Ramping Recombinant Protein Expression in Bacteria.
Published in Biochemistry
HD-[HD-GYP] Phosphodiesterases: Activities and Evolutionary Diversification within the HD-GYP Family.
Published in Biochemistry
Cyclic dinucleotides are signaling molecules that modulate many processes, including immune response and virulence factor production. Their cellular levels in bacteria are fine-tuned by metal-dependent phosphodiesterases, namely, the EAL and HD-GYP proteins, with HD-GYPs belonging to the larger HD domain superfamily. In this study, we first focus o...
Enzyme-Substrate-Cofactor Dynamical Networks Revealed by High-Resolution Field Cycling Relaxometry.
Published in Biochemistry
The remarkable power and specificity of enzyme catalysis rely on the dynamic alignment of the enzyme, substrates, and cofactors, yet the role of dynamics has usually been approached from the perspective of the protein. We have been using an underappreciated NMR technique, subtesla high-resolution field cycling 31P NMR relaxometry, to investigate th...
Disruption of the CD Loop by Enzymatic Cleavage Promotes the Formation of Toxic Transthyretin Oligomers through a Common...
Published in Biochemistry
Amyloid formation of full-length TTR involves dissociation of the native tetramers into misfolded monomers that self-assemble into amyloid. In addition to the full-length TTR, C-terminal fragments including residues 49-127 were also observed in vivo, implying the presence of additional misfolding pathways. It was previously proposed that a proteoly...
Menstrual Variation in Experimental Pain: Correlation with Gonadal Hormones
Published in Neuropsychobiology
Background: The results of studies examining the response to experimental pain during the menstrual cycle are conflicting because of differences in the definitions of the menstrual period, outcome measures and types of experimental pain stimulation. So far, there have been only a few studies correlating experimental pain with the levels of gonadal ...
Why are lopinavir and ritonavir effective against the newly emerged Coronavirus 2019?: Atomistic insights into the inhib...
Published in Biochemistry
Since the emergence of a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was firstly reported from Wuhan, China, to date, neither a specific vaccine nor antiviral drug against SARS-CoV-2 is available. However, a combination of two HIV-1 protease inhibitors lopinavir and ritonavir has been ...
Extending the σ-Hole Motif for Sequence Specific Recognition of the DNA Minor Groove.
Published in Biochemistry
The majority of current drugs against diseases, such as cancer, can bind to one or more sites in a protein and inhibit its activity. There are, however, well known limits on the number of druggable proteins and complementing current drugs with compounds that could selectively target DNA or RNA would greatly enhance the availability of cellular prob...
Subunit Interaction Dynamics of Class Ia Ribonucleotide Reductases: In Search of a Robust Assay
Published in Biochemistry
Mutational and Functional Analyses of Substrate Binding and Catalysis of the Listeria monocytogenes EutT ATP:Co(I)rrinoi...
Published in Biochemistry
ATP:Co(I)rrinoid adenosyltransferases (ACATs) catalyze the transfer of the adenosyl moiety from co-substrate ATP to a corrinoid substrate. ACATs are grouped into three families, namely, CobA, PduO, and EutT. The EutT family of enzymes is further divided into two classes, depending on whether they require a divalent metal ion for activity (class I a...
IpdE1-IpdE2 Is a Heterotetrameric Acyl Coenzyme A Dehydrogenase That Is Widely Distributed in Steroid-Degrading Bacteria...
...Published in Biochemistry
Steroid-degrading bacteria, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis ( Mtb ), utilize an architecturally distinct subfamily of acyl coenzyme A dehydrogenases (ACADs) for steroid catabolism. These ACADs are α2β2 heterotetramers that are usually encoded by adjacent fadE- like genes. In mycobacteria, ipdE1 and ipdE2 (formerly fadE30 and fadE33 ) occur in ...
