed during the cleavage...
Ghrelin (GRLN) is now known to be an appetite-stimulating and growth hormone (GH)-releasing peptide that is predominantly synthesized and secreted from the stomachs of various vertebrate species from fish to m...
Molecular mechanisms underlying prion agent replication, converting host-encoded cellular prion protein (PrPC) into the scrapie associated isoform (PrPSc), are poorly understood. Selective self-interaction betwee...