Regulation of synaptic inhibition by phospho-dependent binding of the AP2 complex to a YECL motif in the GABAA receptor γ2 subunit

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Kittler, Josef T.; Chen, Guojun; Kukhtina, Viktoria; Vahedi-Faridi, Ardeschir; Gu, Zhenglin; Tretter, Verena; Smith, Katharine R.; McAinsh, Kristina; Arancibia-Carcamo, I. Lorena; Saenger, Wolfram; Haucke, Volker; Yan, Zhen; Moss, Stephen J.

2008-01-01

The regulation of the number of γ2-subunit-containing GABAA receptors (GABAARs) present at synapses is critical for correct synaptic inhibition and animal behavior. This regulation occurs, in part, by the controlled removal of receptors from the membrane in clathrin-coated vesicles, but it remains unclear how clathrin recruitment to surface γ2-subunit-containing GABAARs is regulated. Here, we identify a γ2-subunit-specific Yxxφ-type-binding motif for the clathrin adaptor protein, AP2, which is located within a site for γ2-subunit tyrosine phosphorylation. Blocking GABAAR-AP2 interactions via this motif increases synaptic responses within minutes. Crystallographic and biochemical studies reveal that phosphorylation of the Yxxφ motif inhibits AP2 binding, leading to increased surface receptor number. In addition, the crystal structure provides an explanation for the high affinity of this motif for AP2 and suggests that γ2-subunit-containing heteromeric GABAARs may be internalized as dimers or multimers. These data define a mechanism for tyrosine kinase regulation of GABAAR surface levels and synaptic inhibition. PMID:18305175

OSR1 regulates a subset of inward rectifier potassium channels via a binding motif variant.

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Taylor, Clinton A; An, Sung-Wan; Kankanamalage, Sachith Gallolu; Stippec, Steve; Earnest, Svetlana; Trivedi, Ashesh T; Yang, Jonathan Zijiang; Mirzaei, Hamid; Huang, Chou-Long; Cobb, Melanie H

2018-04-10

The with-no-lysine (K) (WNK) signaling pathway to STE20/SPS1-related proline- and alanine-rich kinase (SPAK) and oxidative stress-responsive 1 (OSR1) kinase is an important mediator of cell volume and ion transport. SPAK and OSR1 associate with upstream kinases WNK 1-4, substrates, and other proteins through their C-terminal domains which interact with linear R-F-x-V/I sequence motifs. In this study we find that SPAK and OSR1 also interact with similar affinity with a motif variant, R-x-F-x-V/I. Eight of 16 human inward rectifier K + channels have an R-x-F-x-V motif. We demonstrate that two of these channels, Kir2.1 and Kir2.3, are activated by OSR1, while Kir4.1, which does not contain the motif, is not sensitive to changes in OSR1 or WNK activity. Mutation of the motif prevents activation of Kir2.3 by OSR1. Both siRNA knockdown of OSR1 and chemical inhibition of WNK activity disrupt NaCl-induced plasma membrane localization of Kir2.3. Our results suggest a mechanism by which WNK-OSR1 enhance Kir2.1 and Kir2.3 channel activity by increasing their plasma membrane localization. Regulation of members of the inward rectifier K + channel family adds functional and mechanistic insight into the physiological impact of the WNK pathway.

Regulation of synaptic inhibition by phospho-dependent binding of the AP2 complex to a YECL motif in the GABAA receptor gamma2 subunit.

Science.gov (United States)

Kittler, Josef T; Chen, Guojun; Kukhtina, Viktoria; Vahedi-Faridi, Ardeschir; Gu, Zhenglin; Tretter, Verena; Smith, Katharine R; McAinsh, Kristina; Arancibia-Carcamo, I Lorena; Saenger, Wolfram; Haucke, Volker; Yan, Zhen; Moss, Stephen J

2008-03-04

The regulation of the number of gamma2-subunit-containing GABA(A) receptors (GABA(A)Rs) present at synapses is critical for correct synaptic inhibition and animal behavior. This regulation occurs, in part, by the controlled removal of receptors from the membrane in clathrin-coated vesicles, but it remains unclear how clathrin recruitment to surface gamma2-subunit-containing GABA(A)Rs is regulated. Here, we identify a gamma2-subunit-specific Yxxvarphi-type-binding motif for the clathrin adaptor protein, AP2, which is located within a site for gamma2-subunit tyrosine phosphorylation. Blocking GABA(A)R-AP2 interactions via this motif increases synaptic responses within minutes. Crystallographic and biochemical studies reveal that phosphorylation of the Yxxvarphi motif inhibits AP2 binding, leading to increased surface receptor number. In addition, the crystal structure provides an explanation for the high affinity of this motif for AP2 and suggests that gamma2-subunit-containing heteromeric GABA(A)Rs may be internalized as dimers or multimers. These data define a mechanism for tyrosine kinase regulation of GABA(A)R surface levels and synaptic inhibition.

Motif enrichment tool.

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Blatti, Charles; Sinha, Saurabh

2014-07-01

The Motif Enrichment Tool (MET) provides an online interface that enables users to find major transcriptional regulators of their gene sets of interest. MET searches the appropriate regulatory region around each gene and identifies which transcription factor DNA-binding specificities (motifs) are statistically overrepresented. Motif enrichment analysis is currently available for many metazoan species including human, mouse, fruit fly, planaria and flowering plants. MET also leverages high-throughput experimental data such as ChIP-seq and DNase-seq from ENCODE and ModENCODE to identify the regulatory targets of a transcription factor with greater precision. The results from MET are produced in real time and are linked to a genome browser for easy follow-up analysis. Use of the web tool is free and open to all, and there is no login requirement. ADDRESS: http://veda.cs.uiuc.edu/MET/. © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Deciphering functional glycosaminoglycan motifs in development.

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Townley, Robert A; Bülow, Hannes E

2018-03-23

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) such as heparan sulfate, chondroitin/dermatan sulfate, and keratan sulfate are linear glycans, which when attached to protein backbones form proteoglycans. GAGs are essential components of the extracellular space in metazoans. Extensive modifications of the glycans such as sulfation, deacetylation and epimerization create structural GAG motifs. These motifs regulate protein-protein interactions and are thereby repsonsible for many of the essential functions of GAGs. This review focusses on recent genetic approaches to characterize GAG motifs and their function in defined signaling pathways during development. We discuss a coding approach for GAGs that would enable computational analyses of GAG sequences such as alignments and the computation of position weight matrices to describe GAG motifs. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Transduction motif analysis of gastric cancer based on a human signaling network

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Liu, G.; Li, D.Z.; Jiang, C.S.; Wang, W. [Fuzhou General Hospital of Nanjing Command, Department of Gastroenterology, Fuzhou, China, Department of Gastroenterology, Fuzhou General Hospital of Nanjing Command, Fuzhou (China)

2014-04-04

To investigate signal regulation models of gastric cancer, databases and literature were used to construct the signaling network in humans. Topological characteristics of the network were analyzed by CytoScape. After marking gastric cancer-related genes extracted from the CancerResource, GeneRIF, and COSMIC databases, the FANMOD software was used for the mining of gastric cancer-related motifs in a network with three vertices. The significant motif difference method was adopted to identify significantly different motifs in the normal and cancer states. Finally, we conducted a series of analyses of the significantly different motifs, including gene ontology, function annotation of genes, and model classification. A human signaling network was constructed, with 1643 nodes and 5089 regulating interactions. The network was configured to have the characteristics of other biological networks. There were 57,942 motifs marked with gastric cancer-related genes out of a total of 69,492 motifs, and 264 motifs were selected as significantly different motifs by calculating the significant motif difference (SMD) scores. Genes in significantly different motifs were mainly enriched in functions associated with cancer genesis, such as regulation of cell death, amino acid phosphorylation of proteins, and intracellular signaling cascades. The top five significantly different motifs were mainly cascade and positive feedback types. Almost all genes in the five motifs were cancer related, including EPOR, MAPK14, BCL2L1, KRT18, PTPN6, CASP3, TGFBR2, AR, and CASP7. The development of cancer might be curbed by inhibiting signal transductions upstream and downstream of the selected motifs.

The identification of functional motifs in temporal gene expression analysis

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Michael G. Surette

2005-01-01

Full Text Available The identification of transcription factor binding sites is essential to the understanding of the regulation of gene expression and the reconstruction of genetic regulatory networks. The in silico identification of cis-regulatory motifs is challenging due to sequence variability and lack of sufficient data to generate consensus motifs that are of quantitative or even qualitative predictive value. To determine functional motifs in gene expression, we propose a strategy to adopt false discovery rate (FDR and estimate motif effects to evaluate combinatorial analysis of motif candidates and temporal gene expression data. The method decreases the number of predicted motifs, which can then be confirmed by genetic analysis. To assess the method we used simulated motif/expression data to evaluate parameters. We applied this approach to experimental data for a group of iron responsive genes in Salmonella typhimurium 14028S. The method identified known and potentially new ferric-uptake regulator (Fur binding sites. In addition, we identified uncharacterized functional motif candidates that correlated with specific patterns of expression. A SAS code for the simulation and analysis gene expression data is available from the first author upon request.

CompariMotif: quick and easy comparisons of sequence motifs.

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Edwards, Richard J; Davey, Norman E; Shields, Denis C

2008-05-15

CompariMotif is a novel tool for making motif-motif comparisons, identifying and describing similarities between regular expression motifs. CompariMotif can identify a number of different relationships between motifs, including exact matches, variants of degenerate motifs and complex overlapping motifs. Motif relationships are scored using shared information content, allowing the best matches to be easily identified in large comparisons. Many input and search options are available, enabling a list of motifs to be compared to itself (to identify recurring motifs) or to datasets of known motifs. CompariMotif can be run online at http://bioware.ucd.ie/ and is freely available for academic use as a set of open source Python modules under a GNU General Public License from http://bioinformatics.ucd.ie/shields/software/comparimotif/

Bayesian centroid estimation for motif discovery.

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Carvalho, Luis

2013-01-01

Biological sequences may contain patterns that signal important biomolecular functions; a classical example is regulation of gene expression by transcription factors that bind to specific patterns in genomic promoter regions. In motif discovery we are given a set of sequences that share a common motif and aim to identify not only the motif composition, but also the binding sites in each sequence of the set. We propose a new centroid estimator that arises from a refined and meaningful loss function for binding site inference. We discuss the main advantages of centroid estimation for motif discovery, including computational convenience, and how its principled derivation offers further insights about the posterior distribution of binding site configurations. We also illustrate, using simulated and real datasets, that the centroid estimator can differ from the traditional maximum a posteriori or maximum likelihood estimators.

Bayesian centroid estimation for motif discovery.

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Luis Carvalho

Full Text Available Biological sequences may contain patterns that signal important biomolecular functions; a classical example is regulation of gene expression by transcription factors that bind to specific patterns in genomic promoter regions. In motif discovery we are given a set of sequences that share a common motif and aim to identify not only the motif composition, but also the binding sites in each sequence of the set. We propose a new centroid estimator that arises from a refined and meaningful loss function for binding site inference. We discuss the main advantages of centroid estimation for motif discovery, including computational convenience, and how its principled derivation offers further insights about the posterior distribution of binding site configurations. We also illustrate, using simulated and real datasets, that the centroid estimator can differ from the traditional maximum a posteriori or maximum likelihood estimators.

Feedback loops and reciprocal regulation: recurring motifs in the systems biology of the cell cycle

OpenAIRE

Ferrell, James E.

2013-01-01

The study of eukaryotic cell cycle regulation over the last several decades has led to a remarkably detailed understanding of the complex regulatory system that drives this fundamental process. This allows us to now look for recurring motifs in the regulatory system. Among these are negative feedback loops, which underpin checkpoints and generate cell cycle oscillations; positive feedback loops, which promote oscillations and make cell cycle transitions switch-like and unidirectional; and rec...

A PDZ-Like Motif in the Biliary Transporter ABCB4 Interacts with the Scaffold Protein EBP50 and Regulates ABCB4 Cell Surface Expression.

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Quitterie Venot

Full Text Available ABCB4/MDR3, a member of the ABC superfamily, is an ATP-dependent phosphatidylcholine translocator expressed at the canalicular membrane of hepatocytes. Defects in the ABCB4 gene are associated with rare biliary diseases. It is essential to understand the mechanisms of its canalicular membrane expression in particular for the development of new therapies. The stability of several ABC transporters is regulated through their binding to PDZ (PSD95/DglA/ZO-1 domain-containing proteins. ABCB4 protein ends by the sequence glutamine-asparagine-leucine (QNL, which shows some similarity to PDZ-binding motifs. The aim of our study was to assess the potential role of the QNL motif on the surface expression of ABCB4 and to determine if PDZ domain-containing proteins are involved. We found that truncation of the QNL motif decreased the stability of ABCB4 in HepG2-transfected cells. The deleted mutant ABCB4-ΔQNL also displayed accelerated endocytosis. EBP50, a PDZ protein highly expressed in the liver, strongly colocalized and coimmunoprecipitated with ABCB4, and this interaction required the QNL motif. Down-regulation of EBP50 by siRNA or by expression of an EBP50 dominant-negative mutant caused a significant decrease in the level of ABCB4 protein expression, and in the amount of ABCB4 localized at the canalicular membrane. Interaction of ABCB4 with EBP50 through its PDZ-like motif plays a critical role in the regulation of ABCB4 expression and stability at the canalicular plasma membrane.

Transcriptional regulation of hepatic lipogenesis.

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Wang, Yuhui; Viscarra, Jose; Kim, Sun-Joong; Sul, Hei Sook

2015-11-01

Fatty acid and fat synthesis in the liver is a highly regulated metabolic pathway that is important for very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) production and thus energy distribution to other tissues. Having common features at their promoter regions, lipogenic genes are coordinately regulated at the transcriptional level. Transcription factors, such as upstream stimulatory factors (USFs), sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1C (SREBP1C), liver X receptors (LXRs) and carbohydrate-responsive element-binding protein (ChREBP) have crucial roles in this process. Recently, insights have been gained into the signalling pathways that regulate these transcription factors. After feeding, high blood glucose and insulin levels activate lipogenic genes through several pathways, including the DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK), atypical protein kinase C (aPKC) and AKT-mTOR pathways. These pathways control the post-translational modifications of transcription factors and co-regulators, such as phosphorylation, acetylation or ubiquitylation, that affect their function, stability and/or localization. Dysregulation of lipogenesis can contribute to hepatosteatosis, which is associated with obesity and insulin resistance.

PKR-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase is necessary for lipogenic activation during HCMV infection.

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Yongjun Yu

Full Text Available PKR-like endoplasmic reticulum (ER kinase (PERK is an ER-associated stress sensor protein which phosphorylates eukaryotic initiation factor 2α (eIF2α to induce translation attenuation in response to ER stress. PERK is also a regulator of lipogenesis during adipocyte differentiation through activation of the cleavage of sterol regulatory element binding protein 1 (SREBP1, resulting in the upregulation of lipogenic enzymes. Our recent studies have shown that human cytomegalovirus (HCMV infection in human fibroblasts (HF induces adipocyte-like lipogenesis through the activation of SREBP1. Here, we report that PERK expression is highly increased in HCMV-infected cells and is necessary for HCMV growth. Depletion of PERK, using short hairpin RNA (shRNA, resulted in attenuation of HCMV growth, inhibition of lipid synthesis and reduction of lipogenic gene expression. Examination of the cleavage of SREBP proteins showed PERK depletion inhibited the cleavage of SREBP1, but not SREBP2, in HCMV-infected cells, suggesting different cleavage regulatory mechanisms for SREBP1 and 2. Further studies showed that the depletion of SREBP1, but not SREBP2, reduced lipid synthesis in HCMV infection, suggesting that activation of SREBP1 is sufficient to induce lipogenesis in HCMV infection. The reduction of lipid synthesis by PERK depletion can be partially restored by expressing a Flag-tagged nuclear form of SREBP1a. Our studies also suggest that the induction of PERK in HCMV-infected cells stimulates SREBP1 cleavage by reducing levels of Insig1 (Insulin inducible gene 1 protein; this occurs independent of the phosphorylation of eIF2α. Introduction of an exogenous Insig1-Myc into HCMV infected cells significantly reduced HCMV growth and lipid synthesis. Our data demonstrate that the induction of PERK during HCMV infection is necessary for full activation of lipogenesis; this effect appears to be mediated by limiting the levels of Insig1 thus freeing SREBP1-SCAP

Genome-wide prediction and functional validation of promoter motifs regulating gene expression in spore and infection stages of Phytophthora infestans.

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Sourav Roy

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Most eukaryotic pathogens have complex life cycles in which gene expression networks orchestrate the formation of cells specialized for dissemination or host colonization. In the oomycete Phytophthora infestans, the potato late blight pathogen, major shifts in mRNA profiles during developmental transitions were identified using microarrays. We used those data with search algorithms to discover about 100 motifs that are over-represented in promoters of genes up-regulated in hyphae, sporangia, sporangia undergoing zoosporogenesis, swimming zoospores, or germinated cysts forming appressoria (infection structures. Most of the putative stage-specific transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs thus identified had features typical of TFBSs such as position or orientation bias, palindromy, and conservation in related species. Each of six motifs tested in P. infestans transformants using the GUS reporter gene conferred the expected stage-specific expression pattern, and several were shown to bind nuclear proteins in gel-shift assays. Motifs linked to the appressoria-forming stage, including a functionally validated TFBS, were over-represented in promoters of genes encoding effectors and other pathogenesis-related proteins. To understand how promoter and genome architecture influence expression, we also mapped transcription patterns to the P. infestans genome assembly. Adjacent genes were not typically induced in the same stage, including genes transcribed in opposite directions from small intergenic regions, but co-regulated gene pairs occurred more than expected by random chance. These data help illuminate the processes regulating development and pathogenesis, and will enable future attempts to purify the cognate transcription factors.

Aggregation of topological motifs in the Escherichia coli transcriptional regulatory network

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Barabási Albert-László

2004-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Transcriptional regulation of cellular functions is carried out through a complex network of interactions among transcription factors and the promoter regions of genes and operons regulated by them.To better understand the system-level function of such networks simplification of their architecture was previously achieved by identifying the motifs present in the network, which are small, overrepresented, topologically distinct regulatory interaction patterns (subgraphs. However, the interaction of such motifs with each other, and their form of integration into the full network has not been previously examined. Results By studying the transcriptional regulatory network of the bacterium, Escherichia coli, we demonstrate that the two previously identified motif types in the network (i.e., feed-forward loops and bi-fan motifs do not exist in isolation, but rather aggregate into homologous motif clusters that largely overlap with known biological functions. Moreover, these clusters further coalesce into a supercluster, thus establishing distinct topological hierarchies that show global statistical properties similar to the whole network. Targeted removal of motif links disintegrates the network into small, isolated clusters, while random disruptions of equal number of links do not cause such an effect. Conclusion Individual motifs aggregate into homologous motif clusters and a supercluster forming the backbone of the E. coli transcriptional regulatory network and play a central role in defining its global topological organization.

MotifNet: a web-server for network motif analysis.

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Smoly, Ilan Y; Lerman, Eugene; Ziv-Ukelson, Michal; Yeger-Lotem, Esti

2017-06-15

Network motifs are small topological patterns that recur in a network significantly more often than expected by chance. Their identification emerged as a powerful approach for uncovering the design principles underlying complex networks. However, available tools for network motif analysis typically require download and execution of computationally intensive software on a local computer. We present MotifNet, the first open-access web-server for network motif analysis. MotifNet allows researchers to analyze integrated networks, where nodes and edges may be labeled, and to search for motifs of up to eight nodes. The output motifs are presented graphically and the user can interactively filter them by their significance, number of instances, node and edge labels, and node identities, and view their instances. MotifNet also allows the user to distinguish between motifs that are centered on specific nodes and motifs that recur in distinct parts of the network. MotifNet is freely available at http://netbio.bgu.ac.il/motifnet . The website was implemented using ReactJs and supports all major browsers. The server interface was implemented in Python with data stored on a MySQL database. estiyl@bgu.ac.il or michaluz@cs.bgu.ac.il. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

Iron Content Affects Lipogenic Gene Expression in the Muscle of Nelore Beef Cattle.

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Wellison Jarles da Silva Diniz

Full Text Available Iron (Fe is an essential mineral for metabolism and plays a central role in a range of biochemical processes. Therefore, this study aimed to identify differentially expressed (DE genes and metabolic pathways in Longissimus dorsi (LD muscle from cattle with divergent iron content, as well as to investigate the likely role of these DE genes in biological processes underlying beef quality parameters. Samples for RNA extraction for sequencing and iron, copper, manganese, and zinc determination were collected from LD muscles at slaughter. Eight Nelore steers, with extreme genomic estimated breeding values for iron content (Fe-GEBV, were selected from a reference population of 373 animals. From the 49 annotated DE genes (FDR<0.05 found between the two groups, 18 were up-regulated and 31 down-regulated for the animals in the low Fe-GEBV group. The functional enrichment analyses identified several biological processes, such as lipid transport and metabolism, and cell growth. Lipid metabolism was the main pathway observed in the analysis of metabolic and canonical signaling pathways for the genes identified as DE, including the genes FASN, FABP4, and THRSP, which are functional candidates for beef quality, suggesting reduced lipogenic activities with lower iron content. Our results indicate metabolic pathways that are partially influenced by iron, contributing to a better understanding of its participation in skeletal muscle physiology.

RegRNA: an integrated web server for identifying regulatory RNA motifs and elements

OpenAIRE

Huang, Hsi-Yuan; Chien, Chia-Hung; Jen, Kuan-Hua; Huang, Hsien-Da

2006-01-01

Numerous regulatory structural motifs have been identified as playing essential roles in transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. RegRNA is an integrated web server for identifying the homologs of regulatory RNA motifs and elements against an input mRNA sequence. Both sequence homologs and structural homologs of regulatory RNA motifs can be recognized. The regulatory RNA motifs supported in RegRNA are categorized into several classes: (i) motifs in mRNA 5′-untra...

Gene regulatory and signaling networks exhibit distinct topological distributions of motifs

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Ferreira, Gustavo Rodrigues; Nakaya, Helder Imoto; Costa, Luciano da Fontoura

2018-04-01

The biological processes of cellular decision making and differentiation involve a plethora of signaling pathways and gene regulatory circuits. These networks in turn exhibit a multitude of motifs playing crucial parts in regulating network activity. Here we compare the topological placement of motifs in gene regulatory and signaling networks and observe that it suggests different evolutionary strategies in motif distribution for distinct cellular subnetworks.

Large-scale discovery of promoter motifs in Drosophila melanogaster.

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Thomas A Down

2007-01-01

Full Text Available A key step in understanding gene regulation is to identify the repertoire of transcription factor binding motifs (TFBMs that form the building blocks of promoters and other regulatory elements. Identifying these experimentally is very laborious, and the number of TFBMs discovered remains relatively small, especially when compared with the hundreds of transcription factor genes predicted in metazoan genomes. We have used a recently developed statistical motif discovery approach, NestedMICA, to detect candidate TFBMs from a large set of Drosophila melanogaster promoter regions. Of the 120 motifs inferred in our initial analysis, 25 were statistically significant matches to previously reported motifs, while 87 appeared to be novel. Analysis of sequence conservation and motif positioning suggested that the great majority of these discovered motifs are predictive of functional elements in the genome. Many motifs showed associations with specific patterns of gene expression in the D. melanogaster embryo, and we were able to obtain confident annotation of expression patterns for 25 of our motifs, including eight of the novel motifs. The motifs are available through Tiffin, a new database of DNA sequence motifs. We have discovered many new motifs that are overrepresented in D. melanogaster promoter regions, and offer several independent lines of evidence that these are novel TFBMs. Our motif dictionary provides a solid foundation for further investigation of regulatory elements in Drosophila, and demonstrates techniques that should be applicable in other species. We suggest that further improvements in computational motif discovery should narrow the gap between the set of known motifs and the total number of transcription factors in metazoan genomes.

Genome-wide conserved consensus transcription factor binding motifs are hyper-methylated

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Down Thomas A

2010-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background DNA methylation can regulate gene expression by modulating the interaction between DNA and proteins or protein complexes. Conserved consensus motifs exist across the human genome ("predicted transcription factor binding sites": "predicted TFBS" but the large majority of these are proven by chromatin immunoprecipitation and high throughput sequencing (ChIP-seq not to be biological transcription factor binding sites ("empirical TFBS". We hypothesize that DNA methylation at conserved consensus motifs prevents promiscuous or disorderly transcription factor binding. Results Using genome-wide methylation maps of the human heart and sperm, we found that all conserved consensus motifs as well as the subset of those that reside outside CpG islands have an aggregate profile of hyper-methylation. In contrast, empirical TFBS with conserved consensus motifs have a profile of hypo-methylation. 40% of empirical TFBS with conserved consensus motifs resided in CpG islands whereas only 7% of all conserved consensus motifs were in CpG islands. Finally we further identified a minority subset of TF whose profiles are either hypo-methylated or neutral at their respective conserved consensus motifs implicating that these TF may be responsible for establishing or maintaining an un-methylated DNA state, or whose binding is not regulated by DNA methylation. Conclusions Our analysis supports the hypothesis that at least for a subset of TF, empirical binding to conserved consensus motifs genome-wide may be controlled by DNA methylation.

Systematic comparison of the response properties of protein and RNA mediated gene regulatory motifs.

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Iyengar, Bharat Ravi; Pillai, Beena; Venkatesh, K V; Gadgil, Chetan J

2017-05-30

We present a framework enabling the dissection of the effects of motif structure (feedback or feedforward), the nature of the controller (RNA or protein), and the regulation mode (transcriptional, post-transcriptional or translational) on the response to a step change in the input. We have used a common model framework for gene expression where both motif structures have an activating input and repressing regulator, with the same set of parameters, to enable a comparison of the responses. We studied the global sensitivity of the system properties, such as steady-state gain, overshoot, peak time, and peak duration, to parameters. We find that, in all motifs, overshoot correlated negatively whereas peak duration varied concavely with peak time. Differences in the other system properties were found to be mainly dependent on the nature of the controller rather than the motif structure. Protein mediated motifs showed a higher degree of adaptation i.e. a tendency to return to baseline levels; in particular, feedforward motifs exhibited perfect adaptation. RNA mediated motifs had a mild regulatory effect; they also exhibited a lower peaking tendency and mean overshoot. Protein mediated feedforward motifs showed higher overshoot and lower peak time compared to the corresponding feedback motifs.

The CD3 gamma leucine-based receptor-sorting motif is required for efficient ligand-mediated TCR down-regulation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

von Essen, Marina; Menné, Charlotte; Nielsen, Bodil L

2002-01-01

. The other pathway is dependent on protein kinase C (PKC)-mediated activation of the CD3 gamma di-leucine-based receptor-sorting motif. Previous studies have failed to demonstrate a connection between ligand- and PKC-induced TCR down-regulation. Thus, although an apparent paradox, the dogma has been...... that ligand- and PKC-induced TCR down-regulations are not interrelated. By analyses of a newly developed CD3 gamma-negative T cell variant, freshly isolated and PHA-activated PBMC, and a mouse T cell line, we challenged this dogma and demonstrate in this work that PKC activation and the CD3 gamma di...

The limits of de novo DNA motif discovery.

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David Simcha

Full Text Available A major challenge in molecular biology is reverse-engineering the cis-regulatory logic that plays a major role in the control of gene expression. This program includes searching through DNA sequences to identify "motifs" that serve as the binding sites for transcription factors or, more generally, are predictive of gene expression across cellular conditions. Several approaches have been proposed for de novo motif discovery-searching sequences without prior knowledge of binding sites or nucleotide patterns. However, unbiased validation is not straightforward. We consider two approaches to unbiased validation of discovered motifs: testing the statistical significance of a motif using a DNA "background" sequence model to represent the null hypothesis and measuring performance in predicting membership in gene clusters. We demonstrate that the background models typically used are "too null," resulting in overly optimistic assessments of significance, and argue that performance in predicting TF binding or expression patterns from DNA motifs should be assessed by held-out data, as in predictive learning. Applying this criterion to common motif discovery methods resulted in universally poor performance, although there is a marked improvement when motifs are statistically significant against real background sequences. Moreover, on synthetic data where "ground truth" is known, discriminative performance of all algorithms is far below the theoretical upper bound, with pronounced "over-fitting" in training. A key conclusion from this work is that the failure of de novo discovery approaches to accurately identify motifs is basically due to statistical intractability resulting from the fixed size of co-regulated gene clusters, and thus such failures do not necessarily provide evidence that unfound motifs are not active biologically. Consequently, the use of prior knowledge to enhance motif discovery is not just advantageous but necessary. An implementation of

DMINDA: an integrated web server for DNA motif identification and analyses.

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Qin; Zhang, Hanyuan; Mao, Xizeng; Zhou, Chuan; Liu, Bingqiang; Chen, Xin; Xu, Ying

2014-07-01

DMINDA (DNA motif identification and analyses) is an integrated web server for DNA motif identification and analyses, which is accessible at http://csbl.bmb.uga.edu/DMINDA/. This web site is freely available to all users and there is no login requirement. This server provides a suite of cis-regulatory motif analysis functions on DNA sequences, which are important to elucidation of the mechanisms of transcriptional regulation: (i) de novo motif finding for a given set of promoter sequences along with statistical scores for the predicted motifs derived based on information extracted from a control set, (ii) scanning motif instances of a query motif in provided genomic sequences, (iii) motif comparison and clustering of identified motifs, and (iv) co-occurrence analyses of query motifs in given promoter sequences. The server is powered by a backend computer cluster with over 150 computing nodes, and is particularly useful for motif prediction and analyses in prokaryotic genomes. We believe that DMINDA, as a new and comprehensive web server for cis-regulatory motif finding and analyses, will benefit the genomic research community in general and prokaryotic genome researchers in particular. © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Comprehensive human transcription factor binding site map for combinatory binding motifs discovery.

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Arnoldo J Müller-Molina

Full Text Available To know the map between transcription factors (TFs and their binding sites is essential to reverse engineer the regulation process. Only about 10%-20% of the transcription factor binding motifs (TFBMs have been reported. This lack of data hinders understanding gene regulation. To address this drawback, we propose a computational method that exploits never used TF properties to discover the missing TFBMs and their sites in all human gene promoters. The method starts by predicting a dictionary of regulatory "DNA words." From this dictionary, it distills 4098 novel predictions. To disclose the crosstalk between motifs, an additional algorithm extracts TF combinatorial binding patterns creating a collection of TF regulatory syntactic rules. Using these rules, we narrowed down a list of 504 novel motifs that appear frequently in syntax patterns. We tested the predictions against 509 known motifs confirming that our system can reliably predict ab initio motifs with an accuracy of 81%-far higher than previous approaches. We found that on average, 90% of the discovered combinatorial binding patterns target at least 10 genes, suggesting that to control in an independent manner smaller gene sets, supplementary regulatory mechanisms are required. Additionally, we discovered that the new TFBMs and their combinatorial patterns convey biological meaning, targeting TFs and genes related to developmental functions. Thus, among all the possible available targets in the genome, the TFs tend to regulate other TFs and genes involved in developmental functions. We provide a comprehensive resource for regulation analysis that includes a dictionary of "DNA words," newly predicted motifs and their corresponding combinatorial patterns. Combinatorial patterns are a useful filter to discover TFBMs that play a major role in orchestrating other factors and thus, are likely to lock/unlock cellular functional clusters.

Identification of putative regulatory motifs in the upstream regions of co-expressed functional groups of genes in Plasmodium falciparum

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Joshi NV

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Regulation of gene expression in Plasmodium falciparum (Pf remains poorly understood. While over half the genes are estimated to be regulated at the transcriptional level, few regulatory motifs and transcription regulators have been found. Results The study seeks to identify putative regulatory motifs in the upstream regions of 13 functional groups of genes expressed in the intraerythrocytic developmental cycle of Pf. Three motif-discovery programs were used for the purpose, and motifs were searched for only on the gene coding strand. Four motifs – the 'G-rich', the 'C-rich', the 'TGTG' and the 'CACA' motifs – were identified, and zero to all four of these occur in the 13 sets of upstream regions. The 'CACA motif' was absent in functional groups expressed during the ring to early trophozoite transition. For functional groups expressed in each transition, the motifs tended to be similar. Upstream motifs in some functional groups showed 'positional conservation' by occurring at similar positions relative to the translational start site (TLS; this increases their significance as regulatory motifs. In the ribonucleotide synthesis, mitochondrial, proteasome and organellar translation machinery genes, G-rich, C-rich, CACA and TGTG motifs, respectively, occur with striking positional conservation. In the organellar translation machinery group, G-rich motifs occur close to the TLS. The same motifs were sometimes identified for multiple functional groups; differences in location and abundance of the motifs appear to ensure different modes of action. Conclusion The identification of positionally conserved over-represented upstream motifs throws light on putative regulatory elements for transcription in Pf.

Omega-6 Fat Supplementation Alters Lipogenic Gene Expression in Bovine Subcutaneous Adipose Tissue

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Joseph, Sandeep J.; Pratt, Scott L.; Pavan, Enrique; Rekaya, Romdhane; Duckett., Susan K.

2010-01-01

In contrast to rodents, adipose tissue serves as the major site of lipogenesis and storage reservoir for excess dietary energy in cattle. Research in rodents shows that adding corn oil (57% C18:2 n-6) to the diet alters lipogenesis enhancing deposition of omega-6 fatty acids. This study examines changes in lipogenic gene expression of subcutaneous adipose tissue from eighteen steers fed increasing levels of dietary corn oil [0 (NONE), 0.31 kg/d (MED) and 0.62 kg/d (HI)] using two platforms, q...

Systematic discovery of regulatory motifs in Fusarium graminearum by comparing four Fusarium genomes

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Kistler Corby

2010-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Fusarium graminearum (Fg, a major fungal pathogen of cultivated cereals, is responsible for billions of dollars in agriculture losses. There is a growing interest in understanding the transcriptional regulation of this organism, especially the regulation of genes underlying its pathogenicity. The generation of whole genome sequence assemblies for Fg and three closely related Fusarium species provides a unique opportunity for such a study. Results Applying comparative genomics approaches, we developed a computational pipeline to systematically discover evolutionarily conserved regulatory motifs in the promoter, downstream and the intronic regions of Fg genes, based on the multiple alignments of sequenced Fusarium genomes. Using this method, we discovered 73 candidate regulatory motifs in the promoter regions. Nearly 30% of these motifs are highly enriched in promoter regions of Fg genes that are associated with a specific functional category. Through comparison to Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Sc and Schizosaccharomyces pombe (Sp, we observed conservation of transcription factors (TFs, their binding sites and the target genes regulated by these TFs related to pathways known to respond to stress conditions or phosphate metabolism. In addition, this study revealed 69 and 39 conserved motifs in the downstream regions and the intronic regions, respectively, of Fg genes. The top intronic motif is the splice donor site. For the downstream regions, we noticed an intriguing absence of the mammalian and Sc poly-adenylation signals among the list of conserved motifs. Conclusion This study provides the first comprehensive list of candidate regulatory motifs in Fg, and underscores the power of comparative genomics in revealing functional elements among related genomes. The conservation of regulatory pathways among the Fusarium genomes and the two yeast species reveals their functional significance, and provides new insights in their

Regulation of amyloid precursor protein processing by its KFERQ motif.

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Park, Ji-Seon; Kim, Dong-Hou; Yoon, Seung-Yong

2016-06-01

Understanding of trafficking, processing, and degradation mechanisms of amyloid precursor protein (APP) is important because APP can be processed to produce β-amyloid (Aβ), a key pathogenic molecule in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, we found that APP contains KFERQ motif at its C-terminus, a consensus sequence for chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) or microautophagy which are another types of autophagy for degradation of pathogenic molecules in neurodegenerative diseases. Deletion of KFERQ in APP increased C-terminal fragments (CTFs) and secreted N-terminal fragments of APP and kept it away from lysosomes. KFERQ deletion did not abolish the interaction of APP or its cleaved products with heat shock cognate protein 70 (Hsc70), a protein necessary for CMA or microautophagy. These findings suggest that KFERQ motif is important for normal processing and degradation of APP to preclude the accumulation of APP-CTFs although it may not be important for CMA or microautophagy. [BMB Reports 2016; 49(6): 337-342].

The flavones apigenin and luteolin induce FOXO1 translocation but inhibit gluconeogenic and lipogenic gene expression in human cells.

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Christiane Bumke-Vogt

Full Text Available The flavones apigenin (4',5,7,-trihydroxyflavone and luteolin (3',4',5,7,-tetrahydroxyflavone are plant secondary metabolites with antioxidant, antiinflammatory, and anticancer activities. We evaluated their impact on cell signaling pathways related to insulin-resistance and type 2 diabetes. Apigenin and luteolin were identified in our U-2 OS (human osteosarcoma cell screening assay for micronutrients triggering rapid intracellular translocation of the forkhead box transcription factor O1 (FOXO1, an important mediator of insulin signal transduction. Insulin reversed the translocation of FOXO1 as shown by live cell imaging. The impact on the expression of target genes was evaluated in HepG2 (human hepatoma cells. The mRNA-expression of the gluconeogenic enzymes phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK and glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pc, the lipogenic enzymes fatty-acid synthase (FASN and acetyl-CoA-carboxylase (ACC were down-regulated by both flavones with smaller effective dosages of apigenin than for luteolin. PKB/AKT-, PRAS40-, p70S6K-, and S6-phosphorylation was reduced by apigenin and luteolin but not that of the insulin-like growth factor receptor IGF-1R by apigenin indicating a direct inhibition of the PKB/AKT-signaling pathway distal to the IGF-1 receptor. N-acetyl-L-cysteine did not prevent FOXO1 nuclear translocation induced by apigenin and luteolin, suggesting that these flavones do not act via oxidative stress. The roles of FOXO1, FOXO3a, AKT, sirtuin1 (SIRT1, and nuclear factor (erythroid-derived2-like2 (NRF2, investigated by siRNA knockdown, showed differential patterns of signal pathways involved and a role of NRF2 in the inhibition of gluconeogenic enzyme expression. We conclude that these flavones show an antidiabetic potential due to reduction of gluconeogenic and lipogenic capacity despite inhibition of the PKB/AKT pathway which justifies detailed investigation in vivo.

A Pyranose-2-Phosphate Motif Is Responsible for Both Antibiotic Import and Quorum-Sensing Regulation in Agrobacterium tumefaciens.

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Abbas El Sahili

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Periplasmic binding proteins (PBPs in association with ABC transporters select and import a wide variety of ligands into bacterial cytoplasm. They can also take up toxic molecules, as observed in the case of the phytopathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain C58. This organism contains a PBP called AccA that mediates the import of the antibiotic agrocin 84, as well as the opine agrocinopine A that acts as both a nutrient and a signalling molecule for the dissemination of virulence genes through quorum-sensing. Here, we characterized the binding mode of AccA using purified agrocin 84 and synthetic agrocinopine A by X-ray crystallography at very high resolution and performed affinity measurements. Structural and affinity analyses revealed that AccA recognizes an uncommon and specific motif, a pyranose-2-phosphate moiety which is present in both imported molecules via the L-arabinopyranose moiety in agrocinopine A and the D-glucopyranose moiety in agrocin 84. We hypothesized that AccA is a gateway allowing the import of any compound possessing a pyranose-2-phosphate motif at one end. This was structurally and functionally confirmed by experiments using four synthetic compounds: agrocinopine 3'-O-benzoate, L-arabinose-2-isopropylphosphate, L-arabinose-2-phosphate and D-glucose-2-phosphate. By combining affinity measurements and in vivo assays, we demonstrated that both L-arabinose-2-phosphate and D-glucose-2-phosphate, which are the AccF mediated degradation products of agrocinopine A and agrocin 84 respectively, interact with the master transcriptional regulator AccR and activate the quorum-sensing signal synthesis and Ti plasmid transfer in A. tumefaciens C58. Our findings shed light on the role of agrocinopine and antibiotic agrocin 84 on quorum-sensing regulation in A. tumefaciens and reveal how the PBP AccA acts as vehicle for the importation of both molecules by means of a key-recognition motif. It also opens future possibilities for the

A Pyranose-2-Phosphate Motif Is Responsible for Both Antibiotic Import and Quorum-Sensing Regulation in Agrobacterium tumefaciens.

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El Sahili, Abbas; Li, Si-Zhe; Lang, Julien; Virus, Cornelia; Planamente, Sara; Ahmar, Mohammed; Guimaraes, Beatriz G; Aumont-Nicaise, Magali; Vigouroux, Armelle; Soulère, Laurent; Reader, John; Queneau, Yves; Faure, Denis; Moréra, Solange

2015-08-01

Periplasmic binding proteins (PBPs) in association with ABC transporters select and import a wide variety of ligands into bacterial cytoplasm. They can also take up toxic molecules, as observed in the case of the phytopathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain C58. This organism contains a PBP called AccA that mediates the import of the antibiotic agrocin 84, as well as the opine agrocinopine A that acts as both a nutrient and a signalling molecule for the dissemination of virulence genes through quorum-sensing. Here, we characterized the binding mode of AccA using purified agrocin 84 and synthetic agrocinopine A by X-ray crystallography at very high resolution and performed affinity measurements. Structural and affinity analyses revealed that AccA recognizes an uncommon and specific motif, a pyranose-2-phosphate moiety which is present in both imported molecules via the L-arabinopyranose moiety in agrocinopine A and the D-glucopyranose moiety in agrocin 84. We hypothesized that AccA is a gateway allowing the import of any compound possessing a pyranose-2-phosphate motif at one end. This was structurally and functionally confirmed by experiments using four synthetic compounds: agrocinopine 3'-O-benzoate, L-arabinose-2-isopropylphosphate, L-arabinose-2-phosphate and D-glucose-2-phosphate. By combining affinity measurements and in vivo assays, we demonstrated that both L-arabinose-2-phosphate and D-glucose-2-phosphate, which are the AccF mediated degradation products of agrocinopine A and agrocin 84 respectively, interact with the master transcriptional regulator AccR and activate the quorum-sensing signal synthesis and Ti plasmid transfer in A. tumefaciens C58. Our findings shed light on the role of agrocinopine and antibiotic agrocin 84 on quorum-sensing regulation in A. tumefaciens and reveal how the PBP AccA acts as vehicle for the importation of both molecules by means of a key-recognition motif. It also opens future possibilities for the rational design of

Positional bias of general and tissue-specific regulatory motifs in mouse gene promoters

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Farré Domènec

2007-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The arrangement of regulatory motifs in gene promoters, or promoter architecture, is the result of mutation and selection processes that have operated over many millions of years. In mammals, tissue-specific transcriptional regulation is related to the presence of specific protein-interacting DNA motifs in gene promoters. However, little is known about the relative location and spacing of these motifs. To fill this gap, we have performed a systematic search for motifs that show significant bias at specific promoter locations in a large collection of housekeeping and tissue-specific genes. Results We observe that promoters driving housekeeping gene expression are enriched in particular motifs with strong positional bias, such as YY1, which are of little relevance in promoters driving tissue-specific expression. We also identify a large number of motifs that show positional bias in genes expressed in a highly tissue-specific manner. They include well-known tissue-specific motifs, such as HNF1 and HNF4 motifs in liver, kidney and small intestine, or RFX motifs in testis, as well as many potentially novel regulatory motifs. Based on this analysis, we provide predictions for 559 tissue-specific motifs in mouse gene promoters. Conclusion The study shows that motif positional bias is an important feature of mammalian proximal promoters and that it affects both general and tissue-specific motifs. Motif positional constraints define very distinct promoter architectures depending on breadth of expression and type of tissue.

Fine-tuning of T-cell development by the CD3γ di-leucine-based TCR-sorting motif

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lauritsen, Jens Peter Holst; Boding, Lasse; Buus, Terkild B

2015-01-01

The CD3γ di-leucine-based (diL) receptor-sorting motif plays a central role in TCR down-regulation and in clonal expansion of virus-specific T cells. However, the role of the CD3γ diL motif in T-cell development is not known. In this study, we show that protein kinase C-induced TCR down-regulatio......The CD3γ di-leucine-based (diL) receptor-sorting motif plays a central role in TCR down-regulation and in clonal expansion of virus-specific T cells. However, the role of the CD3γ diL motif in T-cell development is not known. In this study, we show that protein kinase C-induced TCR down...

Automated classification of RNA 3D motifs and the RNA 3D Motif Atlas

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Petrov, Anton I.; Zirbel, Craig L.; Leontis, Neocles B.

2013-01-01

The analysis of atomic-resolution RNA three-dimensional (3D) structures reveals that many internal and hairpin loops are modular, recurrent, and structured by conserved non-Watson–Crick base pairs. Structurally similar loops define RNA 3D motifs that are conserved in homologous RNA molecules, but can also occur at nonhomologous sites in diverse RNAs, and which often vary in sequence. To further our understanding of RNA motif structure and sequence variability and to provide a useful resource for structure modeling and prediction, we present a new method for automated classification of internal and hairpin loop RNA 3D motifs and a new online database called the RNA 3D Motif Atlas. To classify the motif instances, a representative set of internal and hairpin loops is automatically extracted from a nonredundant list of RNA-containing PDB files. Their structures are compared geometrically, all-against-all, using the FR3D program suite. The loops are clustered into motif groups, taking into account geometric similarity and structural annotations and making allowance for a variable number of bulged bases. The automated procedure that we have implemented identifies all hairpin and internal loop motifs previously described in the literature. All motif instances and motif groups are assigned unique and stable identifiers and are made available in the RNA 3D Motif Atlas (http://rna.bgsu.edu/motifs), which is automatically updated every four weeks. The RNA 3D Motif Atlas provides an interactive user interface for exploring motif diversity and tools for programmatic data access. PMID:23970545

Energy partitioning in dairy cows : effects of lipogenic and glucogenic diets on energy balance, metabolites and reproduction variables in early lactation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Knegsel, van A.T.M.

2007-01-01

Keywords: dairy cows; dietary energy source; glucogenic nutrients; lipogenic nutrients; negative energy balance; metabolic disorders; reproduction, immune system Dairy cows experience a negative energy balance (NEB) in early lactation which results from high energy requirements for milk production

A survey of motif finding Web tools for detecting binding site motifs in ChIP-Seq data.

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Tran, Ngoc Tam L; Huang, Chun-Hsi

2014-02-20

ChIP-Seq (chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing) has provided the advantage for finding motifs as ChIP-Seq experiments narrow down the motif finding to binding site locations. Recent motif finding tools facilitate the motif detection by providing user-friendly Web interface. In this work, we reviewed nine motif finding Web tools that are capable for detecting binding site motifs in ChIP-Seq data. We showed each motif finding Web tool has its own advantages for detecting motifs that other tools may not discover. We recommended the users to use multiple motif finding Web tools that implement different algorithms for obtaining significant motifs, overlapping resemble motifs, and non-overlapping motifs. Finally, we provided our suggestions for future development of motif finding Web tool that better assists researchers for finding motifs in ChIP-Seq data.

Annotating RNA motifs in sequences and alignments.

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Gardner, Paul P; Eldai, Hisham

2015-01-01

RNA performs a diverse array of important functions across all cellular life. These functions include important roles in translation, building translational machinery and maturing messenger RNA. More recent discoveries include the miRNAs and bacterial sRNAs that regulate gene expression, the thermosensors, riboswitches and other cis-regulatory elements that help prokaryotes sense their environment and eukaryotic piRNAs that suppress transposition. However, there can be a long period between the initial discovery of a RNA and determining its function. We present a bioinformatic approach to characterize RNA motifs, which are critical components of many RNA structure-function relationships. These motifs can, in some instances, provide researchers with functional hypotheses for uncharacterized RNAs. Moreover, we introduce a new profile-based database of RNA motifs--RMfam--and illustrate some applications for investigating the evolution and functional characterization of RNA. All the data and scripts associated with this work are available from: https://github.com/ppgardne/RMfam. © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

TFII-I regulates target genes in the PI-3K and TGF-β signaling pathways through a novel DNA binding motif.

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Segura-Puimedon, Maria; Borralleras, Cristina; Pérez-Jurado, Luis A; Campuzano, Victoria

2013-09-25

General transcription factor (TFII-I) is a multi-functional protein involved in the transcriptional regulation of critical developmental genes, encoded by the GTF2I gene located on chromosome 7q11.23. Haploinsufficiency at GTF2I has been shown to play a major role in the neurodevelopmental features of Williams-Beuren syndrome (WBS). Identification of genes regulated by TFII-I is thus critical to detect molecular determinants of WBS as well as to identify potential new targets for specific pharmacological interventions, which are currently absent. We performed a microarray screening for transcriptional targets of TFII-I in cortex and embryonic cells from Gtf2i mutant and wild-type mice. Candidate genes with altered expression were verified using real-time PCR. A novel motif shared by deregulated genes was found and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays in embryonic fibroblasts were used to document in vitro TFII-I binding to this motif in the promoter regions of deregulated genes. Interestingly, the PI3K and TGFβ signaling pathways were over-represented among TFII-I-modulated genes. In this study we have found a highly conserved DNA element, common to a set of genes regulated by TFII-I, and identified and validated novel in vivo neuronal targets of this protein affecting the PI3K and TGFβ signaling pathways. Overall, our data further contribute to unravel the complexity and variability of the different genetic programs orchestrated by TFII-I. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

MOCCS: Clarifying DNA-binding motif ambiguity using ChIP-Seq data.

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Ozaki, Haruka; Iwasaki, Wataru

2016-08-01

As a key mechanism of gene regulation, transcription factors (TFs) bind to DNA by recognizing specific short sequence patterns that are called DNA-binding motifs. A single TF can accept ambiguity within its DNA-binding motifs, which comprise both canonical (typical) and non-canonical motifs. Clarification of such DNA-binding motif ambiguity is crucial for revealing gene regulatory networks and evaluating mutations in cis-regulatory elements. Although chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) now provides abundant data on the genomic sequences to which a given TF binds, existing motif discovery methods are unable to directly answer whether a given TF can bind to a specific DNA-binding motif. Here, we report a method for clarifying the DNA-binding motif ambiguity, MOCCS. Given ChIP-Seq data of any TF, MOCCS comprehensively analyzes and describes every k-mer to which that TF binds. Analysis of simulated datasets revealed that MOCCS is applicable to various ChIP-Seq datasets, requiring only a few minutes per dataset. Application to the ENCODE ChIP-Seq datasets proved that MOCCS directly evaluates whether a given TF binds to each DNA-binding motif, even if known position weight matrix models do not provide sufficient information on DNA-binding motif ambiguity. Furthermore, users are not required to provide numerous parameters or background genomic sequence models that are typically unavailable. MOCCS is implemented in Perl and R and is freely available via https://github.com/yuifu/moccs. By complementing existing motif-discovery software, MOCCS will contribute to the basic understanding of how the genome controls diverse cellular processes via DNA-protein interactions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

LDsplit: screening for cis-regulatory motifs stimulating meiotic recombination hotspots by analysis of DNA sequence polymorphisms.

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Yang, Peng; Wu, Min; Guo, Jing; Kwoh, Chee Keong; Przytycka, Teresa M; Zheng, Jie

2014-02-17

As a fundamental genomic element, meiotic recombination hotspot plays important roles in life sciences. Thus uncovering its regulatory mechanisms has broad impact on biomedical research. Despite the recent identification of the zinc finger protein PRDM9 and its 13-mer binding motif as major regulators for meiotic recombination hotspots, other regulators remain to be discovered. Existing methods for finding DNA sequence motifs of recombination hotspots often rely on the enrichment of co-localizations between hotspots and short DNA patterns, which ignore the cross-individual variation of recombination rates and sequence polymorphisms in the population. Our objective in this paper is to capture signals encoded in genetic variations for the discovery of recombination-associated DNA motifs. Recently, an algorithm called "LDsplit" has been designed to detect the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and proximal meiotic recombination hotspots. The association is measured by the difference of population recombination rates at a hotspot between two alleles of a candidate SNP. Here we present an open source software tool of LDsplit, with integrative data visualization for recombination hotspots and their proximal SNPs. Applying LDsplit on SNPs inside an established 7-mer motif bound by PRDM9 we observed that SNP alleles preserving the original motif tend to have higher recombination rates than the opposite alleles that disrupt the motif. Running on SNP windows around hotspots each containing an occurrence of the 7-mer motif, LDsplit is able to guide the established motif finding algorithm of MEME to recover the 7-mer motif. In contrast, without LDsplit the 7-mer motif could not be identified. LDsplit is a software tool for the discovery of cis-regulatory DNA sequence motifs stimulating meiotic recombination hotspots by screening and narrowing down to hotspot associated SNPs. It is the first computational method that utilizes the genetic variation of

A conserved WW domain-like motif regulates invariant chain-dependent cell-surface transport of the NKG2D ligand ULBP2

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Uhlenbrock, Franziska Katharina; van Andel, Esther; Andresen, Lars

2015-01-01

that the NKG2D ligand ULBP2 traffics over an invariant chain (Ii)-dependent pathway to the cell surface. This study set out to elucidate how Ii regulates ULBP2 cell-surface transport: We discovered conserved tryptophan (Trp) residues in the primary protein sequence of ULBP1-6 but not in the related MICA....../B. Substitution of Trp to alanine resulted in cell-surface inhibition of ULBP2 in different cancer cell lines. Moreover, the mutated ULBP2 constructs were retained and not degraded inside the cell, indicating a crucial role of this conserved Trp-motif in trafficking. Finally, overexpression of Ii increased...... surface expression of wt ULBP2 while Trp-mutants could not be expressed, proposing that this Trp-motif is required for an Ii-dependent cell-surface transport of ULBP2. Aberrant soluble ULBP2 is immunosuppressive. Thus, targeting a distinct protein module on the ULBP2 sequence could counteract...

Space-related pharma-motifs for fast search of protein binding motifs and polypharmacological targets.

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Chiu, Yi-Yuan; Lin, Chun-Yu; Lin, Chih-Ta; Hsu, Kai-Cheng; Chang, Li-Zen; Yang, Jinn-Moon

2012-01-01

To discover a compound inhibiting multiple proteins (i.e. polypharmacological targets) is a new paradigm for the complex diseases (e.g. cancers and diabetes). In general, the polypharmacological proteins often share similar local binding environments and motifs. As the exponential growth of the number of protein structures, to find the similar structural binding motifs (pharma-motifs) is an emergency task for drug discovery (e.g. side effects and new uses for old drugs) and protein functions. We have developed a Space-Related Pharmamotifs (called SRPmotif) method to recognize the binding motifs by searching against protein structure database. SRPmotif is able to recognize conserved binding environments containing spatially discontinuous pharma-motifs which are often short conserved peptides with specific physico-chemical properties for protein functions. Among 356 pharma-motifs, 56.5% interacting residues are highly conserved. Experimental results indicate that 81.1% and 92.7% polypharmacological targets of each protein-ligand complex are annotated with same biological process (BP) and molecular function (MF) terms, respectively, based on Gene Ontology (GO). Our experimental results show that the identified pharma-motifs often consist of key residues in functional (active) sites and play the key roles for protein functions. The SRPmotif is available at http://gemdock.life.nctu.edu.tw/SRP/. SRPmotif is able to identify similar pharma-interfaces and pharma-motifs sharing similar binding environments for polypharmacological targets by rapidly searching against the protein structure database. Pharma-motifs describe the conservations of binding environments for drug discovery and protein functions. Additionally, these pharma-motifs provide the clues for discovering new sequence-based motifs to predict protein functions from protein sequence databases. We believe that SRPmotif is useful for elucidating protein functions and drug discovery.

Motif-role-fingerprints: the building-blocks of motifs, clustering-coefficients and transitivities in directed networks.

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Mark D McDonnell

Full Text Available Complex networks are frequently characterized by metrics for which particular subgraphs are counted. One statistic from this category, which we refer to as motif-role fingerprints, differs from global subgraph counts in that the number of subgraphs in which each node participates is counted. As with global subgraph counts, it can be important to distinguish between motif-role fingerprints that are 'structural' (induced subgraphs and 'functional' (partial subgraphs. Here we show mathematically that a vector of all functional motif-role fingerprints can readily be obtained from an arbitrary directed adjacency matrix, and then converted to structural motif-role fingerprints by multiplying that vector by a specific invertible conversion matrix. This result demonstrates that a unique structural motif-role fingerprint exists for any given functional motif-role fingerprint. We demonstrate a similar result for the cases of functional and structural motif-fingerprints without node roles, and global subgraph counts that form the basis of standard motif analysis. We also explicitly highlight that motif-role fingerprints are elemental to several popular metrics for quantifying the subgraph structure of directed complex networks, including motif distributions, directed clustering coefficient, and transitivity. The relationships between each of these metrics and motif-role fingerprints also suggest new subtypes of directed clustering coefficients and transitivities. Our results have potential utility in analyzing directed synaptic networks constructed from neuronal connectome data, such as in terms of centrality. Other potential applications include anomaly detection in networks, identification of similar networks and identification of similar nodes within networks. Matlab code for calculating all stated metrics following calculation of functional motif-role fingerprints is provided as S1 Matlab File.

iFORM: Incorporating Find Occurrence of Regulatory Motifs.

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Ren, Chao; Chen, Hebing; Yang, Bite; Liu, Feng; Ouyang, Zhangyi; Bo, Xiaochen; Shu, Wenjie

2016-01-01

Accurately identifying the binding sites of transcription factors (TFs) is crucial to understanding the mechanisms of transcriptional regulation and human disease. We present incorporating Find Occurrence of Regulatory Motifs (iFORM), an easy-to-use and efficient tool for scanning DNA sequences with TF motifs described as position weight matrices (PWMs). Both performance assessment with a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and a correlation-based approach demonstrated that iFORM achieves higher accuracy and sensitivity by integrating five classical motif discovery programs using Fisher's combined probability test. We have used iFORM to provide accurate results on a variety of data in the ENCODE Project and the NIH Roadmap Epigenomics Project, and the tool has demonstrated its utility in further elucidating individual roles of functional elements. Both the source and binary codes for iFORM can be freely accessed at https://github.com/wenjiegroup/iFORM. The identified TF binding sites across human cell and tissue types using iFORM have been deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus under the accession ID GSE53962.

Prenatal exposure of mice to diethylstilbestrol disrupts T-cell differentiation by regulating Fas/Fas ligand expression through estrogen receptor element and nuclear factor-κB motifs.

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Singh, Narendra P; Singh, Udai P; Nagarkatti, Prakash S; Nagarkatti, Mitzi

2012-11-01

Prenatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES) is known to cause altered immune functions and increased susceptibility to autoimmune disease in humans. In the current study, we investigated the effect of prenatal exposure to DES on thymocyte differentiation involving apoptotic pathways. Prenatal DES exposure caused thymic atrophy, apoptosis, and up-regulation of Fas and Fas ligand (FasL) expression in thymocytes. To examine the mechanism underlying DES-mediated regulation of Fas and FasL, we performed luciferase assays using T cells transfected with luciferase reporter constructs containing full-length Fas or FasL promoters. There was significant luciferase induction in the presence of Fas or FasL promoters after DES exposure. Further analysis demonstrated the presence of several cis-regulatory motifs on both Fas and FasL promoters. When DES-induced transcription factors were analyzed, estrogen receptor element (ERE), nuclear factor κB (NF-κB), nuclear factor of activated T cells (NF-AT), and activator protein-1 motifs on the Fas promoter, as well as ERE, NF-κB, and NF-AT motifs on the FasL promoter, showed binding affinity with the transcription factors. Electrophoretic mobility-shift assays were performed to verify the binding affinity of cis-regulatory motifs of Fas or FasL promoters with transcription factors. There was shift in mobility of probes (ERE or NF-κB2) of both Fas and FasL in the presence of nuclear proteins from DES-treated cells, and the shift was specific to DES because these probes failed to shift their mobility in the presence of nuclear proteins from vehicle-treated cells. Together, the current study demonstrates that prenatal exposure to DES triggers significant alterations in apoptotic molecules expressed on thymocytes, which may affect T-cell differentiation and cause long-term effects on the immune functions.

Effect of Glucogenic vs. Lipogenic Diets on Energy Balance, Blood Metabolites, and Reproduction in Primiparous and Multiparous Dairy Cows in Early Lactation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Knegsel, van A.T.M.; Brand, van den H.; Dijkstra, J.; Straalen, van W.M.; Jorritsma, R.; Tamminga, S.; Kemp, B.

2007-01-01

Increasing the availability of glucogenic nutrients relative to lipogenic nutrients has been hypothesized to decrease the production of milk fat, to improve the energy balance (EB), and to decrease the incidence and severity of metabolic and reproductive disorders in dairy cows in early lactation.

Postprandial regulation of hepatic microRNAs predicted to target the insulin pathway in rainbow trout.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jan A Mennigen

Full Text Available Rainbow trout are carnivorous fish and poor metabolizers of carbohydrates, which established this species as a model organism to study the comparative physiology of insulin. Following the recent characterisation of key roles of several miRNAs in the insulin action on hepatic intermediary metabolism in mammalian models, we investigated the hypothesis that hepatic miRNA expression is postprandially regulated in the rainbow trout and temporally coordinated in the context of insulin-mediated regulation of metabolic gene expression in the liver. To address this hypothesis, we used a time-course experiment in which rainbow trout were fed a commercial diet after short-term fasting. We investigated hepatic miRNA expression, activation of the insulin pathway, and insulin regulated metabolic target genes at several time points. Several miRNAs which negatively regulate hepatic insulin signaling in mammalian model organisms were transiently increased 4 h after the meal, consistent with a potential role in acute postprandial negative feed-back regulation of the insulin pathway and attenuation of gluconeogenic gene expression. We equally observed a transient increase in omy- miRNA-33 and omy-miRNA-122b 4 h after feeding, whose homologues have potent lipogenic roles in the liver of mammalian model systems. A concurrent increase in the activity of the hepatic insulin signaling pathway and the expression of lipogenic genes (srebp1c, fas, acly was equally observed, while lipolytic gene expression (cpt1a and cpt1b decreased significantly 4 h after the meal. This suggests lipogenic roles of omy-miRNA-33 and omy-miRNA-122b may be conserved between rainbow trout and mammals and that these miRNAs may furthermore contribute to acute postprandial regulation of de novo hepatic lipid synthesis in rainbow trout. These findings provide a framework for future research of miRNA regulation of hepatic metabolism in trout and will help to further elucidate the metabolic

Motif finding in DNA sequences based on skipping nonconserved positions in background Markov chains.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Xiaoyan; Sze, Sing-Hoi

2011-05-01

One strategy to identify transcription factor binding sites is through motif finding in upstream DNA sequences of potentially co-regulated genes. Despite extensive efforts, none of the existing algorithms perform very well. We consider a string representation that allows arbitrary ignored positions within the nonconserved portion of single motifs, and use O(2(l)) Markov chains to model the background distributions of motifs of length l while skipping these positions within each Markov chain. By focusing initially on positions that have fixed nucleotides to define core occurrences, we develop an algorithm to identify motifs of moderate lengths. We compare the performance of our algorithm to other motif finding algorithms on a few benchmark data sets, and show that significant improvement in accuracy can be obtained when the sites are sufficiently conserved within a given sample, while comparable performance is obtained when the site conservation rate is low. A software program (PosMotif ) and detailed results are available online at http://faculty.cse.tamu.edu/shsze/posmotif.

Robustness and backbone motif of a cancer network regulated by miR-17-92 cluster during the G1/S transition.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lijian Yang

Full Text Available Based on interactions among transcription factors, oncogenes, tumor suppressors and microRNAs, a Boolean model of cancer network regulated by miR-17-92 cluster is constructed, and the network is associated with the control of G1/S transition in the mammalian cell cycle. The robustness properties of this regulatory network are investigated by virtue of the Boolean network theory. It is found that, during G1/S transition in the cell cycle process, the regulatory networks are robustly constructed, and the robustness property is largely preserved with respect to small perturbations to the network. By using the unique process-based approach, the structure of this network is analyzed. It is shown that the network can be decomposed into a backbone motif which provides the main biological functions, and a remaining motif which makes the regulatory system more stable. The critical role of miR-17-92 in suppressing the G1/S cell cycle checkpoint and increasing the uncontrolled proliferation of the cancer cells by targeting a genetic network of interacting proteins is displayed with our model.

Changes in Hepatic TRβ Protein Expression, Lipogenic Gene Expression, and Long-Chain Acylcarnitine Levels During Chronic Hyperthyroidism and Triiodothyronine Withdrawal in a Mouse Model.

Science.gov (United States)

Ohba, Kenji; Sinha, Rohit Anthony; Singh, Brijesh Kumar; Iannucci, Liliana Felicia; Zhou, Jin; Kovalik, Jean-Paul; Liao, Xiao-Hui; Refetoff, Samuel; Sng, Judy Chia Ghee; Leow, Melvin Khee-Shing; Yen, Paul Michael

2017-06-01

Thyroid hormone (TH) has important roles in regulating hepatic metabolism. It was previously reported that most hepatic genes activated by a single triiodothyronine (T3) injection became desensitized after multiple injections, and that approximately 10% of target genes did not return to basal expression levels after T3 withdrawal, despite normalization of serum TH and thyrotropin (TSH) levels. To determine the possible mechanism(s) for desensitization and incomplete recovery of hepatic target gene transcription and their effects on metabolism, mRNA and/or protein expression levels of key regulators of TH action were measured, as well as metabolomic changes after chronic T3 treatment and withdrawal. Adult male mice were treated with daily injections of T3 (20 μg/100 g body weight) for 14 days followed by the cessation of T3 for 10 days. Livers were harvested at 6 hours, 24 hours, and 14 days after the first T3 injection, and at 10 days after withdrawal, and then analyzed by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, Western blotting, and metabolomics. Although TH receptor (TRα and TRβ) mRNAs decreased slightly after chronic T3 treatment, only TRβ protein decreased before returning to basal expression level after withdrawal. The expression of other regulators of TH action was unchanged. TRβ protein expression was also decreased in adult male monocarboxylate transporter-8 (Mct8)-knockout mice, an in vivo model of chronic intrahepatic hyperthyroidism. Previously, increased hepatic long-chain acylcarnitine levels were found after acute TH treatment. However, in this study, long-chain acylcarnitine levels were unchanged after chronic T3, and paradoxically increased after T3 withdrawal. Pathway analyses of the previous microarray results showed upregulation of lipogenic genes after acute T3 treatment and withdrawal. Phosphorylation of acetyl-CoA carboxylase also decreased after T3 withdrawal. Decreased hepatic TRβ protein expression occurred

Promoter Motifs in NCLDVs: An Evolutionary Perspective

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Graziele Pereira Oliveira

2017-01-01

Full Text Available For many years, gene expression in the three cellular domains has been studied in an attempt to discover sequences associated with the regulation of the transcription process. Some specific transcriptional features were described in viruses, although few studies have been devoted to understanding the evolutionary aspects related to the spread of promoter motifs through related viral families. The discovery of giant viruses and the proposition of the new viral order Megavirales that comprise a monophyletic group, named nucleo-cytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDV, raised new questions in the field. Some putative promoter sequences have already been described for some NCLDV members, bringing new insights into the evolutionary history of these complex microorganisms. In this review, we summarize the main aspects of the transcription regulation process in the three domains of life, followed by a systematic description of what is currently known about promoter regions in several NCLDVs. We also discuss how the analysis of the promoter sequences could bring new ideas about the giant viruses’ evolution. Finally, considering a possible common ancestor for the NCLDV group, we discussed possible promoters’ evolutionary scenarios and propose the term “MEGA-box” to designate an ancestor promoter motif (‘TATATAAAATTGA’ that could be evolved gradually by nucleotides’ gain and loss and point mutations.

Promoter Motifs in NCLDVs: An Evolutionary Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Oliveira, Graziele Pereira; Andrade, Ana Cláudia dos Santos Pereira; Rodrigues, Rodrigo Araújo Lima; Arantes, Thalita Souza; Boratto, Paulo Victor Miranda; Silva, Ludmila Karen dos Santos; Dornas, Fábio Pio; Trindade, Giliane de Souza; Drumond, Betânia Paiva; La Scola, Bernard; Kroon, Erna Geessien; Abrahão, Jônatas Santos

2017-01-01

For many years, gene expression in the three cellular domains has been studied in an attempt to discover sequences associated with the regulation of the transcription process. Some specific transcriptional features were described in viruses, although few studies have been devoted to understanding the evolutionary aspects related to the spread of promoter motifs through related viral families. The discovery of giant viruses and the proposition of the new viral order Megavirales that comprise a monophyletic group, named nucleo-cytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDV), raised new questions in the field. Some putative promoter sequences have already been described for some NCLDV members, bringing new insights into the evolutionary history of these complex microorganisms. In this review, we summarize the main aspects of the transcription regulation process in the three domains of life, followed by a systematic description of what is currently known about promoter regions in several NCLDVs. We also discuss how the analysis of the promoter sequences could bring new ideas about the giant viruses’ evolution. Finally, considering a possible common ancestor for the NCLDV group, we discussed possible promoters’ evolutionary scenarios and propose the term “MEGA-box” to designate an ancestor promoter motif (‘TATATAAAATTGA’) that could be evolved gradually by nucleotides’ gain and loss and point mutations. PMID:28117683

Argo_CUDA: Exhaustive GPU based approach for motif discovery in large DNA datasets.

Science.gov (United States)

Vishnevsky, Oleg V; Bocharnikov, Andrey V; Kolchanov, Nikolay A

2018-02-01

The development of chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) technology has revolutionized the genetic analysis of the basic mechanisms underlying transcription regulation and led to accumulation of information about a huge amount of DNA sequences. There are a lot of web services which are currently available for de novo motif discovery in datasets containing information about DNA/protein binding. An enormous motif diversity makes their finding challenging. In order to avoid the difficulties, researchers use different stochastic approaches. Unfortunately, the efficiency of the motif discovery programs dramatically declines with the query set size increase. This leads to the fact that only a fraction of top "peak" ChIP-Seq segments can be analyzed or the area of analysis should be narrowed. Thus, the motif discovery in massive datasets remains a challenging issue. Argo_Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) web service is designed to process the massive DNA data. It is a program for the detection of degenerate oligonucleotide motifs of fixed length written in 15-letter IUPAC code. Argo_CUDA is a full-exhaustive approach based on the high-performance GPU technologies. Compared with the existing motif discovery web services, Argo_CUDA shows good prediction quality on simulated sets. The analysis of ChIP-Seq sequences revealed the motifs which correspond to known transcription factor binding sites.

POWRS: position-sensitive motif discovery.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ian W Davis

Full Text Available Transcription factors and the short, often degenerate DNA sequences they recognize are central regulators of gene expression, but their regulatory code is challenging to dissect experimentally. Thus, computational approaches have long been used to identify putative regulatory elements from the patterns in promoter sequences. Here we present a new algorithm "POWRS" (POsition-sensitive WoRd Set for identifying regulatory sequence motifs, specifically developed to address two common shortcomings of existing algorithms. First, POWRS uses the position-specific enrichment of regulatory elements near transcription start sites to significantly increase sensitivity, while providing new information about the preferred localization of those elements. Second, POWRS forgoes position weight matrices for a discrete motif representation that appears more resistant to over-generalization. We apply this algorithm to discover sequences related to constitutive, high-level gene expression in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, and then experimentally validate the importance of those elements by systematically mutating two endogenous promoters and measuring the effect on gene expression levels. This provides a foundation for future efforts to rationally engineer gene expression in plants, a problem of great importance in developing biotech crop varieties.BSD-licensed Python code at http://grassrootsbio.com/papers/powrs/.

Perilipin 3 modulates specific lipogenic pathways in SZ95 sebocytes.

Science.gov (United States)

Camera, Emanuela; Dahlhoff, Maik; Ludovici, Matteo; Zouboulis, Christos C; Schneider, Marlon R

2014-10-01

Lipid droplets (LD) are dynamic organelles that manage cellular lipid synthesis, storage and retrieval. Although LD-associated proteins, including the perilipin family (PLIN1-PLIN5), are essential for these functions, they have been poorly characterized in sebocytes. Here, we employed siRNAs to downregulate PLIN3 in SZ95 sebaceous gland cells and evaluated the consequences in lipid accumulation by nile red staining and mass spectrometry. Nile red staining revealed that siRNA-mediated downregulation of PLIN3 significantly impaired linoleic acid-induced lipid accumulation in SZ95 sebocytes. Mass spectrometry revealed that PLIN3 was implicated in the metabolism of linoleic acid, a lipid source used in the build-up of triglycerides, among other acyl lipids. Furthermore, the expression of key enzymes of sebaceous lipogenesis was altered in PLIN3-deficient sebocytes, consistent with the changes observed in the neutral lipid abundance, suggesting that PLIN3 functions are intertwined with the lipogenic pathways implicated in sebaceous lipogenesis, such as desaturation and triglyceride synthesis. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The MHC motif viewer: a visualization tool for MHC binding motifs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rapin, Nicolas; Hoof, Ilka; Lund, Ole

2010-01-01

is hampered by the lack of tools for browsing and comparing specificity of these molecules. We have developed a Web server, MHC Motif Viewer, which allows the display of the binding motif for MHC class I proteins for human, chimpanzee, rhesus monkey, mouse, and swine, as well as HLA-DR protein sequences...

Evolutionary dynamics of a conserved sequence motif in the ribosomal genes of the ciliate Paramecium.

Science.gov (United States)

Catania, Francesco; Lynch, Michael

2010-05-04

In protozoa, the identification of preserved motifs by comparative genomics is often impeded by difficulties to generate reliable alignments for non-coding sequences. Moreover, the evolutionary dynamics of regulatory elements in 3' untranslated regions (both in protozoa and metazoa) remains a virtually unexplored issue. By screening Paramecium tetraurelia's 3' untranslated regions for 8-mers that were previously found to be preserved in mammalian 3' UTRs, we detect and characterize a motif that is distinctly conserved in the ribosomal genes of this ciliate. The motif appears to be conserved across Paramecium aurelia species but is absent from the ribosomal genes of four additional non-Paramecium species surveyed, including another ciliate, Tetrahymena thermophila. Motif-free ribosomal genes retain fewer paralogs in the genome and appear to be lost more rapidly relative to motif-containing genes. Features associated with the discovered preserved motif are consistent with this 8-mer playing a role in post-transcriptional regulation. Our observations 1) shed light on the evolution of a putative regulatory motif across large phylogenetic distances; 2) are expected to facilitate the understanding of the modulation of ribosomal genes expression in Paramecium; and 3) reveal a largely unexplored--and presumably not restricted to Paramecium--association between the presence/absence of a DNA motif and the evolutionary fate of its host genes.

Lamin A reassembly at the end of mitosis is regulated by its SUMO-interacting motif

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Moriuchi, Takanobu; Kuroda, Masaki; Kusumoto, Fumiya; Osumi, Takashi; Hirose, Fumiko, E-mail: fhirose@sci.u-hyogo.ac.jp

2016-03-01

Modification of proteins with small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO; SUMOylation) is involved in the regulation of various biological processes. Recent studies have demonstrated that noncovalent associations between SUMOylated proteins and co-operative proteins containing SUMO-interacting motifs (SIMs) are important for the spatiotemporal organization of many protein complexes. In this study, we demonstrate that interactions between lamin A, a major component of the nuclear lamina, and SUMO isoforms are dependent on one of the four SIMs (SIM3) resided in lamin A polypeptide in vitro. Live cell imaging and immunofluorescence staining showed that SIM3 is required for accumulation of lamin A on the chromosomes during telophase, and subsequent evaluation of a panel of deletion mutants determined that a 156-amino acid region spanning the carboxyl-terminal Ig-fold domain of lamin A is sufficient for this accumulation. Notably, mutation of SIM3 abrogated the dephosphorylation of mitosis-specific phosphorylation at Ser-22 of lamin A, which normally occurs during telophase, and the subsequent nuclear lamina reorganization. Furthermore, expression of a conjugation-defective SUMO2 mutant, which was previously shown to inhibit endogenous SUMOylation in a dominant-negative manner, also impaired the accumulation of wild type lamin A on telophase chromosomes. These findings suggest that interactions between SIM3 of lamin A and a putative SUMO2-modified protein plays an important role in the reorganization of the nuclear lamina at the end of mitosis. - Highlights: • Lamin A interacts with SUMO2 via a SUMO-interacting motif (SIM) in the Ig domain. • SIM3 of lamin A is responsible for chromosomal accumulation during telophase. • A 156-aa region spanning the Ig domain is sufficient for chromosomal accumulation. • Accumulation of lamin A is required for timely dephosphorylation on chromosomes. • A putative SUMO2-modified protein may mediate chromosomal accumulation of lamin

Lamin A reassembly at the end of mitosis is regulated by its SUMO-interacting motif

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Moriuchi, Takanobu; Kuroda, Masaki; Kusumoto, Fumiya; Osumi, Takashi; Hirose, Fumiko

2016-01-01

Modification of proteins with small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO; SUMOylation) is involved in the regulation of various biological processes. Recent studies have demonstrated that noncovalent associations between SUMOylated proteins and co-operative proteins containing SUMO-interacting motifs (SIMs) are important for the spatiotemporal organization of many protein complexes. In this study, we demonstrate that interactions between lamin A, a major component of the nuclear lamina, and SUMO isoforms are dependent on one of the four SIMs (SIM3) resided in lamin A polypeptide in vitro. Live cell imaging and immunofluorescence staining showed that SIM3 is required for accumulation of lamin A on the chromosomes during telophase, and subsequent evaluation of a panel of deletion mutants determined that a 156-amino acid region spanning the carboxyl-terminal Ig-fold domain of lamin A is sufficient for this accumulation. Notably, mutation of SIM3 abrogated the dephosphorylation of mitosis-specific phosphorylation at Ser-22 of lamin A, which normally occurs during telophase, and the subsequent nuclear lamina reorganization. Furthermore, expression of a conjugation-defective SUMO2 mutant, which was previously shown to inhibit endogenous SUMOylation in a dominant-negative manner, also impaired the accumulation of wild type lamin A on telophase chromosomes. These findings suggest that interactions between SIM3 of lamin A and a putative SUMO2-modified protein plays an important role in the reorganization of the nuclear lamina at the end of mitosis. - Highlights: • Lamin A interacts with SUMO2 via a SUMO-interacting motif (SIM) in the Ig domain. • SIM3 of lamin A is responsible for chromosomal accumulation during telophase. • A 156-aa region spanning the Ig domain is sufficient for chromosomal accumulation. • Accumulation of lamin A is required for timely dephosphorylation on chromosomes. • A putative SUMO2-modified protein may mediate chromosomal accumulation of lamin

Comparative genomics of metabolic capacities of regulons controlled by cis-regulatory RNA motifs in bacteria.

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Eric I; Leyn, Semen A; Kazanov, Marat D; Saier, Milton H; Novichkov, Pavel S; Rodionov, Dmitry A

2013-09-02

In silico comparative genomics approaches have been efficiently used for functional prediction and reconstruction of metabolic and regulatory networks. Riboswitches are metabolite-sensing structures often found in bacterial mRNA leaders controlling gene expression on transcriptional or translational levels.An increasing number of riboswitches and other cis-regulatory RNAs have been recently classified into numerous RNA families in the Rfam database. High conservation of these RNA motifs provides a unique advantage for their genomic identification and comparative analysis. A comparative genomics approach implemented in the RegPredict tool was used for reconstruction and functional annotation of regulons controlled by RNAs from 43 Rfam families in diverse taxonomic groups of Bacteria. The inferred regulons include ~5200 cis-regulatory RNAs and more than 12000 target genes in 255 microbial genomes. All predicted RNA-regulated genes were classified into specific and overall functional categories. Analysis of taxonomic distribution of these categories allowed us to establish major functional preferences for each analyzed cis-regulatory RNA motif family. Overall, most RNA motif regulons showed predictable functional content in accordance with their experimentally established effector ligands. Our results suggest that some RNA motifs (including thiamin pyrophosphate and cobalamin riboswitches that control the cofactor metabolism) are widespread and likely originated from the last common ancestor of all bacteria. However, many more analyzed RNA motifs are restricted to a narrow taxonomic group of bacteria and likely represent more recent evolutionary innovations. The reconstructed regulatory networks for major known RNA motifs substantially expand the existing knowledge of transcriptional regulation in bacteria. The inferred regulons can be used for genetic experiments, functional annotations of genes, metabolic reconstruction and evolutionary analysis. The obtained genome

Activation of the Constitutive Androstane Receptor induces hepatic lipogenesis and regulates Pnpla3 gene expression in a LXR-independent way

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marmugi, Alice; Lukowicz, Céline; Lasserre, Frederic; Montagner, Alexandra; Polizzi, Arnaud; Ducheix, Simon; Goron, Adeline; Gamet-Payrastre, Laurence; Gerbal-Chaloin, Sabine; Pascussi, Jean Marc; Moldes, Marthe; Pineau, Thierry; Guillou, Hervé; Mselli-Lakhal, Laila

2016-01-01

The Constitutive Androstane Receptor (CAR, NR1I3) has been newly described as a regulator of energy metabolism. A relevant number of studies using animal models of obesity suggest that CAR activation could be beneficial on the metabolic balance. However, this remains controversial and the underlying mechanisms are still unknown. This work aimed to investigate the effect of CAR activation on hepatic energy metabolism during physiological conditions, i.e. in mouse models not subjected to metabolic/nutritional stress. Gene expression profiling in the liver of CAR knockout and control mice on chow diet and treated with a CAR agonist highlighted CAR-mediated up-regulations of lipogenic genes, concomitant with neutral lipid accumulation. A strong CAR-mediated up-regulation of the patatin-like phospholipase domain-containing protein 3 (Pnpla3) was demonstrated. Pnpla3 is a gene whose polymorphism is associated with the pathogenesis of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) development. This observation was confirmed in human hepatocytes treated with the antiepileptic drug and CAR activator, phenobarbital and in immortalized human hepatocytes treated with CITCO. Studying the molecular mechanisms controlling Pnpla3 gene expression, we demonstrated that CAR does not act by a direct regulation of Pnpla3 transcription or via the Liver X Receptor but may rather involve the transcription factor Carbohydrate Responsive Element-binding protein. These data provide new insights into the regulation by CAR of glycolytic and lipogenic genes and on pathogenesis of steatosis. This also raises the question concerning the impact of drugs and environmental contaminants in lipid-associated metabolic diseases. - Highlights: • Induction of hepatic glycolytic and lipogenic genes upon CAR activation by TCPOBOP. • These effects are not mediated by the nuclear receptor LXR. • CAR activation resulted in hepatic lipid accumulation. • Pnpla3 expression is regulated by CAR in mouse liver and

Activation of the Constitutive Androstane Receptor induces hepatic lipogenesis and regulates Pnpla3 gene expression in a LXR-independent way

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Marmugi, Alice; Lukowicz, Céline; Lasserre, Frederic; Montagner, Alexandra; Polizzi, Arnaud; Ducheix, Simon; Goron, Adeline; Gamet-Payrastre, Laurence [INRA, TOXALIM (Research Centre in Food Toxicology), Toulouse (France); Université de Toulouse, INP, UPS, TOXALIM, Toulouse (France); Gerbal-Chaloin, Sabine [Institute of Regenerative Medicine and Biotherapy, INSERM, U1183 Montpellier (France); Pascussi, Jean Marc [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UMR5203, Institut de Génomique Fonctionnelle, Montpellier (France); Moldes, Marthe [Centre de Recherche Saint-Antoine, INSERM, UMR 938, Sorbonne Universités, Université Paris 6, Paris (France); Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire ICAN, Paris (France); Pineau, Thierry; Guillou, Hervé [INRA, TOXALIM (Research Centre in Food Toxicology), Toulouse (France); Université de Toulouse, INP, UPS, TOXALIM, Toulouse (France); Mselli-Lakhal, Laila, E-mail: laila.lakhal@toulouse.inra.fr [INRA, TOXALIM (Research Centre in Food Toxicology), Toulouse (France); Université de Toulouse, INP, UPS, TOXALIM, Toulouse (France)

2016-07-15

The Constitutive Androstane Receptor (CAR, NR1I3) has been newly described as a regulator of energy metabolism. A relevant number of studies using animal models of obesity suggest that CAR activation could be beneficial on the metabolic balance. However, this remains controversial and the underlying mechanisms are still unknown. This work aimed to investigate the effect of CAR activation on hepatic energy metabolism during physiological conditions, i.e. in mouse models not subjected to metabolic/nutritional stress. Gene expression profiling in the liver of CAR knockout and control mice on chow diet and treated with a CAR agonist highlighted CAR-mediated up-regulations of lipogenic genes, concomitant with neutral lipid accumulation. A strong CAR-mediated up-regulation of the patatin-like phospholipase domain-containing protein 3 (Pnpla3) was demonstrated. Pnpla3 is a gene whose polymorphism is associated with the pathogenesis of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) development. This observation was confirmed in human hepatocytes treated with the antiepileptic drug and CAR activator, phenobarbital and in immortalized human hepatocytes treated with CITCO. Studying the molecular mechanisms controlling Pnpla3 gene expression, we demonstrated that CAR does not act by a direct regulation of Pnpla3 transcription or via the Liver X Receptor but may rather involve the transcription factor Carbohydrate Responsive Element-binding protein. These data provide new insights into the regulation by CAR of glycolytic and lipogenic genes and on pathogenesis of steatosis. This also raises the question concerning the impact of drugs and environmental contaminants in lipid-associated metabolic diseases. - Highlights: • Induction of hepatic glycolytic and lipogenic genes upon CAR activation by TCPOBOP. • These effects are not mediated by the nuclear receptor LXR. • CAR activation resulted in hepatic lipid accumulation. • Pnpla3 expression is regulated by CAR in mouse liver and

GPUmotif: an ultra-fast and energy-efficient motif analysis program using graphics processing units.

Science.gov (United States)

Zandevakili, Pooya; Hu, Ming; Qin, Zhaohui

2012-01-01

Computational detection of TF binding patterns has become an indispensable tool in functional genomics research. With the rapid advance of new sequencing technologies, large amounts of protein-DNA interaction data have been produced. Analyzing this data can provide substantial insight into the mechanisms of transcriptional regulation. However, the massive amount of sequence data presents daunting challenges. In our previous work, we have developed a novel algorithm called Hybrid Motif Sampler (HMS) that enables more scalable and accurate motif analysis. Despite much improvement, HMS is still time-consuming due to the requirement to calculate matching probabilities position-by-position. Using the NVIDIA CUDA toolkit, we developed a graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated motif analysis program named GPUmotif. We proposed a "fragmentation" technique to hide data transfer time between memories. Performance comparison studies showed that commonly-used model-based motif scan and de novo motif finding procedures such as HMS can be dramatically accelerated when running GPUmotif on NVIDIA graphics cards. As a result, energy consumption can also be greatly reduced when running motif analysis using GPUmotif. The GPUmotif program is freely available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/gpumotif/

GPUmotif: an ultra-fast and energy-efficient motif analysis program using graphics processing units.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pooya Zandevakili

Full Text Available Computational detection of TF binding patterns has become an indispensable tool in functional genomics research. With the rapid advance of new sequencing technologies, large amounts of protein-DNA interaction data have been produced. Analyzing this data can provide substantial insight into the mechanisms of transcriptional regulation. However, the massive amount of sequence data presents daunting challenges. In our previous work, we have developed a novel algorithm called Hybrid Motif Sampler (HMS that enables more scalable and accurate motif analysis. Despite much improvement, HMS is still time-consuming due to the requirement to calculate matching probabilities position-by-position. Using the NVIDIA CUDA toolkit, we developed a graphics processing unit (GPU-accelerated motif analysis program named GPUmotif. We proposed a "fragmentation" technique to hide data transfer time between memories. Performance comparison studies showed that commonly-used model-based motif scan and de novo motif finding procedures such as HMS can be dramatically accelerated when running GPUmotif on NVIDIA graphics cards. As a result, energy consumption can also be greatly reduced when running motif analysis using GPUmotif. The GPUmotif program is freely available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/gpumotif/

Identification of a putative nuclear export signal motif in human NANOG homeobox domain

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Park, Sung-Won; Do, Hyun-Jin; Huh, Sun-Hyung; Sung, Boreum; Uhm, Sang-Jun; Song, Hyuk; Kim, Nam-Hyung; Kim, Jae-Hwan

2012-01-01

Highlights: ► We found the putative nuclear export signal motif within human NANOG homeodomain. ► Leucine-rich residues are important for human NANOG homeodomain nuclear export. ► CRM1-specific inhibitor LMB blocked the potent human NANOG NES-mediated nuclear export. -- Abstract: NANOG is a homeobox-containing transcription factor that plays an important role in pluripotent stem cells and tumorigenic cells. To understand how nuclear localization of human NANOG is regulated, the NANOG sequence was examined and a leucine-rich nuclear export signal (NES) motif ( 125 MQELSNILNL 134 ) was found in the homeodomain (HD). To functionally validate the putative NES motif, deletion and site-directed mutants were fused to an EGFP expression vector and transfected into COS-7 cells, and the localization of the proteins was examined. While hNANOG HD exclusively localized to the nucleus, a mutant with both NLSs deleted and only the putative NES motif contained (hNANOG HD-ΔNLSs) was predominantly cytoplasmic, as observed by nucleo/cytoplasmic fractionation and Western blot analysis as well as confocal microscopy. Furthermore, site-directed mutagenesis of the putative NES motif in a partial hNANOG HD only containing either one of the two NLS motifs led to localization in the nucleus, suggesting that the NES motif may play a functional role in nuclear export. Furthermore, CRM1-specific nuclear export inhibitor LMB blocked the hNANOG potent NES-mediated export, suggesting that the leucine-rich motif may function in CRM1-mediated nuclear export of hNANOG. Collectively, a NES motif is present in the hNANOG HD and may be functionally involved in CRM1-mediated nuclear export pathway.

Kopi dan Kakao dalam Kreasi Motif Batik Khas Jember

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Irfa'ina Rohana Salma

2015-06-01

Full Text Available ABSTRAK Batik Jember selama ini identik dengan motif daun tembakau. Visualisasi daun tembakau dalam motif Batik Jember cukup lemah, yaitu kurang berkarakter karena motif yang muncul adalah seperti gambar daun pada umumnya. Oleh karena itu perlu diciptakan desain motif batik khas Jember yang sumber inspirasinya digali dari kekayaan alam lainnya dari Jember yang mempunyai bentuk spesifik dan karakteristik sehingga identitas motif bisa didapatkan dengan lebih kuat. Hasil alam khas Jember tersebut adalah kopi dan kakao. Tujuan penciptaan seni ini adalah untuk menghasilkan motif batik  baru yang mempunyai ciri khas Jember. Metode yang digunakan yaitu pengumpulan data, pengamatan mendalam terhadap objek penciptaan, pengkajian sumber inspirasi, pembuatan desain motif, dan perwujudan menjadi batik. Dari penciptaan seni ini berhasil dikreasikan 6 (enam motif batik yaitu: (1 Motif Uwoh Kopi; (2 Motif Godong Kopi;  (3 Motif Ceplok Kakao; (4 Motif Kakao Raja; (5 Motif Kakao Biru; dan (6 Motif Wiji Mukti. Berdasarkan hasil penilaian “Selera Estetika” diketahui bahwa motif yang paling banyak disukai adalah Motif Uwoh Kopi dan Motif Kakao Raja. Kata kunci: Motif Woh Kopi, Motif Godong Kopi, Motif Ceplok Kakao, Motif Kakao Raja, Motif Kakao Biru, Motif Wiji Mukti ABSTRACTBatik Jember is synonymous with tobacco leaf motif. Tobacco leaf shape is quite weak in the visual appearance characterized as that motif emerges like a picture of leaves in general. Therefore, it is necessary to create a distinctive design motif extracted from other natural resources of Jember that have specific shapes and characteristics that can be obtained as the stronger motif identity. The typical natural resources from Jember are coffee and cocoa. The purpose of the creation of this art is to produce the unique, creative and innovative batik and have specific characteristics of Jember. The method used are data collection, observation of the object, reviewing inspiration sources

Involvement of adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase in the influence of timed high-fat evening diet on the hepatic clock and lipogenic gene expression in mice.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Yan; Zhu, Zengyan; Xie, Meilin; Xue, Jie

2015-09-01

A high-fat diet may result in changes in hepatic clock gene expression, but potential mechanisms are not yet elucidated. Adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a serine/threonine protein kinase that is recognized as a key regulator of energy metabolism and certain clock genes. Therefore, we hypothesized that AMPK may be involved in the alteration of hepatic clock gene expression under a high-fat environment. This study aimed to examine the effects of timed high-fat evening diet on the activity of hepatic AMPK, clock genes, and lipogenic genes. Mice with hyperlipidemic fatty livers were induced by orally administering high-fat milk via gavage every evening (19:00-20:00) for 6 weeks. Results showed that timed high-fat diet in the evening not only decreased the hepatic AMPK protein expression and activity but also disturbed its circadian rhythm. Accordingly, the hepatic clock genes, including clock, brain-muscle-Arnt-like 1, cryptochrome 2, and period 2, exhibited prominent changes in their expression rhythms and/or amplitudes. The diurnal rhythms of the messenger RNA expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptorα, acetyl-CoA carboxylase 1α, and carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 were also disrupted; the amplitude of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptorγcoactivator 1α was significantly decreased at 3 time points, and fatty liver was observed. These findings demonstrate that timed high-fat diet at night can change hepatic AMPK protein levels, activity, and circadian rhythm, which may subsequently alter the circadian expression of several hepatic clock genes and finally result in the disorder of hepatic lipogenic gene expression and the formation of fatty liver. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

CombiMotif: A new algorithm for network motifs discovery in protein-protein interaction networks

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Jiawei; Li, Guanghui; Song, Dan; Liang, Cheng

2014-12-01

Discovering motifs in protein-protein interaction networks is becoming a current major challenge in computational biology, since the distribution of the number of network motifs can reveal significant systemic differences among species. However, this task can be computationally expensive because of the involvement of graph isomorphic detection. In this paper, we present a new algorithm (CombiMotif) that incorporates combinatorial techniques to count non-induced occurrences of subgraph topologies in the form of trees. The efficiency of our algorithm is demonstrated by comparing the obtained results with the current state-of-the art subgraph counting algorithms. We also show major differences between unicellular and multicellular organisms. The datasets and source code of CombiMotif are freely available upon request.

MSDmotif: exploring protein sites and motifs

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Henrick Kim

2008-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Protein structures have conserved features – motifs, which have a sufficient influence on the protein function. These motifs can be found in sequence as well as in 3D space. Understanding of these fragments is essential for 3D structure prediction, modelling and drug-design. The Protein Data Bank (PDB is the source of this information however present search tools have limited 3D options to integrate protein sequence with its 3D structure. Results We describe here a web application for querying the PDB for ligands, binding sites, small 3D structural and sequence motifs and the underlying database. Novel algorithms for chemical fragments, 3D motifs, ϕ/ψ sequences, super-secondary structure motifs and for small 3D structural motif associations searches are incorporated. The interface provides functionality for visualization, search criteria creation, sequence and 3D multiple alignment options. MSDmotif is an integrated system where a results page is also a search form. A set of motif statistics is available for analysis. This set includes molecule and motif binding statistics, distribution of motif sequences, occurrence of an amino-acid within a motif, correlation of amino-acids side-chain charges within a motif and Ramachandran plots for each residue. The binding statistics are presented in association with properties that include a ligand fragment library. Access is also provided through the distributed Annotation System (DAS protocol. An additional entry point facilitates XML requests with XML responses. Conclusion MSDmotif is unique by combining chemical, sequence and 3D data in a single search engine with a range of search and visualisation options. It provides multiple views of data found in the PDB archive for exploring protein structures.

Dragon polya spotter: Predictor of poly(A) motifs within human genomic DNA sequences

KAUST Repository

Kalkatawi, Manal M.

2011-11-15

Motivation: Recognition of poly(A) signals in mRNA is relatively straightforward due to the presence of easily recognizable polyadenylic acid tail. However, the task of identifying poly(A) motifs in the primary genomic DNA sequence that correspond to poly(A) signals in mRNA is a far more challenging problem. Recognition of poly(A) signals is important for better gene annotation and understanding of the gene regulation mechanisms. In this work, we present one such poly(A) motif prediction method based on properties of human genomic DNA sequence surrounding a poly(A) motif. These properties include thermodynamic, physico-chemical and statistical characteristics. For predictions, we developed Artificial Neural Network and Random Forest models. These models are trained to recognize 12 most common poly(A) motifs in human DNA. Our predictors are available as a free web-based tool accessible at http://cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/dps. Compared with other reported predictors, our models achieve higher sensitivity and specificity and furthermore provide a consistent level of accuracy for 12 poly(A) motif variants. The Author(s) 2011. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Transcriptional analysis of abdominal fat in genetically fat and lean chickens reveals adipokines, lipogenic genes and a link between hemostasis and leanness

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

Background This descriptive study of the abdominal fat transcriptome takes advantage of two experimental lines of meat-type chickens (Gallus domesticus), which were selected over seven generations for a large difference in abdominal (visceral) fatness. At the age of selection (9 wk), the fat line (FL) and lean line (LL) chickens exhibit a 2.5-fold difference in abdominal fat weight, while their feed intake and body weight are similar. These unique avian models were originally created to unravel genetic and endocrine regulation of adiposity and lipogenesis in meat-type chickens. The Del-Mar 14K Chicken Integrated Systems microarray was used for a time-course analysis of gene expression in abdominal fat of FL and LL chickens during juvenile development (1–11 weeks of age). Results Microarray analysis of abdominal fat in FL and LL chickens revealed 131 differentially expressed (DE) genes (FDR≤0.05) as the main effect of genotype, 254 DE genes as an interaction of age and genotype and 3,195 DE genes (FDR≤0.01) as the main effect of age. The most notable discoveries in the abdominal fat transcriptome were higher expression of many genes involved in blood coagulation in the LL and up-regulation of numerous adipogenic and lipogenic genes in FL chickens. Many of these DE genes belong to pathways controlling the synthesis, metabolism and transport of lipids or endocrine signaling pathways activated by adipokines, retinoid and thyroid hormones. Conclusions The present study provides a dynamic view of differential gene transcription in abdominal fat of chickens genetically selected for fatness (FL) or leanness (LL). Remarkably, the LL chickens over-express a large number of hemostatic genes that could be involved in proteolytic processing of adipokines and endocrine factors, which contribute to their higher lipolysis and export of stored lipids. Some of these changes are already present at 1 week of age before the divergence in fatness. In contrast, the FL chickens have

BACE1 protein endocytosis and trafficking are differentially regulated by ubiquitination at lysine 501 and the Di-leucine motif in the carboxyl terminus.

Science.gov (United States)

Kang, Eugene L; Biscaro, Barbara; Piazza, Fabrizio; Tesco, Giuseppina

2012-12-14

β-Site amyloid precursor protein-cleaving enzyme (BACE1) is a membrane-tethered member of the aspartyl proteases that has been identified as β-secretase. BACE1 is targeted through the secretory pathway to the plasma membrane and then is internalized to endosomes. Sorting of membrane proteins to the endosomes and lysosomes is regulated by the interaction of signals present in their carboxyl-terminal fragment with specific trafficking molecules. The BACE1 carboxyl-terminal fragment contains a di-leucine sorting signal ((495)DDISLL(500)) and a ubiquitination site at Lys-501. Here, we report that lack of ubiquitination at Lys-501 (BACE1K501R) does not affect the rate of endocytosis but produces BACE1 stabilization and accumulation of BACE1 in early and late endosomes/lysosomes as well as at the cell membrane. In contrast, the disruption of the di-leucine motif (BACE1LLAA) greatly impairs BACE1 endocytosis and produces a delayed retrograde transport of BACE1 to the trans-Golgi network (TGN) and a delayed delivery of BACE1 to the lysosomes, thus decreasing its degradation. Moreover, the combination of the lack of ubiquitination at Lys-501 and the disruption of the di-leucine motif (BACE1LLAA/KR) produces additive effects on BACE1 stabilization and defective internalization. Finally, BACE1LLAA/KR accumulates in the TGN, while its levels are decreased in EEA1-positive compartments indicating that both ubiquitination at Lys-501 and the di-leucine motif are necessary for the trafficking of BACE1 from the TGN to early endosomes. Our studies have elucidated a differential role for the di-leucine motif and ubiquitination at Lys-501 in BACE1 endocytosis, trafficking, and degradation and suggest the involvement of multiple adaptor molecules.

BACE1 Protein Endocytosis and Trafficking Are Differentially Regulated by Ubiquitination at Lysine 501 and the Di-leucine Motif in the Carboxyl Terminus*

Science.gov (United States)

Kang, Eugene L.; Biscaro, Barbara; Piazza, Fabrizio; Tesco, Giuseppina

2012-01-01

β-Site amyloid precursor protein-cleaving enzyme (BACE1) is a membrane-tethered member of the aspartyl proteases that has been identified as β-secretase. BACE1 is targeted through the secretory pathway to the plasma membrane and then is internalized to endosomes. Sorting of membrane proteins to the endosomes and lysosomes is regulated by the interaction of signals present in their carboxyl-terminal fragment with specific trafficking molecules. The BACE1 carboxyl-terminal fragment contains a di-leucine sorting signal (495DDISLL500) and a ubiquitination site at Lys-501. Here, we report that lack of ubiquitination at Lys-501 (BACE1K501R) does not affect the rate of endocytosis but produces BACE1 stabilization and accumulation of BACE1 in early and late endosomes/lysosomes as well as at the cell membrane. In contrast, the disruption of the di-leucine motif (BACE1LLAA) greatly impairs BACE1 endocytosis and produces a delayed retrograde transport of BACE1 to the trans-Golgi network (TGN) and a delayed delivery of BACE1 to the lysosomes, thus decreasing its degradation. Moreover, the combination of the lack of ubiquitination at Lys-501 and the disruption of the di-leucine motif (BACE1LLAA/KR) produces additive effects on BACE1 stabilization and defective internalization. Finally, BACE1LLAA/KR accumulates in the TGN, while its levels are decreased in EEA1-positive compartments indicating that both ubiquitination at Lys-501 and the di-leucine motif are necessary for the trafficking of BACE1 from the TGN to early endosomes. Our studies have elucidated a differential role for the di-leucine motif and ubiquitination at Lys-501 in BACE1 endocytosis, trafficking, and degradation and suggest the involvement of multiple adaptor molecules. PMID:23109336

Evolutionary dynamics of a conserved sequence motif in the ribosomal genes of the ciliate Paramecium

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Lynch Michael

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background In protozoa, the identification of preserved motifs by comparative genomics is often impeded by difficulties to generate reliable alignments for non-coding sequences. Moreover, the evolutionary dynamics of regulatory elements in 3' untranslated regions (both in protozoa and metazoa remains a virtually unexplored issue. Results By screening Paramecium tetraurelia's 3' untranslated regions for 8-mers that were previously found to be preserved in mammalian 3' UTRs, we detect and characterize a motif that is distinctly conserved in the ribosomal genes of this ciliate. The motif appears to be conserved across Paramecium aurelia species but is absent from the ribosomal genes of four additional non-Paramecium species surveyed, including another ciliate, Tetrahymena thermophila. Motif-free ribosomal genes retain fewer paralogs in the genome and appear to be lost more rapidly relative to motif-containing genes. Features associated with the discovered preserved motif are consistent with this 8-mer playing a role in post-transcriptional regulation. Conclusions Our observations 1 shed light on the evolution of a putative regulatory motif across large phylogenetic distances; 2 are expected to facilitate the understanding of the modulation of ribosomal genes expression in Paramecium; and 3 reveal a largely unexplored--and presumably not restricted to Paramecium--association between the presence/absence of a DNA motif and the evolutionary fate of its host genes.

Selection against spurious promoter motifs correlates withtranslational efficiency across bacteria

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Froula, Jeffrey L.; Francino, M. Pilar

2007-05-01

Because binding of RNAP to misplaced sites could compromise the efficiency of transcription, natural selection for the optimization of gene expression should regulate the distribution of DNA motifs capable of RNAP-binding across the genome. Here we analyze the distribution of the -10 promoter motifs that bind the {sigma}{sup 70} subunit of RNAP in 42 bacterial genomes. We show that selection on these motifs operates across the genome, maintaining an over-representation of -10 motifs in regulatory sequences while eliminating them from the nonfunctional and, in most cases, from the protein coding regions. In some genomes, however, -10 sites are over-represented in the coding sequences; these sites could induce pauses effecting regulatory roles throughout the length of a transcriptional unit. For nonfunctional sequences, the extent of motif under-representation varies across genomes in a manner that broadly correlates with the number of tRNA genes, a good indicator of translational speed and growth rate. This suggests that minimizing the time invested in gene transcription is an important selective pressure against spurious binding. However, selection against spurious binding is detectable in the reduced genomes of host-restricted bacteria that grow at slow rates, indicating that components of efficiency other than speed may also be important. Minimizing the number of RNAP molecules per cell required for transcription, and the corresponding energetic expense, may be most relevant in slow growers. These results indicate that genome-level properties affecting the efficiency of transcription and translation can respond in an integrated manner to optimize gene expression. The detection of selection against promoter motifs in nonfunctional regions also implies that no sequence may evolve free of selective constraints, at least in the relatively small and unstructured genomes of bacteria.

Conserved binding of GCAC motifs by MEC-8, couch potato, and the RBPMS protein family

Science.gov (United States)

Soufari, Heddy

2017-01-01

Precise regulation of mRNA processing, translation, localization, and stability relies on specific interactions with RNA-binding proteins whose biological function and target preference are dictated by their preferred RNA motifs. The RBPMS family of RNA-binding proteins is defined by a conserved RNA recognition motif (RRM) domain found in metazoan RBPMS/Hermes and RBPMS2, Drosophila couch potato, and MEC-8 from Caenorhabditis elegans. In order to determine the parameters of RNA sequence recognition by the RBPMS family, we have first used the N-terminal domain from MEC-8 in binding assays and have demonstrated a preference for two GCAC motifs optimally separated by >6 nucleotides (nt). We have also determined the crystal structure of the dimeric N-terminal RRM domain from MEC-8 in the unbound form, and in complex with an oligonucleotide harboring two copies of the optimal GCAC motif. The atomic details reveal the molecular network that provides specificity to all four bases in the motif, including multiple hydrogen bonds to the initial guanine. Further studies with human RBPMS, as well as Drosophila couch potato, confirm a general preference for this double GCAC motif by other members of the protein family and the presence of this motif in known targets. PMID:28003515

An integrative and applicable phylogenetic footprinting framework for cis-regulatory motifs identification in prokaryotic genomes.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Bingqiang; Zhang, Hanyuan; Zhou, Chuan; Li, Guojun; Fennell, Anne; Wang, Guanghui; Kang, Yu; Liu, Qi; Ma, Qin

2016-08-09

Phylogenetic footprinting is an important computational technique for identifying cis-regulatory motifs in orthologous regulatory regions from multiple genomes, as motifs tend to evolve slower than their surrounding non-functional sequences. Its application, however, has several difficulties for optimizing the selection of orthologous data and reducing the false positives in motif prediction. Here we present an integrative phylogenetic footprinting framework for accurate motif predictions in prokaryotic genomes (MP(3)). The framework includes a new orthologous data preparation procedure, an additional promoter scoring and pruning method and an integration of six existing motif finding algorithms as basic motif search engines. Specifically, we collected orthologous genes from available prokaryotic genomes and built the orthologous regulatory regions based on sequence similarity of promoter regions. This procedure made full use of the large-scale genomic data and taxonomy information and filtered out the promoters with limited contribution to produce a high quality orthologous promoter set. The promoter scoring and pruning is implemented through motif voting by a set of complementary predicting tools that mine as many motif candidates as possible and simultaneously eliminate the effect of random noise. We have applied the framework to Escherichia coli k12 genome and evaluated the prediction performance through comparison with seven existing programs. This evaluation was systematically carried out at the nucleotide and binding site level, and the results showed that MP(3) consistently outperformed other popular motif finding tools. We have integrated MP(3) into our motif identification and analysis server DMINDA, allowing users to efficiently identify and analyze motifs in 2,072 completely sequenced prokaryotic genomes. The performance evaluation indicated that MP(3) is effective for predicting regulatory motifs in prokaryotic genomes. Its application may enhance

Promoter motifs required for c-mpl gene expression induced by thrombopoietin in CMK cells.

Science.gov (United States)

Sunohara, Masataka; Sato, Iwao; Morikawa, Shigeru

2017-11-30

Thrombopoietin (TPO) and its receptor, c-Mpl, are the central regulators of megakaryocyte development and platelet production and are also crucial to regulate megakaryocytopoiesis. TPO remarkably elevated c-mpl promoter activity, while the protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitors, GF109203, H7 and Calphostin C, clearly reduced the steady level of its promoter activity.  In the present study, motifs crucial for c-mpl promoter activity induced by TPO treatment have been analyzed using a human megakaryoblastic cell line, CMK. Destruction of the -107Sp1 and the -57Sp1 sites in the c-mpl promoter enhancer region resulted in decrease of the promoter activity by 53.1% and 64.4%, respectively, and destruction of -69Ets and -28Ets elements dramatically decreased the promoter activity by 96.4% and 87.8%, respectively, while mutation of -77GATA moderately reduced the activity by 31.4%. The result was in agreement with our previous report that showed the crucial motifs in the c-mpl promoter for the promoter activity induced by PMA-treatment. This indicates that TPO-induced activation of the c-mpl promoter activity is fully modulated by transcription through a PKC-dependent pathway and the two Sp1 and two Ets motifs are crucial for the activation of the c-mpl promoter activity rather than a GATA motif in the c-mpl promoter of CMK cells.

Statistical tests to compare motif count exceptionalities

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Vandewalle Vincent

2007-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Finding over- or under-represented motifs in biological sequences is now a common task in genomics. Thanks to p-value calculation for motif counts, exceptional motifs are identified and represent candidate functional motifs. The present work addresses the related question of comparing the exceptionality of one motif in two different sequences. Just comparing the motif count p-values in each sequence is indeed not sufficient to decide if this motif is significantly more exceptional in one sequence compared to the other one. A statistical test is required. Results We develop and analyze two statistical tests, an exact binomial one and an asymptotic likelihood ratio test, to decide whether the exceptionality of a given motif is equivalent or significantly different in two sequences of interest. For that purpose, motif occurrences are modeled by Poisson processes, with a special care for overlapping motifs. Both tests can take the sequence compositions into account. As an illustration, we compare the octamer exceptionalities in the Escherichia coli K-12 backbone versus variable strain-specific loops. Conclusion The exact binomial test is particularly adapted for small counts. For large counts, we advise to use the likelihood ratio test which is asymptotic but strongly correlated with the exact binomial test and very simple to use.

The PDZ-binding motif of Yes-associated protein is required for its co-activation of TEAD-mediated CTGF transcription and oncogenic cell transforming activity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shimomura, Tadanori; Miyamura, Norio; Hata, Shoji; Miura, Ryota; Hirayama, Jun; Nishina, Hiroshi

2014-01-01

Highlights: •Loss of the PDZ-binding motif inhibits constitutively active YAP (5SA)-induced oncogenic cell transformation. •The PDZ-binding motif of YAP promotes its nuclear localization in cultured cells and mouse liver. •Loss of the PDZ-binding motif inhibits YAP (5SA)-induced CTGF transcription in cultured cells and mouse liver. -- Abstract: YAP is a transcriptional co-activator that acts downstream of the Hippo signaling pathway and regulates multiple cellular processes, including proliferation. Hippo pathway-dependent phosphorylation of YAP negatively regulates its function. Conversely, attenuation of Hippo-mediated phosphorylation of YAP increases its ability to stimulate proliferation and eventually induces oncogenic transformation. The C-terminus of YAP contains a highly conserved PDZ-binding motif that regulates YAP’s functions in multiple ways. However, to date, the importance of the PDZ-binding motif to the oncogenic cell transforming activity of YAP has not been determined. In this study, we disrupted the PDZ-binding motif in the YAP (5SA) protein, in which the sites normally targeted by Hippo pathway-dependent phosphorylation are mutated. We found that loss of the PDZ-binding motif significantly inhibited the oncogenic transformation of cultured cells induced by YAP (5SA). In addition, the increased nuclear localization of YAP (5SA) and its enhanced activation of TEAD-dependent transcription of the cell proliferation gene CTGF were strongly reduced when the PDZ-binding motif was deleted. Similarly, in mouse liver, deletion of the PDZ-binding motif suppressed nuclear localization of YAP (5SA) and YAP (5SA)-induced CTGF expression. Taken together, our results indicate that the PDZ-binding motif of YAP is critical for YAP-mediated oncogenesis, and that this effect is mediated by YAP’s co-activation of TEAD-mediated CTGF transcription

The PDZ-binding motif of Yes-associated protein is required for its co-activation of TEAD-mediated CTGF transcription and oncogenic cell transforming activity

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shimomura, Tadanori; Miyamura, Norio; Hata, Shoji; Miura, Ryota; Hirayama, Jun, E-mail: hirayama.dbio@mri.tmd.ac.jp; Nishina, Hiroshi, E-mail: nishina.dbio@mri.tmd.ac.jp

2014-01-17

Highlights: •Loss of the PDZ-binding motif inhibits constitutively active YAP (5SA)-induced oncogenic cell transformation. •The PDZ-binding motif of YAP promotes its nuclear localization in cultured cells and mouse liver. •Loss of the PDZ-binding motif inhibits YAP (5SA)-induced CTGF transcription in cultured cells and mouse liver. -- Abstract: YAP is a transcriptional co-activator that acts downstream of the Hippo signaling pathway and regulates multiple cellular processes, including proliferation. Hippo pathway-dependent phosphorylation of YAP negatively regulates its function. Conversely, attenuation of Hippo-mediated phosphorylation of YAP increases its ability to stimulate proliferation and eventually induces oncogenic transformation. The C-terminus of YAP contains a highly conserved PDZ-binding motif that regulates YAP’s functions in multiple ways. However, to date, the importance of the PDZ-binding motif to the oncogenic cell transforming activity of YAP has not been determined. In this study, we disrupted the PDZ-binding motif in the YAP (5SA) protein, in which the sites normally targeted by Hippo pathway-dependent phosphorylation are mutated. We found that loss of the PDZ-binding motif significantly inhibited the oncogenic transformation of cultured cells induced by YAP (5SA). In addition, the increased nuclear localization of YAP (5SA) and its enhanced activation of TEAD-dependent transcription of the cell proliferation gene CTGF were strongly reduced when the PDZ-binding motif was deleted. Similarly, in mouse liver, deletion of the PDZ-binding motif suppressed nuclear localization of YAP (5SA) and YAP (5SA)-induced CTGF expression. Taken together, our results indicate that the PDZ-binding motif of YAP is critical for YAP-mediated oncogenesis, and that this effect is mediated by YAP’s co-activation of TEAD-mediated CTGF transcription.

Promzea: a pipeline for discovery of co-regulatory motifs in maize and other plant species and its application to the anthocyanin and phlobaphene biosynthetic pathways and the Maize Development Atlas.

Science.gov (United States)

Liseron-Monfils, Christophe; Lewis, Tim; Ashlock, Daniel; McNicholas, Paul D; Fauteux, François; Strömvik, Martina; Raizada, Manish N

2013-03-15

The discovery of genetic networks and cis-acting DNA motifs underlying their regulation is a major objective of transcriptome studies. The recent release of the maize genome (Zea mays L.) has facilitated in silico searches for regulatory motifs. Several algorithms exist to predict cis-acting elements, but none have been adapted for maize. A benchmark data set was used to evaluate the accuracy of three motif discovery programs: BioProspector, Weeder and MEME. Analysis showed that each motif discovery tool had limited accuracy and appeared to retrieve a distinct set of motifs. Therefore, using the benchmark, statistical filters were optimized to reduce the false discovery ratio, and then remaining motifs from all programs were combined to improve motif prediction. These principles were integrated into a user-friendly pipeline for motif discovery in maize called Promzea, available at http://www.promzea.org and on the Discovery Environment of the iPlant Collaborative website. Promzea was subsequently expanded to include rice and Arabidopsis. Within Promzea, a user enters cDNA sequences or gene IDs; corresponding upstream sequences are retrieved from the maize genome. Predicted motifs are filtered, combined and ranked. Promzea searches the chosen plant genome for genes containing each candidate motif, providing the user with the gene list and corresponding gene annotations. Promzea was validated in silico using a benchmark data set: the Promzea pipeline showed a 22% increase in nucleotide sensitivity compared to the best standalone program tool, Weeder, with equivalent nucleotide specificity. Promzea was also validated by its ability to retrieve the experimentally defined binding sites of transcription factors that regulate the maize anthocyanin and phlobaphene biosynthetic pathways. Promzea predicted additional promoter motifs, and genome-wide motif searches by Promzea identified 127 non-anthocyanin/phlobaphene genes that each contained all five predicted promoter

Fat metabolism is regulated by altered gene expression oflipogenic enzymes and regulatory factors in liver and adiposetissue but not in semimembranosus muscle of pigs during thefattening period

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Duran-Montge, P; Theil, Peter Kappel; Lauridsen, Charlotte

2009-01-01

It has been shown previously that lipid metabolism is regulated by fatty acids (FA) and that thyroid hormones are important regulators of energy metabolism. The effects of weight, dietary fat level and dietary FA profile on thyroid hormone levels and expression of lipogenic genes and tissue FA co...

Identity and functions of CxxC-derived motifs.

Science.gov (United States)

Fomenko, Dmitri E; Gladyshev, Vadim N

2003-09-30

Two cysteines separated by two other residues (the CxxC motif) are employed by many redox proteins for formation, isomerization, and reduction of disulfide bonds and for other redox functions. The place of the C-terminal cysteine in this motif may be occupied by serine (the CxxS motif), modifying the functional repertoire of redox proteins. Here we found that the CxxC motif may also give rise to a motif, in which the C-terminal cysteine is replaced with threonine (the CxxT motif). Moreover, in contrast to a view that the N-terminal cysteine in the CxxC motif always serves as a nucleophilic attacking group, this residue could also be replaced with threonine (the TxxC motif), serine (the SxxC motif), or other residues. In each of these CxxC-derived motifs, the presence of a downstream alpha-helix was strongly favored. A search for conserved CxxC-derived motif/helix patterns in four complete genomes representing bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes identified known redox proteins and suggested possible redox functions for several additional proteins. Catalytic sites in peroxiredoxins were major representatives of the TxxC motif, whereas those in glutathione peroxidases represented the CxxT motif. Structural assessments indicated that threonines in these enzymes could stabilize catalytic thiolates, suggesting revisions to previously proposed catalytic triads. Each of the CxxC-derived motifs was also observed in natural selenium-containing proteins, in which selenocysteine was present in place of a catalytic cysteine.

PDL1 Signals through Conserved Sequence Motifs to Overcome Interferon-Mediated Cytotoxicity

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Maria Gato-Cañas

2017-08-01

Full Text Available PDL1 blockade produces remarkable clinical responses, thought to occur by T cell reactivation through prevention of PDL1-PD1 T cell inhibitory interactions. Here, we find that PDL1 cell-intrinsic signaling protects cancer cells from interferon (IFN cytotoxicity and accelerates tumor progression. PDL1 inhibited IFN signal transduction through a conserved class of sequence motifs that mediate crosstalk with IFN signaling. Abrogation of PDL1 expression or antibody-mediated PDL1 blockade strongly sensitized cancer cells to IFN cytotoxicity through a STAT3/caspase-7-dependent pathway. Moreover, somatic mutations found in human carcinomas within these PDL1 sequence motifs disrupted motif regulation, resulting in PDL1 molecules with enhanced protective activities from type I and type II IFN cytotoxicity. Overall, our results reveal a mode of action of PDL1 in cancer cells as a first line of defense against IFN cytotoxicity.

Motif decomposition of the phosphotyrosine proteome reveals a new N-terminal binding motif for SHIP2

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Miller, Martin Lee; Hanke, S.; Hinsby, A. M.

2008-01-01

set of 481 unique phosphotyrosine (Tyr(P)) peptides by sequence similarity to known ligands of the Src homology 2 (SH2) and the phosphotyrosine binding (PTB) domains. From 20 clusters we extracted 16 known and four new interaction motifs. Using quantitative mass spectrometry we pulled down Tyr......(P)-specific binding partners for peptides corresponding to the extracted motifs. We confirmed numerous previously known interaction motifs and found 15 new interactions mediated by phosphosites not previously known to bind SH2 or PTB. Remarkably, a novel hydrophobic N-terminal motif ((L/V/I)(L/V/I)pY) was identified...

Overlapping ETS and CRE Motifs (G/CCGGAAGTGACGTCA) Preferentially Bound by GABPα and CREB Proteins

Science.gov (United States)

Chatterjee, Raghunath; Zhao, Jianfei; He, Ximiao; Shlyakhtenko, Andrey; Mann, Ishminder; Waterfall, Joshua J.; Meltzer, Paul; Sathyanarayana, B. K.; FitzGerald, Peter C.; Vinson, Charles

2012-01-01

Previously, we identified 8-bps long DNA sequences (8-mers) that localize in human proximal promoters and grouped them into known transcription factor binding sites (TFBS). We now examine split 8-mers consisting of two 4-mers separated by 1-bp to 30-bps (X4-N1-30-X4) to identify pairs of TFBS that localize in proximal promoters at a precise distance. These include two overlapping TFBS: the ETS⇔ETS motif (C/GCCGGAAGCGGAA) and the ETS⇔CRE motif (C/GCGGAAGTGACGTCAC). The nucleotides in bold are part of both TFBS. Molecular modeling shows that the ETS⇔CRE motif can be bound simultaneously by both the ETS and the B-ZIP domains without protein-protein clashes. The electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) shows that the ETS protein GABPα and the B-ZIP protein CREB preferentially bind to the ETS⇔CRE motif only when the two TFBS overlap precisely. In contrast, the ETS domain of ETV5 and CREB interfere with each other for binding the ETS⇔CRE. The 11-mer (CGGAAGTGACG), the conserved part of the ETS⇔CRE motif, occurs 226 times in the human genome and 83% are in known regulatory regions. In vivo GABPα and CREB ChIP-seq peaks identified the ETS⇔CRE as the most enriched motif occurring in promoters of genes involved in mRNA processing, cellular catabolic processes, and stress response, suggesting that a specific class of genes is regulated by this composite motif. PMID:23050235

A specific A/T polymorphism in Western tyrosine phosphorylation B-motifs regulates Helicobacter pylori CagA epithelial cell interactions.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xue-Song Zhang

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Helicobacter pylori persistently colonizes the human stomach, with mixed roles in human health. The CagA protein, a key host-interaction factor, is translocated by a type IV secretion system into host epithelial cells, where its EPIYA tyrosine phosphorylation motifs (TPMs are recognized by host cell kinases, leading to multiple host cell signaling cascades. The CagA TPMs have been described as type A, B, C or D, each with a specific conserved amino acid sequence surrounding EPIYA. Database searching revealed strong non-random distribution of the B-motifs (including EPIYA and EPIYT in Western H. pylori isolates. In silico analysis of Western H. pylori CagA sequences provided evidence that the EPIYT B-TPMs are significantly less associated with gastric cancer than the EPIYA B-TPMs. By generating and using a phosphorylated CagA B-TPM-specific antibody, we demonstrated the phosphorylated state of the CagA B-TPM EPIYT during H. pylori co-culture with host cells. We also showed that within host cells, CagA interaction with phosphoinositol 3-kinase (PI3-kinase was B-TPM tyrosine-phosphorylation-dependent, and the recombinant CagA with EPIYT B-TPM had higher affinity to PI3-kinase and enhanced induction of AKT than the isogenic CagA with EPIYA B-TPM. Structural modeling of the CagA B-TPM motif bound to PI3-kinase indicated that the threonine residue at the pY+1 position forms a side-chain hydrogen bond to N-417 of PI3-kinase, which cannot be formed by alanine. During co-culture with AGS cells, an H. pylori strain with a CagA EPIYT B-TPM had significantly attenuated induction of interleukin-8 and hummingbird phenotype, compared to the isogenic strain with B-TPM EPIYA. These results suggest that the A/T polymorphisms could regulate CagA activity through interfering with host signaling pathways related to carcinogenesis, thus influencing cancer risk.

[Personal motif in art].

Science.gov (United States)

Gerevich, József

2015-01-01

One of the basic questions of the art psychology is whether a personal motif is to be found behind works of art and if so, how openly or indirectly it appears in the work itself. Analysis of examples and documents from the fine arts and literature allow us to conclude that the personal motif that can be identified by the viewer through symbols, at times easily at others with more difficulty, gives an emotional plus to the artistic product. The personal motif may be found in traumatic experiences, in communication to the model or with other emotionally important persons (mourning, disappointment, revenge, hatred, rivalry, revolt etc.), in self-searching, or self-analysis. The emotions are expressed in artistic activity either directly or indirectly. The intention nourished by the artist's identity (Kunstwollen) may stand in the way of spontaneous self-expression, channelling it into hidden paths. Under the influence of certain circumstances, the artist may arouse in the viewer, consciously or unconsciously, an illusionary, misleading image of himself. An examination of the personal motif is one of the important research areas of art therapy.

Temporal motifs in time-dependent networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kovanen, Lauri; Karsai, Márton; Kaski, Kimmo; Kertész, János; Saramäki, Jari

2011-01-01

Temporal networks are commonly used to represent systems where connections between elements are active only for restricted periods of time, such as telecommunication, neural signal processing, biochemical reaction and human social interaction networks. We introduce the framework of temporal motifs to study the mesoscale topological–temporal structure of temporal networks in which the events of nodes do not overlap in time. Temporal motifs are classes of similar event sequences, where the similarity refers not only to topology but also to the temporal order of the events. We provide a mapping from event sequences to coloured directed graphs that enables an efficient algorithm for identifying temporal motifs. We discuss some aspects of temporal motifs, including causality and null models, and present basic statistics of temporal motifs in a large mobile call network

An enhanced computational platform for investigating the roles of regulatory RNA and for identifying functional RNA motifs

OpenAIRE

Chang, Tzu-Hao; Huang, Hsi-Yuan; Hsu, Justin Bo-Kai; Weng, Shun-Long; Horng, Jorng-Tzong; Huang, Hsien-Da

2013-01-01

Background Functional RNA molecules participate in numerous biological processes, ranging from gene regulation to protein synthesis. Analysis of functional RNA motifs and elements in RNA sequences can obtain useful information for deciphering RNA regulatory mechanisms. Our previous work, RegRNA, is widely used in the identification of regulatory motifs, and this work extends it by incorporating more comprehensive and updated data sources and analytical approaches into a new platform. Methods ...

Genome-wide targeted prediction of ABA responsive genes in rice based on over-represented cis-motif in co-expressed genes.

Science.gov (United States)

Lenka, Sangram K; Lohia, Bikash; Kumar, Abhay; Chinnusamy, Viswanathan; Bansal, Kailash C

2009-02-01

Abscisic acid (ABA), the popular plant stress hormone, plays a key role in regulation of sub-set of stress responsive genes. These genes respond to ABA through specific transcription factors which bind to cis-regulatory elements present in their promoters. We discovered the ABA Responsive Element (ABRE) core (ACGT) containing CGMCACGTGB motif as over-represented motif among the promoters of ABA responsive co-expressed genes in rice. Targeted gene prediction strategy using this motif led to the identification of 402 protein coding genes potentially regulated by ABA-dependent molecular genetic network. RT-PCR analysis of arbitrarily chosen 45 genes from the predicted 402 genes confirmed 80% accuracy of our prediction. Plant Gene Ontology (GO) analysis of ABA responsive genes showed enrichment of signal transduction and stress related genes among diverse functional categories.

Transcriptional regulation of Saccharomyces cerevisiaeCYS3 encoding cystathionine γ-lyase

Science.gov (United States)

Hiraishi, Hiroyuki; Miyake, Tsuyoshi

2008-01-01

In studying the regulation of GSH11, the structural gene of the high-affinity glutathione transporter (GSH-P1) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a cis-acting cysteine responsive element, CCGCCACAC (CCG motif), was detected. Like GSH-P1, the cystathionine γ-lyase encoded by CYS3 is induced by sulfur starvation and repressed by addition of cysteine to the growth medium. We detected a CCG motif (−311 to −303) and a CGC motif (CGCCACAC; −193 to −186), which is one base shorter than the CCG motif, in the 5′-upstream region of CYS3. One copy of the centromere determining element 1, CDE1 (TCACGTGA; −217 to −210), being responsible for regulation of the sulfate assimilation pathway genes, was also detected. We tested the roles of these three elements in the regulation of CYS3. Using a lacZ-reporter assay system, we found that the CCG/CGC motif is required for activation of CYS3, as well as for its repression by cysteine. In contrast, the CDE1 motif was responsible for only activation of CYS3. We also found that two transcription factors, Met4 and VDE, are responsible for activation of CYS3 through the CCG/CGC and CDE1 motifs. These observations suggest a dual regulation of CYS3 by factors that interact with the CDE1 motif and the CCG/CGC motifs. PMID:18317767

Spatiotemporal network motif reveals the biological traits of developmental gene regulatory networks in Drosophila melanogaster

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Kim Man-Sun

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Network motifs provided a “conceptual tool” for understanding the functional principles of biological networks, but such motifs have primarily been used to consider static network structures. Static networks, however, cannot be used to reveal time- and region-specific traits of biological systems. To overcome this limitation, we proposed the concept of a “spatiotemporal network motif,” a spatiotemporal sequence of network motifs of sub-networks which are active only at specific time points and body parts. Results On the basis of this concept, we analyzed the developmental gene regulatory network of the Drosophila melanogaster embryo. We identified spatiotemporal network motifs and investigated their distribution pattern in time and space. As a result, we found how key developmental processes are temporally and spatially regulated by the gene network. In particular, we found that nested feedback loops appeared frequently throughout the entire developmental process. From mathematical simulations, we found that mutual inhibition in the nested feedback loops contributes to the formation of spatial expression patterns. Conclusions Taken together, the proposed concept and the simulations can be used to unravel the design principle of developmental gene regulatory networks.

UKIRAN KERAWANG ACEH GAYO SEBAGAI INSPIRASI PENCIPTAAN MOTIF BATIK KHAS GAYO

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Irfa ina Rohana Salma

2016-12-01

Full Text Available ABSTRAK Industri batik mulai berkembang di Gayo, tetapi belum memiliki motif batik khas daerah. Oleh karena itu perlu diciptakan motif batik khas Gayo, dengan mengambil inspirasi dari ukiran yang terdapat pada rumah tradisional yang biasa disebut ukiran kerawang Gayo. Tujuan penciptaan seni ini adalah untuk menciptakan motif batik yang memiliki ciri khas Gayo. Metode yang digunakan yaitu eksplorasi ide, perancangan, dan perwujudan menjadi motif batik. Dalam kegiatan ini telah diciptakan enam motif batik khas Gayo yaitu: (1 Motif Ceplok Gayo; (2 Motif Gayo Tegak; (3 Motif Gayo Lurus; (4 Motif Parang Gayo; (5 Motif Gayo Lembut; dan (6 Motif Geometris Gayo. Hasil uji kesukaan terhadap motif kepada lima puluh responden menunjukkan bahwa Motif Ceplok Gayo paling banyak dipilih oleh responden yaitu sebesar 19%, sedangkan Motif Parang Gayo 18%, Motif Gayo Lembut 17%, Motif Geometris Gayo 17%, Motif Gayo Lurus 15% dan Motif Gayo Tegak 14%. Rata-rata motif yang dihasilkan mendapatkan apresiasi yang baik dari responden, sehingga semua motif layak diproduksi sebagai batik khas Gayo.Kata kunci: batik Gayo, Motif Ceplok Gayo, Motif Parang Gayo.ABSTRACTBatik industry began to develop in Gayo, but have not had a typical batik motif itself. Therefore, it is necessary to create batik motifs of Gayo, by taking inspiration from the carvings found in traditional houses commonly called kerawang Gayo. The purpose of this art is to create motifs those have a Gayo characteristic. The method used are the idea exploration, design, and motifs embodiment. In this activity has created six Gayo batik motifs, namely: (1 Motif Ceplok Gayo; (2 Motif Gayo Tegak; (3 Motif GayoLurus; (4 Motif Parang Gayo; (5 Motif Gayo Lembut; dan (6 Motif Geometris Gayo. The test results fondness of the motives to fifty respondents indicated that the Motif Ceplok Gayo most preferred by respondents ie 19%, while Motif Parang Gayo 18%, Motif Gayo Lembut 17%, Motif Geometris Gayo 17%, Motif Gayo

Increased lipids in non-lipogenic tissues are indicators of the severity of type 2 diabetes in mice

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Campbell-Tofte, J.; Hansen, H.S.; Mu, Huiling

2007-01-01

We hypothesised that the molecular changes triggered in type 2 diabetes might cause phenotypic changes in the lipid fraction of tissues. We compared tissue lipid profiles of inbred lean B6-Bom with those of the obese B6-ob/ob and diabetic BKS-db/db mice and found that genetically diabetic mice...... significantly accumulate fat (especially monounsaturated fatty acids, MUFA) in non-lipogenic tissues such as the eye (MUFA, 2-fold), skeletal muscle (MUFA, 13-fold) and pancreas (MUFA, 16-fold). In contrast, the B6-ob/ob mice which manifest a milder form of type 2 diabetes use the liver as their predominant...

A 6-Nucleotide Regulatory Motif within the AbcR Small RNAs of Brucella abortus Mediates Host-Pathogen Interactions.

Science.gov (United States)

Sheehan, Lauren M; Caswell, Clayton C

2017-06-06

In Brucella abortus , two small RNAs (sRNAs), AbcR1 and AbcR2, are responsible for regulating transcripts encoding ABC-type transport systems. AbcR1 and AbcR2 are required for Brucella virulence, as a double chromosomal deletion of both sRNAs results in attenuation in mice. Although these sRNAs are responsible for targeting transcripts for degradation, the mechanism utilized by the AbcR sRNAs to regulate mRNA in Brucella has not been described. Here, two motifs (M1 and M2) were identified in AbcR1 and AbcR2, and complementary motif sequences were defined in AbcR-regulated transcripts. Site-directed mutagenesis of M1 or M2 or of both M1 and M2 in the sRNAs revealed transcripts to be targeted by one or both motifs. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays revealed direct, concentration-dependent binding of both AbcR sRNAs to a target mRNA sequence. These experiments genetically and biochemically characterized two indispensable motifs within the AbcR sRNAs that bind to and regulate transcripts. Additionally, cellular and animal models of infection demonstrated that only M2 in the AbcR sRNAs is required for Brucella virulence. Furthermore, one of the M2-regulated targets, BAB2_0612, was found to be critical for the virulence of B. abortus in a mouse model of infection. Although these sRNAs are highly conserved among Alphaproteobacteria , the present report displays how gene regulation mediated by the AbcR sRNAs has diverged to meet the intricate regulatory requirements of each particular organism and its unique biological niche. IMPORTANCE Small RNAs (sRNAs) are important components of bacterial regulation, allowing organisms to quickly adapt to changes in their environments. The AbcR sRNAs are highly conserved throughout the Alphaproteobacteria and negatively regulate myriad transcripts, many encoding ABC-type transport systems. In Brucella abortus , AbcR1 and AbcR2 are functionally redundant, as only a double abcR1 abcR2 ( abcR1 / 2 ) deletion results in attenuation in

MHC motif viewer

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rapin, Nicolas Philippe Jean-Pierre; Hoof, Ilka; Lund, Ole

2008-01-01

. Algorithms that predict which peptides MHC molecules bind have recently been developed and cover many different alleles, but the utility of these algorithms is hampered by the lack of tools for browsing and comparing the specificity of these molecules. We have, therefore, developed a web server, MHC motif....... A special viewing feature, MHC fight, allows for display of the specificity of two different MHC molecules side by side. We show how the web server can be used to discover and display surprising similarities as well as differences between MHC molecules within and between different species. The MHC motif...

Motif discovery in ranked lists of sequences

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Morten Muhlig; Tataru, Paula; Madsen, Tobias

2016-01-01

Motif analysis has long been an important method to characterize biological functionality and the current growth of sequencing-based genomics experiments further extends its potential. These diverse experiments often generate sequence lists ranked by some functional property. There is therefore...... advantage of the regular expression feature, including enrichments for combinations of different microRNA seed sites. The method is implemented and made publicly available as an R package and supports high parallelization on multi-core machinery....... a growing need for motif analysis methods that can exploit this coupled data structure and be tailored for specific biological questions. Here, we present an exploratory motif analysis tool, Regmex (REGular expression Motif EXplorer), which offers several methods to evaluate the correlation of motifs...

The Regulatory Factor ZFHX3 Modifies Circadian Function in SCN via an AT Motif-Driven Axis

Science.gov (United States)

Parsons, Michael J.; Brancaccio, Marco; Sethi, Siddharth; Maywood, Elizabeth S.; Satija, Rahul; Edwards, Jessica K.; Jagannath, Aarti; Couch, Yvonne; Finelli, Mattéa J.; Smyllie, Nicola J.; Esapa, Christopher; Butler, Rachel; Barnard, Alun R.; Chesham, Johanna E.; Saito, Shoko; Joynson, Greg; Wells, Sara; Foster, Russell G.; Oliver, Peter L.; Simon, Michelle M.; Mallon, Ann-Marie; Hastings, Michael H.; Nolan, Patrick M.

2015-01-01

Summary We identified a dominant missense mutation in the SCN transcription factor Zfhx3, termed short circuit (Zfhx3Sci), which accelerates circadian locomotor rhythms in mice. ZFHX3 regulates transcription via direct interaction with predicted AT motifs in target genes. The mutant protein has a decreased ability to activate consensus AT motifs in vitro. Using RNA sequencing, we found minimal effects on core clock genes in Zfhx3Sci/+ SCN, whereas the expression of neuropeptides critical for SCN intercellular signaling was significantly disturbed. Moreover, mutant ZFHX3 had a decreased ability to activate AT motifs in the promoters of these neuropeptide genes. Lentiviral transduction of SCN slices showed that the ZFHX3-mediated activation of AT motifs is circadian, with decreased amplitude and robustness of these oscillations in Zfhx3Sci/+ SCN slices. In conclusion, by cloning Zfhx3Sci, we have uncovered a circadian transcriptional axis that determines the period and robustness of behavioral and SCN molecular rhythms. PMID:26232227

A conserved WW domain-like motif regulates invariant chain-dependent cell-surface transport of the NKG2D ligand ULBP2.

Science.gov (United States)

Uhlenbrock, Franziska; van Andel, Esther; Andresen, Lars; Skov, Søren

2015-08-01

Malignant cells expressing NKG2D ligands on their cell surface can be directly sensed and killed by NKG2D-bearing lymphocytes. To ensure this immune recognition, accumulating evidence suggests that NKG2D ligands are trafficed via alternative pathways to the cell surface. We have previously shown that the NKG2D ligand ULBP2 traffics over an invariant chain (Ii)-dependent pathway to the cell surface. This study set out to elucidate how Ii regulates ULBP2 cell-surface transport: We discovered conserved tryptophan (Trp) residues in the primary protein sequence of ULBP1-6 but not in the related MICA/B. Substitution of Trp to alanine resulted in cell-surface inhibition of ULBP2 in different cancer cell lines. Moreover, the mutated ULBP2 constructs were retained and not degraded inside the cell, indicating a crucial role of this conserved Trp-motif in trafficking. Finally, overexpression of Ii increased surface expression of wt ULBP2 while Trp-mutants could not be expressed, proposing that this Trp-motif is required for an Ii-dependent cell-surface transport of ULBP2. Aberrant soluble ULBP2 is immunosuppressive. Thus, targeting a distinct protein module on the ULBP2 sequence could counteract this abnormal expression of ULBP2. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Insertion of tetracysteine motifs into dopamine transporter extracellular domains.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Deanna M Navaroli

Full Text Available The neuronal dopamine transporter (DAT is a major determinant of extracellular dopamine (DA levels and is the primary target for a variety of addictive and therapeutic psychoactive drugs. DAT is acutely regulated by protein kinase C (PKC activation and amphetamine exposure, both of which modulate DAT surface expression by endocytic trafficking. In order to use live imaging approaches to study DAT endocytosis, methods are needed to exclusively label the DAT surface pool. The use of membrane impermeant, sulfonated biarsenic dyes holds potential as one such approach, and requires introduction of an extracellular tetracysteine motif (tetraCys; CCPGCC to facilitate dye binding. In the current study, we took advantage of intrinsic proline-glycine (Pro-Gly dipeptides encoded in predicted DAT extracellular domains to introduce tetraCys motifs into DAT extracellular loops 2, 3, and 4. [(3H]DA uptake studies, surface biotinylation and fluorescence microscopy in PC12 cells indicate that tetraCys insertion into the DAT second extracellular loop results in a functional transporter that maintains PKC-mediated downregulation. Introduction of tetraCys into extracellular loops 3 and 4 yielded DATs with severely compromised function that failed to mature and traffic to the cell surface. This is the first demonstration of successful introduction of a tetracysteine motif into a DAT extracellular domain, and may hold promise for use of biarsenic dyes in live DAT imaging studies.

Fitness for synchronization of network motifs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vega, Y.M.; Vázquez-Prada, M.; Pacheco, A.F.

2004-01-01

We study the synchronization of Kuramoto's oscillators in small parts of networks known as motifs. We first report on the system dynamics for the case of a scale-free network and show the existence of a non-trivial critical point. We compute the probability that network motifs synchronize, and fi...... that the fitness for synchronization correlates well with motifs interconnectedness and structural complexity. Possible implications for present debates about network evolution in biological and other systems are discussed....

Aplikasi Ornamen Khas Maluku untuk Pengembangan Desain Motif Batik

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Masiswo Masiswo

2016-04-01

Full Text Available ABSTRAKMaluku memiliki banyak ragam hias budaya warisan nilai leluhur berupa ornamen etnis yang merupakan kesenian dan keterampilan kerajinan. Hasil warisan tersebut sampai saat ini masih lestari hidup serta dapat dinikmati sebagai konsumsi rohani yang memuaskan manusia. Berkaitan dengan keberlangsungan nilai-nilai tradisi etnis yang berwujud pada ornamen-ornamen daerah Maluku, maka dikembangkan untuk kebutuhan manusia berupa motif batik pada kain. Pengembangan ornamen ini lebih menekankan pada representasi akan bentuk-bentuk ornamen yang diterapkan pada kerajinan batik berupa motif khas Maluku. Pengembangan alternatif desain motif batik dibuat tiga variasi yang bersumber dari ornamen khas Maluku dibuat prototipe produknya dan diuji ketahanan luntur warnanya. Hasil uji ketahanan luntur warna terhadap gosokan basah dari tiga prototipe produk berpredikat baik sekali terdapat pada “Motif Siwa” dan predikat baik pada motif “Siwa Talang” dan motif “Matahari Siwa Talang”.Kata kunci: desain, Maluku, motif batik, ornamenABSTRACTMaluku has much decorative ancestral cultural heritage value in the form of ornament ethnic arts and crafts skills. The result of the legacy is still sustainable living can be enjoyed as well as satisfying spiritual human consumption.Related to the sustainability of traditional values in the form of ethnic ornaments Maluku, it was developed for human needs in the form of batik cloth . The development of these ornaments will be more emphasis on the representation forms of ornamentation that is applied to a batik motif Maluku. Development of alternative design motif made three variations. The development of three alternative design motifs derived from the Maluku ornaments made and tested a prototype product color fastness. The test results of color fastness to wet rubbing of the three prototypes are excellent products predicated on the "Motif Siwa" and a good rating on the motif "Siwa Talang" and motif "Matahari Siwa

Oxidised LDL internalisation by the LOX-1 scavenger receptor is dependent on a novel cytoplasmic motif and is regulated by dynamin-2.

Science.gov (United States)

Murphy, Jane E; Vohra, Ravinder S; Dunn, Sarah; Holloway, Zoe G; Monaco, Anthony P; Homer-Vanniasinkam, Shervanthi; Walker, John H; Ponnambalam, Sreenivasan

2008-07-01

The LOX-1 scavenger receptor recognises pro-atherogenic oxidised low-density lipoprotein (OxLDL) particles and is implicated in atherosclerotic plaque formation, but this mechanism is not well understood. Here we show evidence for a novel clathrin-independent and cytosolic-signal-dependent pathway that regulates LOX-1-mediated OxLDL internalisation. Cell surface labelling in the absence or presence of OxLDL ligand showed that LOX-1 is constitutively internalised from the plasma membrane and its half-life is not altered upon ligand binding and trafficking. We show that LOX-1-mediated OxLDL uptake is disrupted by overexpression of dominant-negative dynamin-2 but unaffected by CHC17 or mu2 (AP2) depletion. Site-directed mutagenesis revealed a conserved and novel cytoplasmic tripeptide motif (DDL) that regulates LOX-1-mediated endocytosis of OxLDL. Taken together, these findings indicate that LOX-1 is internalised by a clathrin-independent and dynamin-2-dependent pathway and is thus likely to mediate OxLDL trafficking in vascular tissues.

Parole, Sintagmatik, dan Paradigmatik Motif Batik Mega Mendung

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Rudi - Nababan

2012-04-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT   Discussing traditional batik is related a lot to the organization system of fine arts element ac- companying it, either the pattern of the motif or the technique of the making. In this case, the motif of Mega Mendung Cirebon certainly has patterns and rules which are traditionally different from the other motifs in other areas. Through  semiotics analysis especially with Saussure and Pierce concept, it can be traced that batik with Cirebon motif, in this case Mega Mendung motif, has parole and langue system, as unique fine arts language in batik, and structure of visual syntagmatic and paradigmatic. In the context of batik motif as fine arts language, it is surely related to sign system as symbol and icon.       Keywords: visual semiotic, Cirebon’s batik.

Motif statistics and spike correlations in neuronal networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hu, Yu; Shea-Brown, Eric; Trousdale, James; Josić, Krešimir

2013-01-01

Motifs are patterns of subgraphs of complex networks. We studied the impact of such patterns of connectivity on the level of correlated, or synchronized, spiking activity among pairs of cells in a recurrent network of integrate and fire neurons. For a range of network architectures, we find that the pairwise correlation coefficients, averaged across the network, can be closely approximated using only three statistics of network connectivity. These are the overall network connection probability and the frequencies of two second order motifs: diverging motifs, in which one cell provides input to two others, and chain motifs, in which two cells are connected via a third intermediary cell. Specifically, the prevalence of diverging and chain motifs tends to increase correlation. Our method is based on linear response theory, which enables us to express spiking statistics using linear algebra, and a resumming technique, which extrapolates from second order motifs to predict the overall effect of coupling on network correlation. Our motif-based results seek to isolate the effect of network architecture perturbatively from a known network state. (paper)

CONTEMPORARY USAGE OF TRADITIONAL TURKISH MOTIFS IN PRODUCT DESIGNS

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Tulay Gumuser

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study is to identify the traditional Turkish motifs and its relations among present industrial designs. Traditional Turkish motifs played a very important role in 16th century onwards. The arts of the Ottoman Empire were used because of their symbolic meanings and unique styles. When we examine these motifs we encounter; Tiger Stripe, Three Spot (Çintemani, Rumi, Hatayi, Penç, Cloud, Crescent, Star, Crown, Hyacinth, Tulip and Carnation motifs. Nowadays, Turkish designers have begun to use these traditional Turkish motifs in their designs so as to create differences and awareness in the world design. The examples of these industrial designs, using the Turkish motifs, have survived and have Ottoman heritage and historical value. In this study, the Turkish motifs will be examined along with their focus on contemporary Turkish industrial designs used today.

RNA motif search with data-driven element ordering.

Science.gov (United States)

Rampášek, Ladislav; Jimenez, Randi M; Lupták, Andrej; Vinař, Tomáš; Brejová, Broňa

2016-05-18

In this paper, we study the problem of RNA motif search in long genomic sequences. This approach uses a combination of sequence and structure constraints to uncover new distant homologs of known functional RNAs. The problem is NP-hard and is traditionally solved by backtracking algorithms. We have designed a new algorithm for RNA motif search and implemented a new motif search tool RNArobo. The tool enhances the RNAbob descriptor language, allowing insertions in helices, which enables better characterization of ribozymes and aptamers. A typical RNA motif consists of multiple elements and the running time of the algorithm is highly dependent on their ordering. By approaching the element ordering problem in a principled way, we demonstrate more than 100-fold speedup of the search for complex motifs compared to previously published tools. We have developed a new method for RNA motif search that allows for a significant speedup of the search of complex motifs that include pseudoknots. Such speed improvements are crucial at a time when the rate of DNA sequencing outpaces growth in computing. RNArobo is available at http://compbio.fmph.uniba.sk/rnarobo .

Identification of sequence motifs significantly associated with antisense activity

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Peek Andrew S

2007-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Predicting the suppression activity of antisense oligonucleotide sequences is the main goal of the rational design of nucleic acids. To create an effective predictive model, it is important to know what properties of an oligonucleotide sequence associate significantly with antisense activity. Also, for the model to be efficient we must know what properties do not associate significantly and can be omitted from the model. This paper will discuss the results of a randomization procedure to find motifs that associate significantly with either high or low antisense suppression activity, analysis of their properties, as well as the results of support vector machine modelling using these significant motifs as features. Results We discovered 155 motifs that associate significantly with high antisense suppression activity and 202 motifs that associate significantly with low suppression activity. The motifs range in length from 2 to 5 bases, contain several motifs that have been previously discovered as associating highly with antisense activity, and have thermodynamic properties consistent with previous work associating thermodynamic properties of sequences with their antisense activity. Statistical analysis revealed no correlation between a motif's position within an antisense sequence and that sequences antisense activity. Also, many significant motifs existed as subwords of other significant motifs. Support vector regression experiments indicated that the feature set of significant motifs increased correlation compared to all possible motifs as well as several subsets of the significant motifs. Conclusion The thermodynamic properties of the significantly associated motifs support existing data correlating the thermodynamic properties of the antisense oligonucleotide with antisense efficiency, reinforcing our hypothesis that antisense suppression is strongly associated with probe/target thermodynamics, as there are no enzymatic

Analisis Unsur Matematika pada Motif Sulam Usus

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Fredi Ganda Putra

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Based on interviews with researchers sources said that the beginning of the intestine embroidery is an art of genuine crafts. Called the intestine embroidery because this technique is a technique of combining a strand of cloth resembling the intestine formed according to the pattern by means of embroidered using a thread. Intestinal embroidery techniques were originally used to create a cover of the women's customary wardrobe of Lampung or often referred to as bebe. But not many people in Lampung, especially people who live in Lampung are still many who do not know and recognize the intestine embroidery because most only know tapis only characteristic of Lampung, besides that there are other cultural results that is embroidered intestine. There are still many who do not know that the intestine motif there is a knowledge of mathematics. The researcher's problem formulation is whether there are mathematical elements contained in the intestine embroidery motif based on the concept of geometry. The purpose of this study is to determine whether there are elements of mathematics contained in the intestine motif based on the concept of geometry. Subjects in this study consisted of 4 people obtained by purposive sampling technique. From the results of data analysis conducted by using descriptive analysis and discussion as follows: (1 Intestinal embroidery motif contains the meaning of mathematics and culture or often called Etnomatematika. On the meaning of culture there is a link between the embroidery intestine with a culture that has been there before as the existence of cultural linkage between Hindu belief Buddhism and there are similarities of motifs and decorative patterns contained in the motif embroidery intestine with ornamental variety in Indonesia. (2 The relationship between the intestine with mathematical motifs there are elements of mathematics such as geometry elements in the form of geometry of dimension one and dimension two, and the

Motif signatures of transcribed enhancers

KAUST Repository

Kleftogiannis, Dimitrios

2017-09-14

In mammalian cells, transcribed enhancers (TrEn) play important roles in the initiation of gene expression and maintenance of gene expression levels in spatiotemporal manner. One of the most challenging questions in biology today is how the genomic characteristics of enhancers relate to enhancer activities. This is particularly critical, as several recent studies have linked enhancer sequence motifs to specific functional roles. To date, only a limited number of enhancer sequence characteristics have been investigated, leaving space for exploring the enhancers genomic code in a more systematic way. To address this problem, we developed a novel computational method, TELS, aimed at identifying predictive cell type/tissue specific motif signatures. We used TELS to compile a comprehensive catalog of motif signatures for all known TrEn identified by the FANTOM5 consortium across 112 human primary cells and tissues. Our results confirm that distinct cell type/tissue specific motif signatures characterize TrEn. These signatures allow discriminating successfully a) TrEn from random controls, proxy of non-enhancer activity, and b) cell type/tissue specific TrEn from enhancers expressed and transcribed in different cell types/tissues. TELS codes and datasets are publicly available at http://www.cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/TELS.

The Crc and Hfq proteins of Pseudomonas putida cooperate in catabolite repression and formation of ribonucleic acid complexes with specific target motifs.

Science.gov (United States)

Moreno, Renata; Hernández-Arranz, Sofía; La Rosa, Ruggero; Yuste, Luis; Madhushani, Anjana; Shingler, Victoria; Rojo, Fernando

2015-01-01

The Crc protein is a global regulator that has a key role in catabolite repression and optimization of metabolism in Pseudomonads. Crc inhibits gene expression post-transcriptionally, preventing translation of mRNAs bearing an AAnAAnAA motif [the catabolite activity (CA) motif] close to the translation start site. Although Crc was initially believed to bind RNA by itself, this idea was recently challenged by results suggesting that a protein co-purifying with Crc, presumably the Hfq protein, could account for the detected RNA-binding activity. Hfq is an abundant protein that has a central role in post-transcriptional gene regulation. Herein, we show that the Pseudomonas putida Hfq protein can recognize the CA motifs of RNAs through its distal face and that Crc facilitates formation of a more stable complex at these targets. Crc was unable to bind RNA in the absence of Hfq. However, pull-down assays showed that Crc and Hfq can form a co-complex with RNA containing a CA motif in vitro. Inactivation of the hfq or the crc gene impaired catabolite repression to a similar extent. We propose that Crc and Hfq cooperate in catabolite repression, probably through forming a stable co-complex with RNAs containing CA motifs to result in inhibition of translation initiation. © 2014 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Characterization of a Smad motif similar to Drosophila mad in the mouse Msx 1 promoter.

Science.gov (United States)

Alvarez Martinez, Cristina E; Binato, Renata; Gonzalez, Sayonara; Pereira, Monica; Robert, Benoit; Abdelhay, Eliana

2002-03-01

Mouse Msx 1 gene, orthologous of the Drosophila msh, is involved in several developmental processes. BMP family members are major proteins in the regulation of Msx 1 expression. BMP signaling activates Smad 1/5/8 proteins, which associate to Smad 4 before translocating to the nucleus. Analysis of Msx 1 promoter revealed the presence of three elements similar to the consensus established for Mad, the Smad 1 Drosophila counterpart. Notably, such an element was identified in an enhancer important for Msx 1 regulation. Gel shift analysis demonstrated that proteins from 13.5 dpc embryo associate to this enhancer. Remarkably, supershift assays showed that Smad proteins are present in the complex. Purified Smad 1 and 4 also bind to this fragment. We demonstrate that functional binding sites in this enhancer are confined to the Mad motif and flanking region. Our data suggest that this Mad motif may be functional in response to BMP signaling. ©2002 Elsevier Science (USA).

B Cell Receptor Activation Predominantly Regulates AKT-mTORC1/2 Substrates Functionally Related to RNA Processing.

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Dara K Mohammad

Full Text Available Protein kinase B (AKT phosphorylates numerous substrates on the consensus motif RXRXXpS/T, a docking site for 14-3-3 interactions. To identify novel AKT-induced phosphorylation events following B cell receptor (BCR activation, we performed proteomics, biochemical and bioinformatics analyses. Phosphorylated consensus motif-specific antibody enrichment, followed by tandem mass spectrometry, identified 446 proteins, containing 186 novel phosphorylation events. Moreover, we found 85 proteins with up regulated phosphorylation, while in 277 it was down regulated following stimulation. Up regulation was mainly in proteins involved in ribosomal and translational regulation, DNA binding and transcription regulation. Conversely, down regulation was preferentially in RNA binding, mRNA splicing and mRNP export proteins. Immunoblotting of two identified RNA regulatory proteins, RBM25 and MEF-2D, confirmed the proteomics data. Consistent with these findings, the AKT-inhibitor (MK-2206 dramatically reduced, while the mTORC-inhibitor PP242 totally blocked phosphorylation on the RXRXXpS/T motif. This demonstrates that this motif, previously suggested as an AKT target sequence, also is a substrate for mTORC1/2. Proteins with PDZ, PH and/or SH3 domains contained the consensus motif, whereas in those with an HMG-box, H15 domains and/or NF-X1-zinc-fingers, the motif was absent. Proteins carrying the consensus motif were found in all eukaryotic clades indicating that they regulate a phylogenetically conserved set of proteins.

Altered DNA methylation of glycolytic and lipogenic genes in liver from obese and type 2 diabetic patients

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kirchner, Henriette; Sinha, Indranil; Gao, Hui

2016-01-01

OBJECTIVE: Epigenetic modifications contribute to the etiology of type 2 diabetes. METHOD: We performed genome-wide methylome and transcriptome analysis in liver from severely obese men with or without type 2 diabetes and non-obese men to discover aberrant pathways underlying the development...... in four of these genes in liver of severely obese non-diabetic and type 2 diabetic patients, suggesting epigenetic regulation of transcription by altered ATF-DNA binding. CONCLUSION: Severely obese non-diabetic and type 2 diabetic patients have distinct alterations in the hepatic methylome...... and transcriptome, with hypomethylation of several genes controlling glucose metabolism within the ATF-motif regulatory site. Obesity appears to shift the epigenetic program of the liver towards increased glycolysis and lipogenesis, which may exacerbate the development of insulin resistance....

Regulation and function of the CD3¿ DxxxLL motif: a binding site for adaptor protein-1 and adaptor protein-2 in vitro

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dietrich, J; Kastrup, J; Nielsen, B L

1997-01-01

/CD3gamma chimeras; and in vitro by binding CD3gamma peptides to clathrin-coated vesicle adaptor proteins (APs). We find that the CD3gamma D127xxxLL131/132 sequence represents one united motif for binding of both AP-1 and AP-2, and that this motif functions as an active sorting motif in monomeric CD4...... and for AP binding in vitro. Furthermore, we provide evidence indicating that phosphorylation of CD3gamma S126 in the context of the complete TCR induces a conformational change that exposes the DxxxLL sequence for AP binding. Exposure of the DxxxLL motif causes an increase in the TCR internalization rate...

Triadic motifs in the dependence networks of virtual societies

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Xie, Wen-Jie; Li, Ming-Xia; Jiang, Zhi-Qiang; Zhou, Wei-Xing

2014-06-01

In friendship networks, individuals have different numbers of friends, and the closeness or intimacy between an individual and her friends is heterogeneous. Using a statistical filtering method to identify relationships about who depends on whom, we construct dependence networks (which are directed) from weighted friendship networks of avatars in more than two hundred virtual societies of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). We investigate the evolution of triadic motifs in dependence networks. Several metrics show that the virtual societies evolved through a transient stage in the first two to three weeks and reached a relatively stable stage. We find that the unidirectional loop motif (M9) is underrepresented and does not appear, open motifs are also underrepresented, while other close motifs are overrepresented. We also find that, for most motifs, the overall level difference of the three avatars in the same motif is significantly lower than average, whereas the sum of ranks is only slightly larger than average. Our findings show that avatars' social status plays an important role in the formation of triadic motifs.

Triadic motifs in the dependence networks of virtual societies.

Science.gov (United States)

Xie, Wen-Jie; Li, Ming-Xia; Jiang, Zhi-Qiang; Zhou, Wei-Xing

2014-06-10

In friendship networks, individuals have different numbers of friends, and the closeness or intimacy between an individual and her friends is heterogeneous. Using a statistical filtering method to identify relationships about who depends on whom, we construct dependence networks (which are directed) from weighted friendship networks of avatars in more than two hundred virtual societies of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). We investigate the evolution of triadic motifs in dependence networks. Several metrics show that the virtual societies evolved through a transient stage in the first two to three weeks and reached a relatively stable stage. We find that the unidirectional loop motif (M9) is underrepresented and does not appear, open motifs are also underrepresented, while other close motifs are overrepresented. We also find that, for most motifs, the overall level difference of the three avatars in the same motif is significantly lower than average, whereas the sum of ranks is only slightly larger than average. Our findings show that avatars' social status plays an important role in the formation of triadic motifs.

Direct AUC optimization of regulatory motifs.

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Zhu, Lin; Zhang, Hong-Bo; Huang, De-Shuang

2017-07-15

The discovery of transcription factor binding site (TFBS) motifs is essential for untangling the complex mechanism of genetic variation under different developmental and environmental conditions. Among the huge amount of computational approaches for de novo identification of TFBS motifs, discriminative motif learning (DML) methods have been proven to be promising for harnessing the discovery power of accumulated huge amount of high-throughput binding data. However, they have to sacrifice accuracy for speed and could fail to fully utilize the information of the input sequences. We propose a novel algorithm called CDAUC for optimizing DML-learned motifs based on the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) criterion, which has been widely used in the literature to evaluate the significance of extracted motifs. We show that when the considered AUC loss function is optimized in a coordinate-wise manner, the cost function of each resultant sub-problem is a piece-wise constant function, whose optimal value can be found exactly and efficiently. Further, a key step of each iteration of CDAUC can be efficiently solved as a computational geometry problem. Experimental results on real world high-throughput datasets illustrate that CDAUC outperforms competing methods for refining DML motifs, while being one order of magnitude faster. Meanwhile, preliminary results also show that CDAUC may also be useful for improving the interpretability of convolutional kernels generated by the emerging deep learning approaches for predicting TF sequences specificities. CDAUC is available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BxOW5MtIZbJjNFpCeHlBVWJHeW8 . dshuang@tongji.edu.cn. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

Genome-scale study of the importance of binding site context for transcription factor binding and gene regulation

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Ronne Hans

2008-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The rate of mRNA transcription is controlled by transcription factors that bind to specific DNA motifs in promoter regions upstream of protein coding genes. Recent results indicate that not only the presence of a motif but also motif context (for example the orientation of a motif or its location relative to the coding sequence is important for gene regulation. Results In this study we present ContextFinder, a tool that is specifically aimed at identifying cases where motif context is likely to affect gene regulation. We used ContextFinder to examine the role of motif context in S. cerevisiae both for DNA binding by transcription factors and for effects on gene expression. For DNA binding we found significant patterns of motif location bias, whereas motif orientations did not seem to matter. Motif context appears to affect gene expression even more than it affects DNA binding, as biases in both motif location and orientation were more frequent in promoters of co-expressed genes. We validated our results against data on nucleosome positioning, and found a negative correlation between preferred motif locations and nucleosome occupancy. Conclusion We conclude that the requirement for stable binding of transcription factors to DNA and their subsequent function in gene regulation can impose constraints on motif context.

Hepatitis C virus nonstructural protein 5A favors upregulation of gluconeogenic and lipogenic gene expression leading towards insulin resistance: a metabolic syndrome.

Science.gov (United States)

Parvaiz, Fahed; Manzoor, Sobia; Iqbal, Jawed; McRae, Steven; Javed, Farrakh; Ahmed, Qazi Laeeque; Waris, Gulam

2014-05-01

Chronic hepatitis C is a lethal blood-borne infection often associated with a number of pathologies such as insulin resistance and other metabolic abnormalities. Insulin is a key hormone that regulates the expression of metabolic pathways and favors homeostasis. In this study, we demonstrated the molecular mechanism of hepatitis C virus (HCV) nonstructural protein 5A (NS5A)-induced metabolic dysregulation. We showed that transient expression of HCV NS5A in human hepatoma cells increased lipid droplet formation through enhanced lipogenesis. We also showed increased transcriptional expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator (PGC)-1α and diacylglycerol acyltransferase-1 (DGAT-1) in NS5A-expressing cells. On the other hand, there was significantly reduced transcriptional expression of microsomal triglyceride transfer protein (MTP) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) in cells expressing HCV NS5A. Furthermore, increased gluconeogenic gene expression was observed in HCV-NS5A-expressing cells. In addition, it was also shown that HCV-NS5A-expressing hepatoma cells show serine phosphorylation of IRS-1, thereby hampering metabolic activity and contributing to insulin resistance. Therefore, this study reveals that HCV NS5A is involved in enhanced gluconeogenic and lipogenic gene expression, which triggers metabolic abnormality and impairs insulin signaling pathway.

Efficient motif finding algorithms for large-alphabet inputs

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Pavlovic Vladimir

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background We consider the problem of identifying motifs, recurring or conserved patterns, in the biological sequence data sets. To solve this task, we present a new deterministic algorithm for finding patterns that are embedded as exact or inexact instances in all or most of the input strings. Results The proposed algorithm (1 improves search efficiency compared to existing algorithms, and (2 scales well with the size of alphabet. On a synthetic planted DNA motif finding problem our algorithm is over 10× more efficient than MITRA, PMSPrune, and RISOTTO for long motifs. Improvements are orders of magnitude higher in the same setting with large alphabets. On benchmark TF-binding site problems (FNP, CRP, LexA we observed reduction in running time of over 12×, with high detection accuracy. The algorithm was also successful in rapidly identifying protein motifs in Lipocalin, Zinc metallopeptidase, and supersecondary structure motifs for Cadherin and Immunoglobin families. Conclusions Our algorithm reduces computational complexity of the current motif finding algorithms and demonstrate strong running time improvements over existing exact algorithms, especially in important and difficult cases of large-alphabet sequences.

RMOD: a tool for regulatory motif detection in signaling network.

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Jinki Kim

Full Text Available Regulatory motifs are patterns of activation and inhibition that appear repeatedly in various signaling networks and that show specific regulatory properties. However, the network structures of regulatory motifs are highly diverse and complex, rendering their identification difficult. Here, we present a RMOD, a web-based system for the identification of regulatory motifs and their properties in signaling networks. RMOD finds various network structures of regulatory motifs by compressing the signaling network and detecting the compressed forms of regulatory motifs. To apply it into a large-scale signaling network, it adopts a new subgraph search algorithm using a novel data structure called path-tree, which is a tree structure composed of isomorphic graphs of query regulatory motifs. This algorithm was evaluated using various sizes of signaling networks generated from the integration of various human signaling pathways and it showed that the speed and scalability of this algorithm outperforms those of other algorithms. RMOD includes interactive analysis and auxiliary tools that make it possible to manipulate the whole processes from building signaling network and query regulatory motifs to analyzing regulatory motifs with graphical illustration and summarized descriptions. As a result, RMOD provides an integrated view of the regulatory motifs and mechanism underlying their regulatory motif activities within the signaling network. RMOD is freely accessible online at the following URL: http://pks.kaist.ac.kr/rmod.

A Novel Dual-cre Motif Enables Two-Way Autoregulation of CcpA in Clostridium acetobutylicum.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Lu; Liu, Yanqiang; Yang, Yunpeng; Jiang, Weihong; Gu, Yang

2018-04-15

The master regulator CcpA (catabolite control protein A) manages a large and complex regulatory network that is essential for cellular physiology and metabolism in Gram-positive bacteria. Although CcpA can affect the expression of target genes by binding to a cis -acting catabolite-responsive element ( cre ), whether and how the expression of CcpA is regulated remain poorly explored. Here, we report a novel dual- cre motif that is employed by the CcpA in Clostridium acetobutylicum , a typical solventogenic Clostridium species, for autoregulation. Two cre sites are involved in CcpA autoregulation, and they reside in the promoter and coding regions of CcpA. In this dual- cre motif, cre P , in the promoter region, positively regulates ccpA transcription, whereas cre ORF , in the coding region, negatively regulates this transcription, thus enabling two-way autoregulation of CcpA. Although CcpA bound cre P more strongly than cre ORF in vitro , the in vivo assay showed that cre ORF -based repression dominates CcpA autoregulation during the entire fermentation. Finally, a synonymous mutation of cre ORF was made within the coding region, achieving an increased intracellular CcpA expression and improved cellular performance. This study provides new insights into the regulatory role of CcpA in C. acetobutylicum and, moreover, contributes a new engineering strategy for this industrial strain. IMPORTANCE CcpA is known to be a key transcription factor in Gram-positive bacteria. However, it is still unclear whether and how the intracellular CcpA level is regulated, which may be essential for maintaining normal cell physiology and metabolism. We discovered here that CcpA employs a dual- cre motif to autoregulate, enabling dynamic control of its own expression level during the entire fermentation process. This finding answers the questions above and fills a void in our understanding of the regulatory network of CcpA. Interference in CcpA autoregulation leads to improved cellular

Discovery of candidate KEN-box motifs using cell cycle keyword enrichment combined with native disorder prediction and motif conservation.

Science.gov (United States)

Michael, Sushama; Travé, Gilles; Ramu, Chenna; Chica, Claudia; Gibson, Toby J

2008-02-15

KEN-box-mediated target selection is one of the mechanisms used in the proteasomal destruction of mitotic cell cycle proteins via the APC/C complex. While annotating the Eukaryotic Linear Motif resource (ELM, http://elm.eu.org/), we found that KEN motifs were significantly enriched in human protein entries with cell cycle keywords in the UniProt/Swiss-Prot database-implying that KEN-boxes might be more common than reported. Matches to short linear motifs in protein database searches are not, per se, significant. KEN-box enrichment with cell cycle Gene Ontology terms suggests that collectively these motifs are functional but does not prove that any given instance is so. Candidates were surveyed for native disorder prediction using GlobPlot and IUPred and for motif conservation in homologues. Among >25 strong new candidates, the most notable are human HIPK2, CHFR, CDC27, Dab2, Upf2, kinesin Eg5, DNA Topoisomerase 1 and yeast Cdc5 and Swi5. A similar number of weaker candidates were present. These proteins have yet to be tested for APC/C targeted destruction, providing potential new avenues of research.

MIR@NT@N: a framework integrating transcription factors, microRNAs and their targets to identify sub-network motifs in a meta-regulation network model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wasserman Wyeth W

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background To understand biological processes and diseases, it is crucial to unravel the concerted interplay of transcription factors (TFs, microRNAs (miRNAs and their targets within regulatory networks and fundamental sub-networks. An integrative computational resource generating a comprehensive view of these regulatory molecular interactions at a genome-wide scale would be of great interest to biologists, but is not available to date. Results To identify and analyze molecular interaction networks, we developed MIR@NT@N, an integrative approach based on a meta-regulation network model and a large-scale database. MIR@NT@N uses a graph-based approach to predict novel molecular actors across multiple regulatory processes (i.e. TFs acting on protein-coding or miRNA genes, or miRNAs acting on messenger RNAs. Exploiting these predictions, the user can generate networks and further analyze them to identify sub-networks, including motifs such as feedback and feedforward loops (FBL and FFL. In addition, networks can be built from lists of molecular actors with an a priori role in a given biological process to predict novel and unanticipated interactions. Analyses can be contextualized and filtered by integrating additional information such as microarray expression data. All results, including generated graphs, can be visualized, saved and exported into various formats. MIR@NT@N performances have been evaluated using published data and then applied to the regulatory program underlying epithelium to mesenchyme transition (EMT, an evolutionary-conserved process which is implicated in embryonic development and disease. Conclusions MIR@NT@N is an effective computational approach to identify novel molecular regulations and to predict gene regulatory networks and sub-networks including conserved motifs within a given biological context. Taking advantage of the M@IA environment, MIR@NT@N is a user-friendly web resource freely available at http

An essential GT motif in the lamin A promoter mediates activation by CREB-binding protein

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Janaki Ramaiah, M.; Parnaik, Veena K.

2006-01-01

Lamin A is an important component of nuclear architecture in mammalian cells. Mutations in the human lamin A gene lead to highly degenerative disorders that affect specific tissues. In studies directed towards understanding the mode of regulation of the lamin A promoter, we have identified an essential GT motif at -55 position by reporter gene assays and mutational analysis. Binding of this sequence to Sp transcription factors has been observed in electrophoretic mobility shift assays and by chromatin immunoprecipitation studies. Further functional analysis by co-expression of recombinant proteins and ChIP assays has shown an important regulatory role for CREB-binding protein in promoter activation, which is mediated by the GT motif

DNA motif alignment by evolving a population of Markov chains.

Science.gov (United States)

Bi, Chengpeng

2009-01-30

Deciphering cis-regulatory elements or de novo motif-finding in genomes still remains elusive although much algorithmic effort has been expended. The Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method such as Gibbs motif samplers has been widely employed to solve the de novo motif-finding problem through sequence local alignment. Nonetheless, the MCMC-based motif samplers still suffer from local maxima like EM. Therefore, as a prerequisite for finding good local alignments, these motif algorithms are often independently run a multitude of times, but without information exchange between different chains. Hence it would be worth a new algorithm design enabling such information exchange. This paper presents a novel motif-finding algorithm by evolving a population of Markov chains with information exchange (PMC), each of which is initialized as a random alignment and run by the Metropolis-Hastings sampler (MHS). It is progressively updated through a series of local alignments stochastically sampled. Explicitly, the PMC motif algorithm performs stochastic sampling as specified by a population-based proposal distribution rather than individual ones, and adaptively evolves the population as a whole towards a global maximum. The alignment information exchange is accomplished by taking advantage of the pooled motif site distributions. A distinct method for running multiple independent Markov chains (IMC) without information exchange, or dubbed as the IMC motif algorithm, is also devised to compare with its PMC counterpart. Experimental studies demonstrate that the performance could be improved if pooled information were used to run a population of motif samplers. The new PMC algorithm was able to improve the convergence and outperformed other popular algorithms tested using simulated and biological motif sequences.

Computational Investigations of Post-Transcriptional Regulation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rasmussen, Simon Horskjær

and miRNA regulation was studied by cross-linking immunoprecipitation (CLIP) and RBP double knockdown experiments. A comprehensive analysis of 107 CLIP datasets of 49 RBPs demonstrated that RBPs modulate miRNA regulation. Results suggest it is mediated by RBP-binding hotspots that likely...... investigated using high-throughput data. Analysis of IMP RIP-seq, iCLIP and RNA-seq datasets identified transcripts associated with cytoplasmic IMP ribonucleoproteins. Many of these transcripts were functionally involved in actin cytoskeletal remodeling. Further analyses of this data permitted estimation...... of a bipartite motif, composed of an AU-rich and a CA-rich domain. In addition, a regulatory motif discovery method was developed and applied to identify motifs using differential expression data and CLIP-data in the above investigations. This thesis increased the understanding of the role of RBPs in mi...

Structure of the central RNA recognition motif of human TIA-1 at 1.95 A resolution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kumar, Amit O.; Swenson, Matthew C.; Benning, Matthew M.; Kielkopf, Clara L.

2008-01-01

T-cell-restricted intracellular antigen-1 (TIA-1) regulates alternative pre-mRNA splicing in the nucleus, and mRNA translation in the cytoplasm, by recognizing uridine-rich sequences of RNAs. As a step towards understanding RNA recognition by this regulatory factor, the X-ray structure of the central RNA recognition motif (RRM2) of human TIA-1 is presented at 1.95 A resolution. Comparison with structurally homologous RRM-RNA complexes identifies residues at the RNA interfaces that are conserved in TIA-1-RRM2. The versatile capability of RNP motifs to interact with either proteins or RNA is reinforced by symmetry-related protein-protein interactions mediated by the RNP motifs of TIA-1-RRM2. Importantly, the TIA-1-RRM2 structure reveals the locations of mutations responsible for inhibiting nuclear import. In contrast with previous assumptions, the mutated residues are buried within the hydrophobic interior of the domain, where they would be likely to destabilize the RRM fold rather than directly inhibit RNA binding

Discovery of a Regulatory Motif for Human Satellite DNA Transcription in Response to BATF2 Overexpression.

Science.gov (United States)

Bai, Xuejia; Huang, Wenqiu; Zhang, Chenguang; Niu, Jing; Ding, Wei

2016-03-01

One of the basic leucine zipper transcription factors, BATF2, has been found to suppress cancer growth and migration. However, little is known about the genes downstream of BATF2. HeLa cells were stably transfected with BATF2, then chromatin immunoprecipitation-sequencing was employed to identify the DNA motifs responsive to BATF2. Comprehensive bioinformatics analyses indicated that the most significant motif discovered as TTCCATT[CT]GATTCCATTC[AG]AT was primarily distributed among the chromosome centromere regions and mostly within human type II satellite DNA. Such motifs were able to prime the transcription of type II satellite DNA in a directional and asymmetrical manner. Consistently, satellite II transcription was up-regulated in BATF2-overexpressing cells. The present study provides insight into understanding the role of BATF2 in tumours and the importance of satellite DNA in the maintenance of genomic stability. Copyright© 2016 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. John G. Delinassios), All rights reserved.

DNA motif elucidation using belief propagation.

Science.gov (United States)

Wong, Ka-Chun; Chan, Tak-Ming; Peng, Chengbin; Li, Yue; Zhang, Zhaolei

2013-09-01

Protein-binding microarray (PBM) is a high-throughout platform that can measure the DNA-binding preference of a protein in a comprehensive and unbiased manner. A typical PBM experiment can measure binding signal intensities of a protein to all the possible DNA k-mers (k=8∼10); such comprehensive binding affinity data usually need to be reduced and represented as motif models before they can be further analyzed and applied. Since proteins can often bind to DNA in multiple modes, one of the major challenges is to decompose the comprehensive affinity data into multimodal motif representations. Here, we describe a new algorithm that uses Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) and can derive precise and multimodal motifs using belief propagations. We describe an HMM-based approach using belief propagations (kmerHMM), which accepts and preprocesses PBM probe raw data into median-binding intensities of individual k-mers. The k-mers are ranked and aligned for training an HMM as the underlying motif representation. Multiple motifs are then extracted from the HMM using belief propagations. Comparisons of kmerHMM with other leading methods on several data sets demonstrated its effectiveness and uniqueness. Especially, it achieved the best performance on more than half of the data sets. In addition, the multiple binding modes derived by kmerHMM are biologically meaningful and will be useful in interpreting other genome-wide data such as those generated from ChIP-seq. The executables and source codes are available at the authors' websites: e.g. http://www.cs.toronto.edu/∼wkc/kmerHMM.

DNA motif elucidation using belief propagation

KAUST Repository

Wong, Ka-Chun; Chan, Tak-Ming; Peng, Chengbin; Li, Yue; Zhang, Zhaolei

2013-01-01

Protein-binding microarray (PBM) is a high-throughout platform that can measure the DNA-binding preference of a protein in a comprehensive and unbiased manner. A typical PBM experiment can measure binding signal intensities of a protein to all the possible DNA k-mers (k = 8 ?10); such comprehensive binding affinity data usually need to be reduced and represented as motif models before they can be further analyzed and applied. Since proteins can often bind to DNA in multiple modes, one of the major challenges is to decompose the comprehensive affinity data into multimodal motif representations. Here, we describe a new algorithm that uses Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) and can derive precise and multimodal motifs using belief propagations. We describe an HMM-based approach using belief propagations (kmerHMM), which accepts and preprocesses PBM probe raw data into median-binding intensities of individual k-mers. The k-mers are ranked and aligned for training an HMM as the underlying motif representation. Multiple motifs are then extracted from the HMM using belief propagations. Comparisons of kmerHMM with other leading methods on several data sets demonstrated its effectiveness and uniqueness. Especially, it achieved the best performance on more than half of the data sets. In addition, the multiple binding modes derived by kmerHMM are biologically meaningful and will be useful in interpreting other genome-wide data such as those generated from ChIP-seq. The executables and source codes are available at the authors' websites: e.g. http://www.cs.toronto.edu/?wkc/kmerHMM. 2013 The Author(s).

DNA motif elucidation using belief propagation

KAUST Repository

Wong, Ka-Chun

2013-06-29

Protein-binding microarray (PBM) is a high-throughout platform that can measure the DNA-binding preference of a protein in a comprehensive and unbiased manner. A typical PBM experiment can measure binding signal intensities of a protein to all the possible DNA k-mers (k = 8 ?10); such comprehensive binding affinity data usually need to be reduced and represented as motif models before they can be further analyzed and applied. Since proteins can often bind to DNA in multiple modes, one of the major challenges is to decompose the comprehensive affinity data into multimodal motif representations. Here, we describe a new algorithm that uses Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) and can derive precise and multimodal motifs using belief propagations. We describe an HMM-based approach using belief propagations (kmerHMM), which accepts and preprocesses PBM probe raw data into median-binding intensities of individual k-mers. The k-mers are ranked and aligned for training an HMM as the underlying motif representation. Multiple motifs are then extracted from the HMM using belief propagations. Comparisons of kmerHMM with other leading methods on several data sets demonstrated its effectiveness and uniqueness. Especially, it achieved the best performance on more than half of the data sets. In addition, the multiple binding modes derived by kmerHMM are biologically meaningful and will be useful in interpreting other genome-wide data such as those generated from ChIP-seq. The executables and source codes are available at the authors\\' websites: e.g. http://www.cs.toronto.edu/?wkc/kmerHMM. 2013 The Author(s).

A generalized allosteric mechanism for cis-regulated cyclic nucleotide binding domains.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexandr P Kornev

2008-04-01

Full Text Available Cyclic nucleotides (cAMP and cGMP regulate multiple intracellular processes and are thus of a great general interest for molecular and structural biologists. To study the allosteric mechanism of different cyclic nucleotide binding (CNB domains, we compared cAMP-bound and cAMP-free structures (PKA, Epac, and two ionic channels using a new bioinformatics method: local spatial pattern alignment. Our analysis highlights four major conserved structural motifs: 1 the phosphate binding cassette (PBC, which binds the cAMP ribose-phosphate, 2 the "hinge," a flexible helix, which contacts the PBC, 3 the beta(2,3 loop, which provides precise positioning of an invariant arginine from the PBC, and 4 a conserved structural element consisting of an N-terminal helix, an eight residue loop and the A-helix (N3A-motif. The PBC and the hinge were included in the previously reported allosteric model, whereas the definition of the beta(2,3 loop and the N3A-motif as conserved elements is novel. The N3A-motif is found in all cis-regulated CNB domains, and we present a model for an allosteric mechanism in these domains. Catabolite gene activator protein (CAP represents a trans-regulated CNB domain family: it does not contain the N3A-motif, and its long range allosteric interactions are substantially different from the cis-regulated CNB domains.

Transcriptional control of the tissue-specific, developmentally regulated osteocalcin gene requires a binding motif for the Msx family of homeodomain proteins.

Science.gov (United States)

Hoffmann, H M; Catron, K M; van Wijnen, A J; McCabe, L R; Lian, J B; Stein, G S; Stein, J L

1994-12-20

The OC box of the rat osteocalcin promoter (nt -99 to -76) is the principal proximal regulatory element contributing to both tissue-specific and developmental control of osteocalcin gene expression. The central motif of the OC box includes a perfect consensus DNA binding site for certain homeodomain proteins. Homeodomain proteins are transcription factors that direct proper development by regulating specific temporal and spatial patterns of gene expression. We therefore addressed the role of the homeodomain binding motif in the activity of the OC promoter. In this study, by the combined application of mutagenesis and site-specific protein recognition analysis, we examined interactions of ROS 17/2.8 osteosarcoma cell nuclear proteins and purified Msx-1 homeodomain protein with the OC box. We detected a series of related specific protein-DNA interactions, a subset of which were inhibited by antibodies directed against the Msx-1 homeodomain but which also recognize the Msx-2 homeodomain. Our results show that the sequence requirements for binding the Msx-1 or Msx-2 homeodomain closely parallel those necessary for osteocalcin gene promoter activity in vivo. This functional relationship was demonstrated by transient expression in ROS 17/2.8 osteosarcoma cells of a series of osteocalcin promoter (nt -1097 to +24)-reporter gene constructs containing mutations within and flanking the homeodomain binding site of the OC box. Northern blot analysis of several bone-related cell types showed that all of the cells expressed msx-1, whereas msx-2 expression was restricted to cells transcribing osteocalcin. Taken together, our results suggest a role for Msx-1 and -2 or related homeodomain proteins in transcription of the osteocalcin gene.

Hybrid DNA i-motif: Aminoethylprolyl-PNA (pC5) enhance the stability of DNA (dC5) i-motif structure.

Science.gov (United States)

Gade, Chandrasekhar Reddy; Sharma, Nagendra K

2017-12-15

This report describes the synthesis of C-rich sequence, cytosine pentamer, of aep-PNA and its biophysical studies for the formation of hybrid DNA:aep-PNAi-motif structure with DNA cytosine pentamer (dC 5 ) under acidic pH conditions. Herein, the CD/UV/NMR/ESI-Mass studies strongly support the formation of stable hybrid DNA i-motif structure with aep-PNA even near acidic conditions. Hence aep-PNA C-rich sequence cytosine could be considered as potential DNA i-motif stabilizing agents in vivo conditions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automatic annotation of protein motif function with Gene Ontology terms

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Gopalakrishnan Vanathi

2004-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Conserved protein sequence motifs are short stretches of amino acid sequence patterns that potentially encode the function of proteins. Several sequence pattern searching algorithms and programs exist foridentifying candidate protein motifs at the whole genome level. However, amuch needed and importanttask is to determine the functions of the newly identified protein motifs. The Gene Ontology (GO project is an endeavor to annotate the function of genes or protein sequences with terms from a dynamic, controlled vocabulary and these annotations serve well as a knowledge base. Results This paperpresents methods to mine the GO knowledge base and use the association between the GO terms assigned to a sequence and the motifs matched by the same sequence as evidence for predicting the functions of novel protein motifs automatically. The task of assigning GO terms to protein motifsis viewed as both a binary classification and information retrieval problem, where PROSITE motifs are used as samples for mode training and functional prediction. The mutual information of a motif and aGO term association isfound to be a very useful feature. We take advantageof the known motifs to train a logistic regression classifier, which allows us to combine mutual information with other frequency-based features and obtain a probability of correctassociation. The trained logistic regression model has intuitively meaningful and logically plausible parameter values, and performs very well empirically according to our evaluation criteria. Conclusions In this research, different methods for automatic annotation of protein motifs have been investigated. Empirical result demonstrated that the methods have a great potential for detecting and augmenting information about thefunctions of newly discovered candidate protein motifs.

Verification of the MOTIF code version 3.0

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chan, T.; Guvanasen, V.; Nakka, B.W.; Reid, J.A.K.; Scheier, N.W.; Stanchell, F.W.

1996-12-01

As part of the Canadian Nuclear Fuel Waste Management Program (CNFWMP), AECL has developed a three-dimensional finite-element code, MOTIF (Model Of Transport In Fractured/ porous media), for detailed modelling of groundwater flow, heat transport and solute transport in a fractured rock mass. The code solves the transient and steady-state equations of groundwater flow, solute (including one-species radionuclide) transport, and heat transport in variably saturated fractured/porous media. The initial development was completed in 1985 (Guvanasen 1985) and version 3.0 was completed in 1986. This version is documented in detail in Guvanasen and Chan (in preparation). This report describes a series of fourteen verification cases which has been used to test the numerical solution techniques and coding of MOTIF, as well as demonstrate some of the MOTIF analysis capabilities. For each case the MOTIF solution has been compared with a corresponding analytical or independently developed alternate numerical solution. Several of the verification cases were included in Level 1 of the International Hydrologic Code Intercomparison Project (HYDROCOIN). The MOTIF results for these cases were also described in the HYDROCOIN Secretariat's compilation and comparison of results submitted by the various project teams (Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate 1988). It is evident from the graphical comparisons presented that the MOTIF solutions for the fourteen verification cases are generally in excellent agreement with known analytical or numerical solutions obtained from independent sources. This series of verification studies has established the ability of the MOTIF finite-element code to accurately model the groundwater flow and solute and heat transport phenomena for which it is intended. (author). 20 refs., 14 tabs., 32 figs

Purification and functional motifs of the recombinant ATPase of orf virus.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Fong-Yuan; Chan, Kun-Wei; Wang, Chi-Young; Wong, Min-Liang; Hsu, Wei-Li

2011-10-01

Our previous study showed that the recombinant ATPase encoded by the A32L gene of orf virus displayed ATP hydrolysis activity as predicted from its amino acids sequence. This viral ATPase contains four known functional motifs (motifs I-IV) and a novel AYDG motif; they are essential for ATP hydrolysis reaction by binding ATP and magnesium ions. The motifs I and II correspond with the Walker A and B motifs of the typical ATPase, respectively. To examine the biochemical roles of these five conserved motifs, recombinant ATPases of five deletion mutants derived from the Taiping strain were expressed and purified. Their ATPase functions were assayed and compared with those of two wild type strains, Taiping and Nantou isolated in Taiwan. Our results showed that deletions at motifs I-III or IV exhibited lower activity than that of the wild type. Interestingly, deletion of AYDG motif decreased the ATPase activity more significantly than those of motifs I-IV deletions. Divalent ions such as magnesium and calcium were essential for ATPase activity. Moreover, our recombinant proteins of orf virus also demonstrated GTPase activity, though weaker than the original ATPase activity. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Polyunsaturated fatty acid regulation of gene transcription: a molecular mechanism to improve the metabolic syndrome.

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Clarke, S D

2001-04-01

This review addresses the hypothesis that polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), particularly those of the (n-3) family, play pivotal roles as "fuel partitioners" in that they direct fatty acids away from triglyceride storage and toward oxidation, and that they enhance glucose flux to glycogen. In doing this, PUFA may protect against the adverse symptoms of the metabolic syndrome and reduce the risk of heart disease. PUFA exert their beneficial effects by up-regulating the expression of genes encoding proteins involved in fatty acid oxidation while simultaneously down-regulating genes encoding proteins of lipid synthesis. PUFA govern oxidative gene expression by activating the transcription factor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha. PUFA suppress lipogenic gene expression by reducing the nuclear abundance and DNA-binding affinity of transcription factors responsible for imparting insulin and carbohydrate control to lipogenic and glycolytic genes. In particular, PUFA suppress the nuclear abundance and expression of sterol regulatory element binding protein-1 and reduce the DNA-binding activities of nuclear factor Y, Sp1 and possibly hepatic nuclear factor-4. Collectively, the studies discussed suggest that the fuel "repartitioning" and gene expression actions of PUFA should be considered among criteria used in defining the dietary needs of (n-6) and (n-3) and in establishing the dietary ratio of (n-6) to (n-3) needed for optimum health benefit.

Litopenaeus vannamei sterile-alpha and armadillo motif containing protein (LvSARM is involved in regulation of Penaeidins and antilipopolysaccharide factors.

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Pei-Hui Wang

Full Text Available The Toll-like receptor (TLR-mediated NF-κB pathway is tightly controlled because overactivation may result in severe damage to the host, such as in the case of chronic inflammatory diseases and cancer. In mammals, sterile-alpha and armadillo motif-containing protein (SARM plays an important role in negatively regulating this pathway. While Caenorhabditis elegans SARM is crucial for an efficient immune response against bacterial and fungal infections, it is still unknown whether Drosophila SARM participates in immune responses. Here, Litopenaeus vannamei SARM (LvSARM was cloned and functionally characterized. LvSARM shared signature domains with and exhibited significant similarities to mammalian SARM. Real-time quantitative PCR analysis indicated that the expression of LvSARM was responsive to Vibrio alginolyticus and white spot syndrome virus (WSSV infections in the hemocyte, gill, hepatopancreas and intestine. In Drosophila S2 cells, LvSARM was widely distributed in the cytoplasm and could significantly inhibit the promoters of the NF-κB pathway-controlled antimicrobial peptide genes (AMPs. Silencing of LvSARM using dsRNA-mediated RNA interference increased the expression levels of Penaeidins and antilipopolysaccharide factors, which are L.vannamei AMPs, and increased the mortality rate after V. alginolyticus infection. Taken together, our results reveal that LvSARM may be a novel component of the shrimp Toll pathway that negatively regulates shrimp AMPs, particularly Penaeidins and antilipopolysaccharide factors.

Tissue specific regulation of lipogenesis by thyroid hormone

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Blennemann, B.; Freake, H. (Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs (United States))

1990-02-26

Thyroid hormone stimulates long chain fatty acid synthesis in rat liver by increasing the amounts of key lipogenic enzymes. Sparse and conflicting data exist concerning its action on this pathway in other tissues. The authors recently showed that, in contrast to liver, hypothyroidism stimulates lipogenesis in brown adipose tissue and have now systematically examined the effects of thyroid state on fatty acid synthesis in other rat tissues. Lipogenesis was assessed by tritiated water incorporation. Euthyroid hepatic fatty acid synthesis (16.6um H/g/h) was reduced to 30% in hypothyroid rats and increased 3 fold in hyperthyroidism. Lipogenesis was detected in euthyroid kidney and heart and these levels were also stimulated by thyroid hormone treatment. Brown adipose tissue was unique in showing increased lipogenesis in the hypothyroid state. Hyperthyroid levels were not different from euthyroid. Effects in white adipose tissue were small and inconsistent. Brain, skin and lung were all lipogenically active, but did not respond to changes in thyroid state. Low but detectable levels of fatty acid synthesis were measured in muscle, which also were non-responsive. A wide spectrum of responses to thyroid hormone are seen in different rat tissues and thus the pathway of long chain fatty acid synthesis would appear to be an excellent model for examining the tissue specific regulation of gene expression by thyroid hormone.

Tissue specific regulation of lipogenesis by thyroid hormone

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Blennemann, B.; Freake, H.

1990-01-01

Thyroid hormone stimulates long chain fatty acid synthesis in rat liver by increasing the amounts of key lipogenic enzymes. Sparse and conflicting data exist concerning its action on this pathway in other tissues. The authors recently showed that, in contrast to liver, hypothyroidism stimulates lipogenesis in brown adipose tissue and have now systematically examined the effects of thyroid state on fatty acid synthesis in other rat tissues. Lipogenesis was assessed by tritiated water incorporation. Euthyroid hepatic fatty acid synthesis (16.6um H/g/h) was reduced to 30% in hypothyroid rats and increased 3 fold in hyperthyroidism. Lipogenesis was detected in euthyroid kidney and heart and these levels were also stimulated by thyroid hormone treatment. Brown adipose tissue was unique in showing increased lipogenesis in the hypothyroid state. Hyperthyroid levels were not different from euthyroid. Effects in white adipose tissue were small and inconsistent. Brain, skin and lung were all lipogenically active, but did not respond to changes in thyroid state. Low but detectable levels of fatty acid synthesis were measured in muscle, which also were non-responsive. A wide spectrum of responses to thyroid hormone are seen in different rat tissues and thus the pathway of long chain fatty acid synthesis would appear to be an excellent model for examining the tissue specific regulation of gene expression by thyroid hormone

An experimental test of a fundamental food web motif.

Science.gov (United States)

Rip, Jason M K; McCann, Kevin S; Lynn, Denis H; Fawcett, Sonia

2010-06-07

Large-scale changes to the world's ecosystem are resulting in the deterioration of biostructure-the complex web of species interactions that make up ecological communities. A difficult, yet crucial task is to identify food web structures, or food web motifs, that are the building blocks of this baroque network of interactions. Once identified, these food web motifs can then be examined through experiments and theory to provide mechanistic explanations for how structure governs ecosystem stability. Here, we synthesize recent ecological research to show that generalist consumers coupling resources with different interaction strengths, is one such motif. This motif amazingly occurs across an enormous range of spatial scales, and so acts to distribute coupled weak and strong interactions throughout food webs. We then perform an experiment that illustrates the importance of this motif to ecological stability. We find that weak interactions coupled to strong interactions by generalist consumers dampen strong interaction strengths and increase community stability. This study takes a critical step by isolating a common food web motif and through clear, experimental manipulation, identifies the fundamental stabilizing consequences of this structure for ecological communities.

Highly scalable Ab initio genomic motif identification

KAUST Repository

Marchand, Benoit; Bajic, Vladimir B.; Kaushik, Dinesh

2011-01-01

We present results of scaling an ab initio motif family identification system, Dragon Motif Finder (DMF), to 65,536 processor cores of IBM Blue Gene/P. DMF seeks groups of mutually similar polynucleotide patterns within a set of genomic sequences and builds various motif families from them. Such information is of relevance to many problems in life sciences. Prior attempts to scale such ab initio motif-finding algorithms achieved limited success. We solve the scalability issues using a combination of mixed-mode MPI-OpenMP parallel programming, master-slave work assignment, multi-level workload distribution, multi-level MPI collectives, and serial optimizations. While the scalability of our algorithm was excellent (94% parallel efficiency on 65,536 cores relative to 256 cores on a modest-size problem), the final speedup with respect to the original serial code exceeded 250,000 when serial optimizations are included. This enabled us to carry out many large-scale ab initio motiffinding simulations in a few hours while the original serial code would have needed decades of execution time. Copyright 2011 ACM.

Mechanisms of zero-lag synchronization in cortical motifs.

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Leonardo L Gollo

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Zero-lag synchronization between distant cortical areas has been observed in a diversity of experimental data sets and between many different regions of the brain. Several computational mechanisms have been proposed to account for such isochronous synchronization in the presence of long conduction delays: Of these, the phenomenon of "dynamical relaying"--a mechanism that relies on a specific network motif--has proven to be the most robust with respect to parameter mismatch and system noise. Surprisingly, despite a contrary belief in the community, the common driving motif is an unreliable means of establishing zero-lag synchrony. Although dynamical relaying has been validated in empirical and computational studies, the deeper dynamical mechanisms and comparison to dynamics on other motifs is lacking. By systematically comparing synchronization on a variety of small motifs, we establish that the presence of a single reciprocally connected pair--a "resonance pair"--plays a crucial role in disambiguating those motifs that foster zero-lag synchrony in the presence of conduction delays (such as dynamical relaying from those that do not (such as the common driving triad. Remarkably, minor structural changes to the common driving motif that incorporate a reciprocal pair recover robust zero-lag synchrony. The findings are observed in computational models of spiking neurons, populations of spiking neurons and neural mass models, and arise whether the oscillatory systems are periodic, chaotic, noise-free or driven by stochastic inputs. The influence of the resonance pair is also robust to parameter mismatch and asymmetrical time delays amongst the elements of the motif. We call this manner of facilitating zero-lag synchrony resonance-induced synchronization, outline the conditions for its occurrence, and propose that it may be a general mechanism to promote zero-lag synchrony in the brain.

In vitro demonstration of anti-lipogenic activity in serum from obese rats

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Harris, R.B.S.; Martin, R.J.

1986-01-01

Studies with parabiosed rats provide evidence for a humoral factor, originating in obese animals, that specifically inhibits adipose lipogenesis. A bioassay was developed that allows serum from obese rats to be tested for this factor in vitro. Adipocytes are isolated from epididymal fat of 250g Sprague-Dawley rats. The cells are preincubated at 37 0 C for 1 or 12 hrs, in TC199 media containing 1.1 mg/ml glucose, 0.1 M Hepes and 2% serum. Following preincubation, the cells are washed 3 times and resuspended in serum-free media. Aliquots of cells are tested for metabolic activity in a subsequent 2 hour radiolabelled incubation in serum-free media with the addition of 0.5 μCi/ml U- 14 C-glucose. Basal, insulin (100 μU/ml) and norepinephrine (0.1 μg/ml) stimulated rates of glucose oxidation and conversion to triglyceride fatty acids are measured. Using serum from ad libitum fed rats as control, preincubation with serum from obese rats (20 days at 2 x normal intake) depressed basal and insulin stimulated glucose oxidation, and basal fatty acid synthesis. Serum from obese parabiotic rats and parabiotic partners of obese rats depressed basal fatty acid synthesis. This assay allows us to test serum for anti-lipogenic activity and may be used to identify the factor responsible for this activity in obese animals

A speedup technique for (l, d-motif finding algorithms

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Dinh Hieu

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The discovery of patterns in DNA, RNA, and protein sequences has led to the solution of many vital biological problems. For instance, the identification of patterns in nucleic acid sequences has resulted in the determination of open reading frames, identification of promoter elements of genes, identification of intron/exon splicing sites, identification of SH RNAs, location of RNA degradation signals, identification of alternative splicing sites, etc. In protein sequences, patterns have proven to be extremely helpful in domain identification, location of protease cleavage sites, identification of signal peptides, protein interactions, determination of protein degradation elements, identification of protein trafficking elements, etc. Motifs are important patterns that are helpful in finding transcriptional regulatory elements, transcription factor binding sites, functional genomics, drug design, etc. As a result, numerous papers have been written to solve the motif search problem. Results Three versions of the motif search problem have been proposed in the literature: Simple Motif Search (SMS, (l, d-motif search (or Planted Motif Search (PMS, and Edit-distance-based Motif Search (EMS. In this paper we focus on PMS. Two kinds of algorithms can be found in the literature for solving the PMS problem: exact and approximate. An exact algorithm identifies the motifs always and an approximate algorithm may fail to identify some or all of the motifs. The exact version of PMS problem has been shown to be NP-hard. Exact algorithms proposed in the literature for PMS take time that is exponential in some of the underlying parameters. In this paper we propose a generic technique that can be used to speedup PMS algorithms. Conclusions We present a speedup technique that can be used on any PMS algorithm. We have tested our speedup technique on a number of algorithms. These experimental results show that our speedup technique is indeed very

The N-terminal leucine-zipper motif in PTRF/cavin-1 is essential and sufficient for its caveolae-association

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wei, Zhuang [State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031 (China); Laboratory of System Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031 (China); Zou, Xinle [State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031 (China); Wang, Hongzhong; Lei, Jigang; Wu, Yuan [State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031 (China); Laboratory of System Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031 (China); Liao, Kan, E-mail: kliao@sibs.ac.cn [State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031 (China); Laboratory of System Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031 (China)

2015-01-16

Highlight: • The N-terminal leucine-zipper motif in PTRF/cavin-1 determines caveolar association. • Different cellular localization of PTRF/cavin-1 influences its serine 389 and 391 phosphorylation state. • PTRF/cavin-1 regulates cell motility via its caveolar association. - Abstract: PTRF/cavin-1 is a protein of two lives. Its reported functions in ribosomal RNA synthesis and in caveolae formation happen in two different cellular locations: nucleus vs. plasma membrane. Here, we identified that the N-terminal leucine-zipper motif in PTRF/cavin-1 was essential for the protein to be associated with caveolae in plasma membrane. It could counteract the effect of nuclear localization sequence in the molecule (AA 235–251). Deletion of this leucine-zipper motif from PTRF/cavin-1 caused the mutant to be exclusively localized in nuclei. The fusion of this leucine-zipper motif with histone 2A, which is a nuclear protein, could induce the fusion protein to be exported from nucleus. Cell migration was greatly inhibited in PTRF/cavin-1{sup −/−} mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs). The inhibited cell motility could only be rescued by exogenous cavin-1 but not the leucine-zipper motif deleted cavin-1 mutant. Plasma membrane dynamics is an important factor in cell motility control. Our results suggested that the membrane dynamics in cell migration is affected by caveolae associated PTRF/cavin-1.

The N-terminal leucine-zipper motif in PTRF/cavin-1 is essential and sufficient for its caveolae-association

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wei, Zhuang; Zou, Xinle; Wang, Hongzhong; Lei, Jigang; Wu, Yuan; Liao, Kan

2015-01-01

Highlight: • The N-terminal leucine-zipper motif in PTRF/cavin-1 determines caveolar association. • Different cellular localization of PTRF/cavin-1 influences its serine 389 and 391 phosphorylation state. • PTRF/cavin-1 regulates cell motility via its caveolar association. - Abstract: PTRF/cavin-1 is a protein of two lives. Its reported functions in ribosomal RNA synthesis and in caveolae formation happen in two different cellular locations: nucleus vs. plasma membrane. Here, we identified that the N-terminal leucine-zipper motif in PTRF/cavin-1 was essential for the protein to be associated with caveolae in plasma membrane. It could counteract the effect of nuclear localization sequence in the molecule (AA 235–251). Deletion of this leucine-zipper motif from PTRF/cavin-1 caused the mutant to be exclusively localized in nuclei. The fusion of this leucine-zipper motif with histone 2A, which is a nuclear protein, could induce the fusion protein to be exported from nucleus. Cell migration was greatly inhibited in PTRF/cavin-1 −/− mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs). The inhibited cell motility could only be rescued by exogenous cavin-1 but not the leucine-zipper motif deleted cavin-1 mutant. Plasma membrane dynamics is an important factor in cell motility control. Our results suggested that the membrane dynamics in cell migration is affected by caveolae associated PTRF/cavin-1

Armadillo motifs involved in vesicular transport.

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Harald Striegl

Full Text Available Armadillo (ARM repeat proteins function in various cellular processes including vesicular transport and membrane tethering. They contain an imperfect repeating sequence motif that forms a conserved three-dimensional structure. Recently, structural and functional insight into tethering mediated by the ARM-repeat protein p115 has been provided. Here we describe the p115 ARM-motifs for reasons of clarity and nomenclature and show that both sequence and structure are highly conserved among ARM-repeat proteins. We argue that there is no need to invoke repeat types other than ARM repeats for a proper description of the structure of the p115 globular head region. Additionally, we propose to define a new subfamily of ARM-like proteins and show lack of evidence that the ARM motifs found in p115 are present in other long coiled-coil tethering factors of the golgin family.

Characterizing Motif Dynamics of Electric Brain Activity Using Symbolic Analysis

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Massimiliano Zanin

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Motifs are small recurring circuits of interactions which constitute the backbone of networked systems. Characterizing motif dynamics is therefore key to understanding the functioning of such systems. Here we propose a method to define and quantify the temporal variability and time scales of electroencephalogram (EEG motifs of resting brain activity. Given a triplet of EEG sensors, links between them are calculated by means of linear correlation; each pattern of links (i.e., each motif is then associated to a symbol, and its appearance frequency is analyzed by means of Shannon entropy. Our results show that each motif becomes observable with different coupling thresholds and evolves at its own time scale, with fronto-temporal sensors emerging at high thresholds and changing at fast time scales, and parietal ones at low thresholds and changing at slower rates. Finally, while motif dynamics differed across individuals, for each subject, it showed robustness across experimental conditions, indicating that it could represent an individual dynamical signature.

Discriminative motif discovery via simulated evolution and random under-sampling.

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Tao Song

Full Text Available Conserved motifs in biological sequences are closely related to their structure and functions. Recently, discriminative motif discovery methods have attracted more and more attention. However, little attention has been devoted to the data imbalance problem, which is one of the main reasons affecting the performance of the discriminative models. In this article, a simulated evolution method is applied to solve the multi-class imbalance problem at the stage of data preprocessing, and at the stage of Hidden Markov Models (HMMs training, a random under-sampling method is introduced for the imbalance between the positive and negative datasets. It is shown that, in the task of discovering targeting motifs of nine subcellular compartments, the motifs found by our method are more conserved than the methods without considering data imbalance problem and recover the most known targeting motifs from Minimotif Miner and InterPro. Meanwhile, we use the found motifs to predict protein subcellular localization and achieve higher prediction precision and recall for the minority classes.

Discriminative motif discovery via simulated evolution and random under-sampling.

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Tao; Gu, Hong

2014-01-01

Conserved motifs in biological sequences are closely related to their structure and functions. Recently, discriminative motif discovery methods have attracted more and more attention. However, little attention has been devoted to the data imbalance problem, which is one of the main reasons affecting the performance of the discriminative models. In this article, a simulated evolution method is applied to solve the multi-class imbalance problem at the stage of data preprocessing, and at the stage of Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) training, a random under-sampling method is introduced for the imbalance between the positive and negative datasets. It is shown that, in the task of discovering targeting motifs of nine subcellular compartments, the motifs found by our method are more conserved than the methods without considering data imbalance problem and recover the most known targeting motifs from Minimotif Miner and InterPro. Meanwhile, we use the found motifs to predict protein subcellular localization and achieve higher prediction precision and recall for the minority classes.

Improved i-motif thermal stability by insertion of anthraquinone monomers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gouda, Alaa S; Amine, Mahasen S.; Pedersen, Erik Bjerregaard

2017-01-01

In order to gain insight into how to improve thermal stability of i-motifs when used in the context of biomedical and nanotechnological applications, novel anthraquinone-modified i-motifs were synthesized by insertion of 1,8-, 1,4-, 1,5- and 2,6-disubstituted anthraquinone monomers into the TAA...... loops of a 22mer cytosine-rich human telomeric DNA sequence. The influence of the four anthraquinone linkers on the i-motif thermal stability was investigated at 295 nm and pH 5.5. Anthraquinone monomers modulate the i-motif stability in a position-depending manner and the modulation also depends...... unlocked nucleic acid monomers or twisted intercalating nucleic acid. The 2,6-disubstituted anthraquinone linker replacing T10 enabled a significant increase of i-motif thermal melting by 8.2 °C. A substantial increase of 5.0 °C in i-motif thermal melting was recorded when both A6 and T16 were modified...

Sterol regulatory element-binding protein-1 participates in the regulation of fatty acid synthase expression in colorectal neoplasia.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, J N; Mahmoud, M A; Han, W F; Ripple, M; Pizer, E S

2000-11-25

Endogenous fatty acid synthesis has been observed in certain rapidly proliferating normal and neoplastic tissues. Sterol regulatory element-binding proteins (SREBPs) are transcription factors that regulate the expression of lipogenic genes including fatty acid synthase (FAS), the major biosynthetic enzyme for fatty acid synthesis. We have previously shown that SREBP-1, FAS, and Ki-67, a proliferation marker, colocalized in the crypts of the fetal gastrointestinal tract epithelium. This study sought to determine whether SREBP-1 participates in the regulation of proliferation-associated fatty acid synthesis in colorectal neoplasia. An immunohistochemical analysis of SREBP-1, FAS, and Ki-67 expression in 25 primary human colorectal carcinoma specimens showed colocalization in 22 of these. To elucidate a functional linkage between SREBP-1 activation and proliferation-associated FA synthesis, SREBP-1 and FAS content were assayed during the adaptive response of cultured HCT116 colon carcinoma cells to pharmacological inhibition of FA synthesis. Cerulenin and TOFA each inhibited the endogenous synthesis of fatty acids in a dose-dependent manner and each induced increases in both precursor and mature forms of SREBP-1. Subsequently, both the transcriptional activity of the FAS promoter in a luciferase reporter gene construct and the FAS expression increased. These results demonstrate that tumor cells recognize and respond to a deficiency in endogenous fatty acid synthesis by upregulating both SREBP-1 and FAS expression and support the model that SREBP-1 participates in the transcriptional regulation of lipogenic genes in colorectal neoplasia. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

A CRE/AP-1-like motif is essential for induced syncytin-2 expression and fusion in human trophoblast-like model.

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Chirine Toufaily

Full Text Available Syncytin-2 is encoded by the envelope gene of Endogenous Retrovirus-FRD (ERVFRD-1 and plays a critical role in fusion of placental trophoblasts leading to the formation of the multinucleated syncytiotrophoblast. Its expression is consequently regulated in a strict manner. In the present study, we have identified a forskolin-responsive region located between positions -300 to -150 in the Syncytin-2 promoter region. This 150 bp region in the context of a minimal promoter mediated an 80-fold induction of promoter activity following forskolin stimulation. EMSA analyses with competition experiments with nuclear extracts from forskolin-stimulated BeWo cells demonstrated that the -211 to -177 region specifically bound two forskolin-induced complexes, one of them containing a CRE/AP-1-like motif. Site-directed mutagenesis of the CRE/AP-1 binding site in the context of the Syncytin-2 promoter or a heterologous promoter showed that this motif was mostly essential for forskolin-induced promoter activity. Transfection experiments with dominant negative mutants and constitutively activated CREB expression vectors in addition to Chromatin Immunoprecipitation suggested that a CREB family member, CREB2 was binding and acting through the CRE/AP-1 motif. We further demonstrated the binding of JunD to this same motif. Similar to forskolin and soluble cAMP, CREB2 and JunD overexpression induced Syncytin-2 promoter activity in a CRE/AP-1-dependent manner and Syncytin-2 expression. In addition, BeWo cell fusion was induced by both CREB2 and JunD overexpression, while being repressed following silencing of either gene. These results thereby demonstrate that induced expression of Syncytin-2 is highly dependent on the interaction of bZIP-containing transcription factors to a CRE/AP-1 motif and that this element is important for the regulation of Syncytin-2 expression, which results in the formation of the peripheral syncytiotrophoblast layer.

Calcium Sensing Receptor Mutations Implicated in Pancreatitis and Idiopathic Epilepsy Syndrome Disrupt an Arginine-rich Retention Motif

Science.gov (United States)

Stepanchick, Ann; McKenna, Jennifer; McGovern, Olivia; Huang, Ying; Breitwieser, Gerda E.

2010-01-01

Calcium sensing receptor (CaSR) mutations implicated in familial hypocalciuric hypercalcemia, pancreatitis and idiopathic epilepsy syndrome map to an extended arginine-rich region in the proximal carboxyl terminus. Arginine-rich motifs mediate endoplasmic reticulum retention and/or retrieval of multisubunit proteins so we asked whether these mutations, R886P, R896H or R898Q, altered CaSR targeting to the plasma membrane. Targeting was enhanced by all three mutations, and Ca2+-stimulated ERK1/2 phosphorylation was increased for R896H and R898Q. To define the role of the extended arginine-rich region in CaSR trafficking, we independently determined the contributions of R890/R891 and/or R896/K897/R898 motifs by mutation to alanine. Disruption of the motif(s) significantly increased surface expression and function relative to wt CaSR. The arginine-rich region is flanked by phosphorylation sites at S892 (protein kinase C) and S899 (protein kinase A). The phosphorylation state of S899 regulated recognition of the arginine-rich region; S899D showed increased surface localization. CaSR assembles in the endoplasmic reticulum as a covalent disulfide-linked dimer and we determined whether retention requires the presence of arginine-rich regions in both subunits. A single arginine-rich region within the dimer was sufficient to confer intracellular retention comparable to wt CaSR. We have identified an extended arginine-rich region in the proximal carboxyl terminus of CaSR (residues R890 - R898) which fosters intracellular retention of CaSR and is regulated by phosphorylation. Mutation(s) identified in chronic pancreatitis and idiopathic epilepsy syndrome therefore increase plasma membrane targeting of CaSR, likely contributing to the altered Ca2+ signaling characteristic of these diseases. PMID:20798521

Arabidopsis AtbHLH112 regulates the expression of genes involved in abiotic stress tolerance by binding to their E-box and GCG-box motifs.

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Liu, Yujia; Ji, Xiaoyu; Nie, Xianguang; Qu, Min; Zheng, Lei; Tan, Zilong; Zhao, Huimin; Huo, Lin; Liu, Shengnan; Zhang, Bing; Wang, Yucheng

2015-08-01

Plant basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors play essential roles in abiotic stress tolerance. However, most bHLHs have not been functionally characterized. Here, we characterized the functional role of a bHLH transcription factor from Arabidopsis, AtbHLH112, in response to abiotic stress. AtbHLH112 is a nuclear-localized protein, and its nuclear localization is induced by salt, drought and abscisic acid (ABA). In addition, AtbHLH112 serves as a transcriptional activator, with the activation domain located at its N-terminus. In addition to binding to the E-box motifs of stress-responsive genes, AtbHLH112 binds to a novel motif with the sequence 'GG[GT]CC[GT][GA][TA]C' (GCG-box). Gain- and loss-of-function analyses showed that the transcript level of AtbHLH112 is positively correlated with salt and drought tolerance. AtbHLH112 mediates stress tolerance by increasing the expression of P5CS genes and reducing the expression of P5CDH and ProDH genes to increase proline levels. AtbHLH112 also increases the expression of POD and SOD genes to improve reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging ability. We present a model suggesting that AtbHLH112 is a transcriptional activator that regulates the expression of genes via binding to their GCG- or E-boxes to mediate physiological responses, including proline biosynthesis and ROS scavenging pathways, to enhance stress tolerance. © 2015 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2015 New Phytologist Trust.

Computational analyses of synergism in small molecular network motifs.

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Yili Zhang

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Cellular functions and responses to stimuli are controlled by complex regulatory networks that comprise a large diversity of molecular components and their interactions. However, achieving an intuitive understanding of the dynamical properties and responses to stimuli of these networks is hampered by their large scale and complexity. To address this issue, analyses of regulatory networks often focus on reduced models that depict distinct, reoccurring connectivity patterns referred to as motifs. Previous modeling studies have begun to characterize the dynamics of small motifs, and to describe ways in which variations in parameters affect their responses to stimuli. The present study investigates how variations in pairs of parameters affect responses in a series of ten common network motifs, identifying concurrent variations that act synergistically (or antagonistically to alter the responses of the motifs to stimuli. Synergism (or antagonism was quantified using degrees of nonlinear blending and additive synergism. Simulations identified concurrent variations that maximized synergism, and examined the ways in which it was affected by stimulus protocols and the architecture of a motif. Only a subset of architectures exhibited synergism following paired changes in parameters. The approach was then applied to a model describing interlocked feedback loops governing the synthesis of the CREB1 and CREB2 transcription factors. The effects of motifs on synergism for this biologically realistic model were consistent with those for the abstract models of single motifs. These results have implications for the rational design of combination drug therapies with the potential for synergistic interactions.

Phyloproteomic Analysis of 11780 Six-Residue-Long Motifs Occurrences

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O. V. Galzitskaya

2015-01-01

Full Text Available How is it possible to find good traits for phylogenetic reconstructions? Here, we present a new phyloproteomic criterion that is an occurrence of simple motifs which can be imprints of evolution history. We studied the occurrences of 11780 six-residue-long motifs consisting of two randomly located amino acids in 97 eukaryotic and 25 bacterial proteomes. For all eukaryotic proteomes, with the exception of the Amoebozoa, Stramenopiles, and Diplomonadida kingdoms, the number of proteins containing the motifs from the first group (one of the two amino acids occurs once at the terminal position made about 20%; in the case of motifs from the second (one of two amino acids occurs one time within the pattern and third (the two amino acids occur randomly groups, 30% and 50%, respectively. For bacterial proteomes, this relationship was 10%, 27%, and 63%, respectively. The matrices of correlation coefficients between numbers of proteins where a motif from the set of 11780 motifs appears at least once in 9 kingdoms and 5 phyla of bacteria were calculated. Among the correlation coefficients for eukaryotic proteomes, the correlation between the animal and fungi kingdoms (0.62 is higher than between fungi and plants (0.54. Our study provides support that animals and fungi are sibling kingdoms. Comparison of the frequencies of six-residue-long motifs in different proteomes allows obtaining phylogenetic relationships based on similarities between these frequencies: the Diplomonadida kingdoms are more close to Bacteria than to Eukaryota; Stramenopiles and Amoebozoa are more close to each other than to other kingdoms of Eukaryota.

Convergent evolution and mimicry of protein linear motifs in host-pathogen interactions.

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Chemes, Lucía Beatriz; de Prat-Gay, Gonzalo; Sánchez, Ignacio Enrique

2015-06-01

Pathogen linear motif mimics are highly evolvable elements that facilitate rewiring of host protein interaction networks. Host linear motifs and pathogen mimics differ in sequence, leading to thermodynamic and structural differences in the resulting protein-protein interactions. Moreover, the functional output of a mimic depends on the motif and domain repertoire of the pathogen protein. Regulatory evolution mediated by linear motifs can be understood by measuring evolutionary rates, quantifying positive and negative selection and performing phylogenetic reconstructions of linear motif natural history. Convergent evolution of linear motif mimics is widespread among unrelated proteins from viral, prokaryotic and eukaryotic pathogens and can also take place within individual protein phylogenies. Statistics, biochemistry and laboratory models of infection link pathogen linear motifs to phenotypic traits such as tropism, virulence and oncogenicity. In vitro evolution experiments and analysis of natural sequences suggest that changes in linear motif composition underlie pathogen adaptation to a changing environment. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Crystal Structure of the N-Terminal RNA Recognition Motif of mRNA Decay Regulator AUF1

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Young Jun Choi

2016-01-01

Full Text Available AU-rich element binding/degradation factor 1 (AUF1 plays a role in destabilizing mRNAs by forming complexes with AU-rich elements (ARE in the 3′-untranslated regions. Multiple AUF1-ARE complexes regulate the translation of encoded products related to the cell cycle, apoptosis, and inflammation. AUF1 contains two tandem RNA recognition motifs (RRM and a Gln- (Q- rich domain in their C-terminal region. To observe how the two RRMs are involved in recognizing ARE, we obtained the AUF1-p37 protein covering the two RRMs. However, only N-terminal RRM (RRM1 was crystallized and its structure was determined at 1.7 Å resolution. It appears that the RRM1 and RRM2 separated before crystallization. To demonstrate which factors affect the separate RRM1-2, we performed limited proteolysis using trypsin. The results indicated that the intact proteins were cleaved by unknown proteases that were associated with them prior to crystallization. In comparison with each of the monomers, the conformations of the β2-β3 loops were highly variable. Furthermore, a comparison with the RRM1-2 structures of HuR and hnRNP A1 revealed that a dimer of RRM1 could be one of the possible conformations of RRM1-2. Our data may provide a guidance for further structural investigations of AUF1 tandem RRM repeat and its mode of ARE binding.

Chemokine (C-C motif ligand 20, a potential biomarker for Graves' disease, is regulated by osteopontin.

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Xiaoli Li

Full Text Available CONTEXT: Graves' disease (GD is a common autoimmune disease involving the thyroid gland. The altered balance of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines plays an important role in the pathogenesis of GD. Chemokine (C-C motif ligand 20 (CCL20 is important for interleukin-17 (IL-17 signal activation and a potent chemoattractant for Th17 cells. Meanwhile, Osteopontin (OPN, a broadly expressed pleiotropic cytokine, has been implicated in GD through inducing Th1-involved response to enhance the production of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines, but little is known about the role of OPN in regulating CCL20 and IL-17 signaling. OBJECTIVE: This study sought to explore the possibility of CCL20 level as a biomarker for GD, as well as investigate the role of OPN in regulating CCL20 production. METHODS: Fifty untreated GD patients, fifteen euthyroid GD patients, twelve TRAb-negative GD patients and thirty-five healthy control donors were recruited. OPN, CCL20 and other clinical GD diagnosis parameters were measured. CD4+T cells were isolated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs using antibody-coated magnetic beads. Enzyme-linked immune-sorbent assay and quantitative polymerase chain reaction were used to determine CCL20 expression level. RESULTS: We found that the plasma CCL20 level was enhanced in GD patients and decreased in euthyroid and TRAb-negative GD patients. In addition, CCL20 level correlated with GD clinical diagnostic parameters and plasma OPN level. Moreover, we demonstrated that recombinant OPN and plasma from untreated GD patients increased the expression of CCL20 in CD4+T cells, which could be blocked by OPN antibody. Furthermore, we found that the effect of OPN on CCL20 expression was mediated by β3 integrin receptor, IL-17, NF-κB and MAPK pathways. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrated that CCL20 might serve as a biomarker for GD and suggested the possible role of OPN in induction of CCL20 expression.

Methods and statistics for combining motif match scores.

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Bailey, T L; Gribskov, M

1998-01-01

Position-specific scoring matrices are useful for representing and searching for protein sequence motifs. A sequence family can often be described by a group of one or more motifs, and an effective search must combine the scores for matching a sequence to each of the motifs in the group. We describe three methods for combining match scores and estimating the statistical significance of the combined scores and evaluate the search quality (classification accuracy) and the accuracy of the estimate of statistical significance of each. The three methods are: 1) sum of scores, 2) sum of reduced variates, 3) product of score p-values. We show that method 3) is superior to the other two methods in both regards, and that combining motif scores indeed gives better search accuracy. The MAST sequence homology search algorithm utilizing the product of p-values scoring method is available for interactive use and downloading at URL http:/(/)www.sdsc.edu/MEME.

Quantitative statistical analysis of cis-regulatory sequences in ABA/VP1- and CBF/DREB1-regulated genes of Arabidopsis.

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Suzuki, Masaharu; Ketterling, Matthew G; McCarty, Donald R

2005-09-01

We have developed a simple quantitative computational approach for objective analysis of cis-regulatory sequences in promoters of coregulated genes. The program, designated MotifFinder, identifies oligo sequences that are overrepresented in promoters of coregulated genes. We used this approach to analyze promoter sequences of Viviparous1 (VP1)/abscisic acid (ABA)-regulated genes and cold-regulated genes, respectively, of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). We detected significantly enriched sequences in up-regulated genes but not in down-regulated genes. This result suggests that gene activation but not repression is mediated by specific and common sequence elements in promoters. The enriched motifs include several known cis-regulatory sequences as well as previously unidentified motifs. With respect to known cis-elements, we dissected the flanking nucleotides of the core sequences of Sph element, ABA response elements (ABREs), and the C repeat/dehydration-responsive element. This analysis identified the motif variants that may correlate with qualitative and quantitative differences in gene expression. While both VP1 and cold responses are mediated in part by ABA signaling via ABREs, these responses correlate with unique ABRE variants distinguished by nucleotides flanking the ACGT core. ABRE and Sph motifs are tightly associated uniquely in the coregulated set of genes showing a strict dependence on VP1 and ABA signaling. Finally, analysis of distribution of the enriched sequences revealed a striking concentration of enriched motifs in a proximal 200-base region of VP1/ABA and cold-regulated promoters. Overall, each class of coregulated genes possesses a discrete set of the enriched motifs with unique distributions in their promoters that may account for the specificity of gene regulation.

Low-dimensional morphospace of topological motifs in human fMRI brain networks

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Sarah E. Morgan

2018-06-01

Full Text Available We present a low-dimensional morphospace of fMRI brain networks, where axes are defined in a data-driven manner based on the network motifs. The morphospace allows us to identify the key variations in healthy fMRI networks in terms of their underlying motifs, and we observe that two principal components (PCs can account for 97% of the motif variability. The first PC of the motif distribution is correlated with efficiency and inversely correlated with transitivity. Hence this axis approximately conforms to the well-known economical small-world trade-off between integration and segregation in brain networks. Finally, we show that the economical clustering generative model proposed by Vértes et al. (2012 can approximately reproduce the motif morphospace of the real fMRI brain networks, in contrast to other generative models. Overall, the motif morphospace provides a powerful way to visualize the relationships between network properties and to investigate generative or constraining factors in the formation of complex human brain functional networks. Motifs have been described as the building blocks of complex networks. Meanwhile, a morphospace allows networks to be placed in a common space and can reveal the relationships between different network properties and elucidate the driving forces behind network topology. We combine the concepts of motifs and morphospaces to create the first motif morphospace of fMRI brain networks. Crucially, the morphospace axes are defined by the motifs, in a data-driven manner. We observe strong correlations between the networks’ positions in morphospace and their global topological properties, suggesting that motif morphospaces are a powerful way to capture the topology of networks in a low-dimensional space and to compare generative models of brain networks. Motif morphospaces could also be used to study other complex networks’ topologies.

A role for circadian evening elements in cold-regulated gene expression in Arabidopsis.

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Mikkelsen, Michael D; Thomashow, Michael F

2009-10-01

The plant transcriptome is dramatically altered in response to low temperature. The cis-acting DNA regulatory elements and trans-acting factors that regulate the majority of cold-regulated genes are unknown. Previous bioinformatic analysis has indicated that the promoters of cold-induced genes are enriched in the Evening Element (EE), AAAATATCT, a DNA regulatory element that has a role in circadian-regulated gene expression. Here we tested the role of EE and EE-like (EEL) elements in cold-induced expression of two Arabidopsis genes, CONSTANS-like 1 (COL1; At5g54470) and a gene encoding a 27-kDa protein of unknown function that we designated COLD-REGULATED GENE 27 (COR27; At5g42900). Mutational analysis indicated that the EE/EEL elements were required for cold induction of COL1 and COR27, and that their action was amplified through coupling with ABA response element (ABRE)-like (ABREL) motifs. An artificial promoter consisting solely of four EE motifs interspersed with three ABREL motifs was sufficient to impart cold-induced gene expression. Both COL1 and COR27 were found to be regulated by the circadian clock at warm growth temperatures and cold-induction of COR27 was gated by the clock. These results suggest that cold- and clock-regulated gene expression are integrated through regulatory proteins that bind to EE and EEL elements supported by transcription factors acting at ABREL sequences. Bioinformatic analysis indicated that the coupling of EE and EEL motifs with ABREL motifs is highly enriched in cold-induced genes and thus may constitute a DNA regulatory element pair with a significant role in configuring the low-temperature transcriptome.

The nitrogen responsive transcriptome in potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) reveals significant gene regulatory motifs.

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Gálvez, José Héctor; Tai, Helen H; Lagüe, Martin; Zebarth, Bernie J; Strömvik, Martina V

2016-05-19

Nitrogen (N) is the most important nutrient for the growth of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.). Foliar gene expression in potato plants with and without N supplementation at 180 kg N ha(-1) was compared at mid-season. Genes with consistent differences in foliar expression due to N supplementation over three cultivars and two developmental time points were examined. In total, thirty genes were found to be over-expressed and nine genes were found to be under-expressed with supplemented N. Functional relationships between over-expressed genes were found. The main metabolic pathway represented among differentially expressed genes was amino acid metabolism. The 1000 bp upstream flanking regions of the differentially expressed genes were analysed and nine overrepresented motifs were found using three motif discovery algorithms (Seeder, Weeder and MEME). These results point to coordinated gene regulation at the transcriptional level controlling steady state potato responses to N sufficiency.

Activation of human stearoyl-coenzyme A desaturase 1 contributes to the lipogenic effect of PXR in HepG2 cells.

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Jun Zhang

Full Text Available The pregnane X receptor (PXR was previously known as a xenobiotic receptor. Several recent studies suggested that PXR also played an important role in lipid homeostasis but the underlying mechanism remains to be clearly defined. In this study, we found that rifampicin, an agonist of human PXR, induced lipid accumulation in HepG2 cells. Lipid analysis showed the total cholesterol level increased. However, the free cholesterol and triglyceride levels were not changed. Treatment of HepG2 cells with rifampicin induced the expression of the free fatty acid transporter CD36 and ABCG1, as well as several lipogenic enzymes, including stearoyl-CoA desaturase-1 (SCD1, long chain free fatty acid elongase (FAE, and lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT, while the expression of acyl:cholesterol acetyltransferase(ACAT1 was not affected. Moreover, in PXR over-expressing HepG2 cells (HepG2-PXR, the SCD1 expression was significantly higher than in HepG2-Vector cells, even in the absence of rifampicin. Down-regulation of PXR by shRNA abolished the rifampicin-induced SCD1 gene expression in HepG2 cells. Promoter analysis showed that the human SCD1 gene promoter is activated by PXR and a novel DR-7 type PXR response element (PXRE response element was located at -338 bp of the SCD1 gene promoter. Taken together, these results indicated that PXR activation promoted lipid synthesis in HepG2 cells and SCD1 is a novel PXR target gene.

Memetic algorithms for de novo motif-finding in biomedical sequences.

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Bi, Chengpeng

2012-09-01

The objectives of this study are to design and implement a new memetic algorithm for de novo motif discovery, which is then applied to detect important signals hidden in various biomedical molecular sequences. In this paper, memetic algorithms are developed and tested in de novo motif-finding problems. Several strategies in the algorithm design are employed that are to not only efficiently explore the multiple sequence local alignment space, but also effectively uncover the molecular signals. As a result, there are a number of key features in the implementation of the memetic motif-finding algorithm (MaMotif), including a chromosome replacement operator, a chromosome alteration-aware local search operator, a truncated local search strategy, and a stochastic operation of local search imposed on individual learning. To test the new algorithm, we compare MaMotif with a few of other similar algorithms using simulated and experimental data including genomic DNA, primary microRNA sequences (let-7 family), and transmembrane protein sequences. The new memetic motif-finding algorithm is successfully implemented in C++, and exhaustively tested with various simulated and real biological sequences. In the simulation, it shows that MaMotif is the most time-efficient algorithm compared with others, that is, it runs 2 times faster than the expectation maximization (EM) method and 16 times faster than the genetic algorithm-based EM hybrid. In both simulated and experimental testing, results show that the new algorithm is compared favorably or superior to other algorithms. Notably, MaMotif is able to successfully discover the transcription factors' binding sites in the chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by massively parallel sequencing (ChIP-Seq) data, correctly uncover the RNA splicing signals in gene expression, and precisely find the highly conserved helix motif in the transmembrane protein sequences, as well as rightly detect the palindromic segments in the primary micro

Discovering Motifs in Biological Sequences Using the Micron Automata Processor.

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Roy, Indranil; Aluru, Srinivas

2016-01-01

Finding approximately conserved sequences, called motifs, across multiple DNA or protein sequences is an important problem in computational biology. In this paper, we consider the (l, d) motif search problem of identifying one or more motifs of length l present in at least q of the n given sequences, with each occurrence differing from the motif in at most d substitutions. The problem is known to be NP-complete, and the largest solved instance reported to date is (26,11). We propose a novel algorithm for the (l,d) motif search problem using streaming execution over a large set of non-deterministic finite automata (NFA). This solution is designed to take advantage of the micron automata processor, a new technology close to deployment that can simultaneously execute multiple NFA in parallel. We demonstrate the capability for solving much larger instances of the (l, d) motif search problem using the resources available within a single automata processor board, by estimating run-times for problem instances (39,18) and (40,17). The paper serves as a useful guide to solving problems using this new accelerator technology.

PISMA: A Visual Representation of Motif Distribution in DNA Sequences

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Rogelio Alcántara-Silva

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Background: Because the graphical presentation and analysis of motif distribution can provide insights for experimental hypothesis, PISMA aims at identifying motifs on DNA sequences, counting and showing them graphically. The motif length ranges from 2 to 10 bases, and the DNA sequences range up to 10 kb. The motif distribution is shown as a bar-code–like, as a gene-map–like, and as a transcript scheme. Results: We obtained graphical schemes of the CpG site distribution from 91 human papillomavirus genomes. Also, we present 2 analyses: one of DNA motifs associated with either methylation-resistant or methylation-sensitive CpG islands and another analysis of motifs associated with exosome RNA secretion. Availability and Implementation: PISMA is developed in Java; it is executable in any type of hardware and in diverse operating systems. PISMA is freely available to noncommercial users. The English version and the User Manual are provided in Supplementary Files 1 and 2, and a Spanish version is available at www.biomedicas.unam.mx/wp-content/software/pisma.zip and www.biomedicas.unam.mx/wp-content/pdf/manual/pisma.pdf .

Parallel motif extraction from very long sequences

KAUST Repository

Sahli, Majed

2013-01-01

Motifs are frequent patterns used to identify biological functionality in genomic sequences, periodicity in time series, or user trends in web logs. In contrast to a lot of existing work that focuses on collections of many short sequences, modern applications require mining of motifs in one very long sequence (i.e., in the order of several gigabytes). For this case, there exist statistical approaches that are fast but inaccurate; or combinatorial methods that are sound and complete. Unfortunately, existing combinatorial methods are serial and very slow. Consequently, they are limited to very short sequences (i.e., a few megabytes), small alphabets (typically 4 symbols for DNA sequences), and restricted types of motifs. This paper presents ACME, a combinatorial method for extracting motifs from a single very long sequence. ACME arranges the search space in contiguous blocks that take advantage of the cache hierarchy in modern architectures, and achieves almost an order of magnitude performance gain in serial execution. It also decomposes the search space in a smart way that allows scalability to thousands of processors with more than 90% speedup. ACME is the only method that: (i) scales to gigabyte-long sequences; (ii) handles large alphabets; (iii) supports interesting types of motifs with minimal additional cost; and (iv) is optimized for a variety of architectures such as multi-core systems, clusters in the cloud, and supercomputers. ACME reduces the extraction time for an exact-length query from 4 hours to 7 minutes on a typical workstation; handles 3 orders of magnitude longer sequences; and scales up to 16, 384 cores on a supercomputer. Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).

MODA: an efficient algorithm for network motif discovery in biological networks.

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Omidi, Saeed; Schreiber, Falk; Masoudi-Nejad, Ali

2009-10-01

In recent years, interest has been growing in the study of complex networks. Since Erdös and Rényi (1960) proposed their random graph model about 50 years ago, many researchers have investigated and shaped this field. Many indicators have been proposed to assess the global features of networks. Recently, an active research area has developed in studying local features named motifs as the building blocks of networks. Unfortunately, network motif discovery is a computationally hard problem and finding rather large motifs (larger than 8 nodes) by means of current algorithms is impractical as it demands too much computational effort. In this paper, we present a new algorithm (MODA) that incorporates techniques such as a pattern growth approach for extracting larger motifs efficiently. We have tested our algorithm and found it able to identify larger motifs with more than 8 nodes more efficiently than most of the current state-of-the-art motif discovery algorithms. While most of the algorithms rely on induced subgraphs as motifs of the networks, MODA is able to extract both induced and non-induced subgraphs simultaneously. The MODA source code is freely available at: http://LBB.ut.ac.ir/Download/LBBsoft/MODA/

Dynamic motifs in socio-economic networks

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Zhang, Xin; Shao, Shuai; Stanley, H. Eugene; Havlin, Shlomo

2014-12-01

Socio-economic networks are of central importance in economic life. We develop a method of identifying and studying motifs in socio-economic networks by focusing on “dynamic motifs,” i.e., evolutionary connection patterns that, because of “node acquaintances” in the network, occur much more frequently than random patterns. We examine two evolving bi-partite networks: i) the world-wide commercial ship chartering market and ii) the ship build-to-order market. We find similar dynamic motifs in both bipartite networks, even though they describe different economic activities. We also find that “influence” and “persistence” are strong factors in the interaction behavior of organizations. When two companies are doing business with the same customer, it is highly probable that another customer who currently only has business relationship with one of these two companies, will become customer of the second in the future. This is the effect of influence. Persistence means that companies with close business ties to customers tend to maintain their relationships over a long period of time.

The regulatory G4 motif of the Kirsten ras (KRAS) gene is sensitive to guanine oxidation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cogoi, Susanna; Ferino, Annalisa; Miglietta, Giulia

2018-01-01

KRAS is one of the most mutated genes in human cancer. It is controlled by a G4 motif located upstream of the transcription start site. In this paper, we demonstrate that 8-oxoguanine (8-oxoG), being more abundant in G4 than in non-G4 regions, is a new player in the regulation of this oncogene. W...

Assessing local structure motifs using order parameters for motif recognition, interstitial identification, and diffusion path characterization

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Zimmermann, Nils E. R.; Horton, Matthew K.; Jain, Anubhav; Haranczyk, Maciej

2017-11-01

Structure-property relationships form the basis of many design rules in materials science, including synthesizability and long-term stability of catalysts, control of electrical and optoelectronic behavior in semiconductors as well as the capacity of and transport properties in cathode materials for rechargeable batteries. The immediate atomic environments (i.e., the first coordination shells) of a few atomic sites are often a key factor in achieving a desired property. Some of the most frequently encountered coordination patterns are tetrahedra, octahedra, body and face-centered cubic as well as hexagonal closed packed-like environments. Here, we showcase the usefulness of local order parameters to identify these basic structural motifs in inorganic solid materials by developing classification criteria. We introduce a systematic testing framework, the Einstein crystal test rig, that probes the response of order parameters to distortions in perfect motifs to validate our approach. Subsequently, we highlight three important application cases. First, we map basic crystal structure information of a large materials database in an intuitive manner by screening the Materials Project (MP) database (61,422 compounds) for element-specific motif distributions. Second, we use the structure-motif recognition capabilities to automatically find interstitials in metals, semiconductor, and insulator materials. Our Interstitialcy Finding Tool (InFiT) facilitates high-throughput screenings of defect properties. Third, the order parameters are reliable and compact quantitative structure descriptors for characterizing diffusion hops of intercalants as our example of magnesium in MnO2-spinel indicates. Finally, the tools developed in our work are readily and freely available as software implementations in the pymatgen library, and we expect them to be further applied to machine-learning approaches for emerging applications in materials science.

Composite Structural Motifs of Binding Sites for Delineating Biological Functions of Proteins

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Kinjo, Akira R.; Nakamura, Haruki

2012-01-01

Most biological processes are described as a series of interactions between proteins and other molecules, and interactions are in turn described in terms of atomic structures. To annotate protein functions as sets of interaction states at atomic resolution, and thereby to better understand the relation between protein interactions and biological functions, we conducted exhaustive all-against-all atomic structure comparisons of all known binding sites for ligands including small molecules, proteins and nucleic acids, and identified recurring elementary motifs. By integrating the elementary motifs associated with each subunit, we defined composite motifs that represent context-dependent combinations of elementary motifs. It is demonstrated that function similarity can be better inferred from composite motif similarity compared to the similarity of protein sequences or of individual binding sites. By integrating the composite motifs associated with each protein function, we define meta-composite motifs each of which is regarded as a time-independent diagrammatic representation of a biological process. It is shown that meta-composite motifs provide richer annotations of biological processes than sequence clusters. The present results serve as a basis for bridging atomic structures to higher-order biological phenomena by classification and integration of binding site structures. PMID:22347478

Probing structural changes of self assembled i-motif DNA

KAUST Repository

Lee, Iljoon; Patil, Sachin; Fhayli, Karim; Alsaiari, Shahad K.; Khashab, Niveen M.

2015-01-01

We report an i-motif structural probing system based on Thioflavin T (ThT) as a fluorescent sensor. This probe can discriminate the structural changes of RET and Rb i-motif sequences according to pH change. This journal is

The heptanucleotide motif GAGACGC is a key component of a cis-acting promoter element that is critical for SnSAG1 expression in Sarcocystis neurona.

Science.gov (United States)

Gaji, Rajshekhar Y; Howe, Daniel K

2009-07-01

The apicomplexan parasite Sarcocystis neurona undergoes a complex process of intracellular development, during which many genes are temporally regulated. The described study was undertaken to begin identifying the basic promoter elements that control gene expression in S. neurona. Sequence analysis of the 5'-flanking region of five S. neurona genes revealed a conserved heptanucleotide motif GAGACGC that is similar to the WGAGACG motif described upstream of multiple genes in Toxoplasma gondii. The promoter region for the major surface antigen gene SnSAG1, which contains three heptanucleotide motifs within 135 bases of the transcription start site, was dissected by functional analysis using a dual luciferase reporter assay. These analyses revealed that a minimal promoter fragment containing all three motifs was sufficient to drive reporter molecule expression, with the presence and orientation of the 5'-most heptanucleotide motif being absolutely critical for promoter function. Further studies should help to identify additional sequence elements important for promoter function and for controlling gene expression during intracellular development by this apicomplexan pathogen.

Chronic administration of recombinant IL-6 upregulates lipogenic enzyme expression and aggravates high-fat-diet-induced steatosis in IL-6-deficient mice

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Margarita Vida

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Interleukin-6 (IL-6 has emerged as an important mediator of fatty acid metabolism with paradoxical effects in the liver. Administration of IL-6 has been reported to confer protection against steatosis, but plasma and tissue IL-6 concentrations are elevated in chronic liver diseases, including fatty liver diseases associated with obesity and alcoholic ingestion. In this study, we further investigated the role of IL-6 on steatosis induced through a high-fat diet (HFD in wild-type (WT and IL-6-deficient (IL-6−/− mice. Additionally, HFD-fed IL-6−/− mice were also chronically treated with recombinant IL-6 (rIL-6. Obesity in WT mice fed a HFD associated with elevated serum IL-6 levels, fatty liver, upregulation of carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 (CPT1 and signal transducer and activator of transcription-3 (STAT3, increased AMP kinase phosphorylation (p-AMPK, and downregulation of the hepatic lipogenic enzymes fatty acid synthase (FAS and stearoyl-CoA desaturase 1 (SCD1. The HFD-fed IL-6−/− mice showed severe steatosis, no changes in CPT1 levels or AMPK activity, no increase in STAT3 amounts, inactivated STAT3, and marked downregulation of the expression of acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACCα/β, FAS and SCD1. The IL-6 chronic replacement in HFD-fed IL-6−/− mice restored hepatic STAT3 and AMPK activation but also increased the expression of the lipogenic enzymes ACCα/β, FAS and SCD1. Furthermore, rIL-6 administration was associated with aggravated steatosis and elevated fat content in the liver. We conclude that, in the context of HFD-induced obesity, the administration of rIL-6 might contribute to the aggravation of fatty liver disease through increasing lipogenesis.

BlockLogo: Visualization of peptide and sequence motif conservation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Olsen, Lars Rønn; Kudahl, Ulrich Johan; Simon, Christian

2013-01-01

BlockLogo is a web-server application for the visualization of protein and nucleotide fragments, continuous protein sequence motifs, and discontinuous sequence motifs using calculation of block entropy from multiple sequence alignments. The user input consists of a multiple sequence alignment, se...

Genome Analysis of Conserved Dehydrin Motifs in Vascular Plants

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Ahmad A. Malik

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Dehydrins, a large family of abiotic stress proteins, are defined by the presence of a mostly conserved motif known as the K-segment, and may also contain two other conserved motifs known as the Y-segment and S-segment. Using the dehydrin literature, we developed a sequence motif definition of the K-segment, which we used to create a large dataset of dehydrin sequences by searching the Pfam00257 dehydrin dataset and the Phytozome 10 sequences of vascular plants. A comprehensive analysis of these sequences reveals that lysine residues are highly conserved in the K-segment, while the amino acid type is often conserved at other positions. Despite the Y-segment name, the central tyrosine is somewhat conserved, but can be substituted with two other small aromatic amino acids (phenylalanine or histidine. The S-segment contains a series of serine residues, but in some proteins is also preceded by a conserved LHR sequence. In many dehydrins containing all three of these motifs the S-segment is linked to the K-segment by a GXGGRRKK motif (where X can be any amino acid, suggesting a functional linkage between these two motifs. An analysis of the sequences shows that the dehydrin architecture and several biochemical properties (isoelectric point, molecular mass, and hydrophobicity score are dependent on each other, and that some dehydrin architectures are overexpressed during certain abiotic stress, suggesting that they may be optimized for a specific abiotic stress while others are involved in all forms of dehydration stress (drought, cold, and salinity.

Enrichment of Circular Code Motifs in the Genes of the Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

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Christian J. Michel

2017-12-01

Full Text Available A set X of 20 trinucleotides has been found to have the highest average occurrence in the reading frame, compared to the two shifted frames, of genes of bacteria, archaea, eukaryotes, plasmids and viruses. This set X has an interesting mathematical property, since X is a maximal C 3 self-complementary trinucleotide circular code. Furthermore, any motif obtained from this circular code X has the capacity to retrieve, maintain and synchronize the original (reading frame. Since 1996, the theory of circular codes in genes has mainly been developed by analysing the properties of the 20 trinucleotides of X , using combinatorics and statistical approaches. For the first time, we test this theory by analysing the X motifs, i.e., motifs from the circular code X , in the complete genome of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Several properties of X motifs are identified by basic statistics (at the frequency level, and evaluated by comparison to R motifs, i.e., random motifs generated from 30 different random codes R . We first show that the frequency of X motifs is significantly greater than that of R motifs in the genome of S. cerevisiae. We then verify that no significant difference is observed between the frequencies of X and R motifs in the non-coding regions of S. cerevisiae, but that the occurrence number of X motifs is significantly higher than R motifs in the genes (protein-coding regions. This property is true for all cardinalities of X motifs (from 4 to 20 and for all 16 chromosomes. We further investigate the distribution of X motifs in the three frames of S. cerevisiae genes and show that they occur more frequently in the reading frame, regardless of their cardinality or their length. Finally, the ratio of X genes, i.e., genes with at least one X motif, to non- X genes, in the set of verified genes is significantly different to that observed in the set of putative or dubious genes with no experimental evidence. These results, taken together

Enrichment of Circular Code Motifs in the Genes of the Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Science.gov (United States)

Michel, Christian J; Ngoune, Viviane Nguefack; Poch, Olivier; Ripp, Raymond; Thompson, Julie D

2017-12-03

A set X of 20 trinucleotides has been found to have the highest average occurrence in the reading frame, compared to the two shifted frames, of genes of bacteria, archaea, eukaryotes, plasmids and viruses. This set X has an interesting mathematical property, since X is a maximal C3 self-complementary trinucleotide circular code. Furthermore, any motif obtained from this circular code X has the capacity to retrieve, maintain and synchronize the original (reading) frame. Since 1996, the theory of circular codes in genes has mainly been developed by analysing the properties of the 20 trinucleotides of X, using combinatorics and statistical approaches. For the first time, we test this theory by analysing the X motifs, i.e., motifs from the circular code X, in the complete genome of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae . Several properties of X motifs are identified by basic statistics (at the frequency level), and evaluated by comparison to R motifs, i.e., random motifs generated from 30 different random codes R. We first show that the frequency of X motifs is significantly greater than that of R motifs in the genome of S. cerevisiae . We then verify that no significant difference is observed between the frequencies of X and R motifs in the non-coding regions of S. cerevisiae , but that the occurrence number of X motifs is significantly higher than R motifs in the genes (protein-coding regions). This property is true for all cardinalities of X motifs (from 4 to 20) and for all 16 chromosomes. We further investigate the distribution of X motifs in the three frames of S. cerevisiae genes and show that they occur more frequently in the reading frame, regardless of their cardinality or their length. Finally, the ratio of X genes, i.e., genes with at least one X motif, to non-X genes, in the set of verified genes is significantly different to that observed in the set of putative or dubious genes with no experimental evidence. These results, taken together, represent the first

Assessing Local Structure Motifs Using Order Parameters for Motif Recognition, Interstitial Identification, and Diffusion Path Characterization

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Nils E. R. Zimmermann

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Structure–property relationships form the basis of many design rules in materials science, including synthesizability and long-term stability of catalysts, control of electrical and optoelectronic behavior in semiconductors, as well as the capacity of and transport properties in cathode materials for rechargeable batteries. The immediate atomic environments (i.e., the first coordination shells of a few atomic sites are often a key factor in achieving a desired property. Some of the most frequently encountered coordination patterns are tetrahedra, octahedra, body and face-centered cubic as well as hexagonal close packed-like environments. Here, we showcase the usefulness of local order parameters to identify these basic structural motifs in inorganic solid materials by developing classification criteria. We introduce a systematic testing framework, the Einstein crystal test rig, that probes the response of order parameters to distortions in perfect motifs to validate our approach. Subsequently, we highlight three important application cases. First, we map basic crystal structure information of a large materials database in an intuitive manner by screening the Materials Project (MP database (61,422 compounds for element-specific motif distributions. Second, we use the structure-motif recognition capabilities to automatically find interstitials in metals, semiconductor, and insulator materials. Our Interstitialcy Finding Tool (InFiT facilitates high-throughput screenings of defect properties. Third, the order parameters are reliable and compact quantitative structure descriptors for characterizing diffusion hops of intercalants as our example of magnesium in MnO2-spinel indicates. Finally, the tools developed in our work are readily and freely available as software implementations in the pymatgen library, and we expect them to be further applied to machine-learning approaches for emerging applications in materials science.

Complete motif analysis of sequence requirements for translation initiation at non-AUG start codons.

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Diaz de Arce, Alexander J; Noderer, William L; Wang, Clifford L

2018-01-25

The initiation of mRNA translation from start codons other than AUG was previously believed to be rare and of relatively low impact. More recently, evidence has suggested that as much as half of all translation initiation utilizes non-AUG start codons, codons that deviate from AUG by a single base. Furthermore, non-AUG start codons have been shown to be involved in regulation of expression and disease etiology. Yet the ability to gauge expression based on the sequence of a translation initiation site (start codon and its flanking bases) has been limited. Here we have performed a comprehensive analysis of translation initiation sites that utilize non-AUG start codons. By combining genetic-reporter, cell-sorting, and high-throughput sequencing technologies, we have analyzed the expression associated with all possible variants of the -4 to +4 positions of non-AUG translation initiation site motifs. This complete motif analysis revealed that 1) with the right sequence context, certain non-AUG start codons can generate expression comparable to that of AUG start codons, 2) sequence context affects each non-AUG start codon differently, and 3) initiation at non-AUG start codons is highly sensitive to changes in the flanking sequences. Complete motif analysis has the potential to be a key tool for experimental and diagnostic genomics. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Structural Fine-Tuning of MIT-Interacting Motif 2 (MIM2) and Allosteric Regulation of ESCRT-III by Vps4 in Yeast.

Science.gov (United States)

Kojima, Rieko; Obita, Takayuki; Onoue, Kousuke; Mizuguchi, Mineyuki

2016-06-05

The endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT) facilitates roles in membrane remodeling, such as multivesicular body biogenesis, enveloped virus budding and cell division. In yeast, Vps4 plays a crucial role in intraluminal vesicle formation by disassembling ESCRT proteins. Vps4 is recruited by ESCRT-III proteins to the endosomal membrane through the interaction between the microtubule interacting and trafficking (MIT) domain of Vps4 and the C-terminal MIT-interacting motif (MIM) of ESCRT-III proteins. Here, we have determined the crystal structure of Vps4-MIT in a complex with Vps20, a member of ESCRT-III, and revealed that Vps20 adopts a unique MIM2 conformation. Based on structural comparisons with other known MIM2s, we have refined the consensus sequence of MIM2. We have shown that another ESCRT-III protein, Ist1, binds to Vps4-MIT via its C-terminal MIM1 with higher affinity than Vps2, but lacks MIM2 by surface plasmon resonance. Surprisingly, the Ist1 MIM1 competed with the MIM2 of Vfa1, a regulator of Vps4, for binding to Vps4-MIT, even though these MIMs bind in non-overlapping sites on the MIT. These findings provide insight into the allosteric recognition of MIMs of ESCRT-III by Vps4 and also the regulation of ESCRT machinery at the last step of membrane remodeling. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

TCR Down-Regulation Controls Virus-Specific CD8+ T Cell Responses

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bonefeld, Charlotte Menné; Haks, Mariëlle; Nielsen, Bodil

2008-01-01

The CD3gamma di-leucine-based motif plays a central role in TCR down-regulation. However, little is understood about the role of the CD3gamma di-leucine-based motif in physiological T cell responses. In this study, we show that the expansion in numbers of virus-specific CD8(+) T cells is impaired...... in mice with a mutated CD3gamma di-leucine-based motif. The CD3gamma mutation did not impair early TCR signaling, nor did it compromise recruitment or proliferation of virus-specific T cells, but it increased the apoptosis rate of the activated T cells by increasing down-regulation of the antiapoptotic...... molecule Bcl-2. This resulted in a 2-fold reduction in the clonal expansion of virus-specific CD8(+) T cells during the acute phase of vesicular stomatitis virus and lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infections. These results identify an important role of CD3gamma-mediated TCR down-regulation in virus...

Canonical Bcl-2 motifs of the Na+/K+ pump revealed by the BH3 mimetic chelerythrine: early signal transducers of apoptosis?

Science.gov (United States)

Lauf, Peter K; Heiny, Judith; Meller, Jarek; Lepera, Michael A; Koikov, Leonid; Alter, Gerald M; Brown, Thomas L; Adragna, Norma C

2013-01-01

action on NKCC1 and K+ channels may involve PKC-regulated mechanisms; however, limited sequence homologies to BH1-like motifs cannot exclude direct effects.

RNA recognition motif (RRM)-containing proteins in Bombyx mori

African Journals Online (AJOL)

STORAGESEVER

2009-03-20

Mar 20, 2009 ... Recognition Motif (RRM), sometimes referred to as. RNP1, is one of the first identified domains for RNA interaction. RRM is very common ..... Apart from the RRM motif, eIF3-S9 has a Trp-Asp. (WD) repeat domain, Poly (A) ...

One motif to bind them: A small-XXX-small motif affects transmembrane domain 1 oligomerization, function, localization, and cross-talk between two yeast GPCRs.

Science.gov (United States)

Lock, Antonia; Forfar, Rachel; Weston, Cathryn; Bowsher, Leo; Upton, Graham J G; Reynolds, Christopher A; Ladds, Graham; Dixon, Ann M

2014-12-01

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest family of cell-surface receptors in mammals and facilitate a range of physiological responses triggered by a variety of ligands. GPCRs were thought to function as monomers, however it is now accepted that GPCR homo- and hetero-oligomers also exist and influence receptor properties. The Schizosaccharomyces pombe GPCR Mam2 is a pheromone-sensing receptor involved in mating and has previously been shown to form oligomers in vivo. The first transmembrane domain (TMD) of Mam2 contains a small-XXX-small motif, overrepresented in membrane proteins and well-known for promoting helix-helix interactions. An ortholog of Mam2 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Ste2, contains an analogous small-XXX-small motif which has been shown to contribute to receptor homo-oligomerization, localization and function. Here we have used experimental and computational techniques to characterize the role of the small-XXX-small motif in function and assembly of Mam2 for the first time. We find that disruption of the motif via mutagenesis leads to reduction of Mam2 TMD1 homo-oligomerization and pheromone-responsive cellular signaling of the full-length protein. It also impairs correct targeting to the plasma membrane. Mutation of the analogous motif in Ste2 yielded similar results, suggesting a conserved mechanism for assembly. Using co-expression of the two fungal receptors in conjunction with computational models, we demonstrate a functional change in G protein specificity and propose that this is brought about through hetero-dimeric interactions of Mam2 with Ste2 via the complementary small-XXX-small motifs. This highlights the potential of these motifs to affect a range of properties that can be investigated in other GPCRs. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V.

The conserved dileucine- and tyrosine-based motifs in MLV and MPMV envelope glycoproteins are both important to regulate a common Env intracellular trafficking

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Lopez-Vergès Sandra

2006-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Retrovirus particles emerge from the assembly of two structural protein components, Gag that is translated as a soluble protein in the cytoplasm of the host cells, and Env, a type I transmembrane protein. Because both components are translated in different intracellular compartments, elucidating the mechanisms of retrovirus assembly thus requires the study of their intracellular trafficking. Results We used a CD25 (Tac chimera-based approach to study the trafficking of Moloney murine leukemia virus and Mason-Pfizer monkey virus Env proteins. We found that the cytoplasmic tails (CTs of both Env conserved two major signals that control a complex intracellular trafficking. A dileucine-based motif controls the sorting of the chimeras from the trans-Golgi network (TGN toward endosomal compartments. Env proteins then follow a retrograde transport to the TGN due to the action of a tyrosine-based motif. Mutation of either motif induces the mis-localization of the chimeric proteins and both motifs are found to mediate interactions of the viral CTs with clathrin adaptors. Conclusion This data reveals the unexpected complexity of the intracellular trafficking of retrovirus Env proteins that cycle between the TGN and endosomes. Given that Gag proteins hijack endosomal host proteins, our work suggests that the endosomal pathway may be used by retroviruses to ensure proper encountering of viral structural Gag and Env proteins in cells, an essential step of virus assembly.

Divergent Synthesis of Chondroitin Sulfate Disaccharides and Identification of Sulfate Motifs that Inhibit Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Science.gov (United States)

Wei Poh, Zhong; Heng Gan, Chin; Lee, Eric J.; Guo, Suxian; Yip, George W.; Lam, Yulin

2015-09-01

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) regulate many important physiological processes. A pertinent issue to address is whether GAGs encode important functional information via introduction of position specific sulfate groups in the GAG structure. However, procurement of pure, homogenous GAG motifs to probe the “sulfation code” is a challenging task due to isolation difficulty and structural complexity. To this end, we devised a versatile synthetic strategy to obtain all the 16 theoretically possible sulfation patterns in the chondroitin sulfate (CS) repeating unit; these include rare but potentially important sulfated motifs which have not been isolated earlier. Biological evaluation indicated that CS sulfation patterns had differing effects for different breast cancer cell types, and the greatest inhibitory effect was observed for the most aggressive, triple negative breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231.

Evolutionarily conserved bias of amino-acid usage refines the definition of PDZ-binding motif

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Launey Thomas

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The interactions between PDZ (PSD-95, Dlg, ZO-1 domains and PDZ-binding motifs play central roles in signal transductions within cells. Proteins with PDZ domains bind to PDZ-binding motifs almost exclusively when the motifs are located at the carboxyl (C- terminal ends of their binding partners. However, it remains little explored whether PDZ-binding motifs show any preferential location at the C-terminal ends of proteins, at genome-level. Results Here, we examined the distribution of the type-I (x-x-S/T-x-I/L/V or type-II (x-x-V-x-I/V PDZ-binding motifs in proteins encoded in the genomes of five different species (human, mouse, zebrafish, fruit fly and nematode. We first established that these PDZ-binding motifs are indeed preferentially present at their C-terminal ends. Moreover, we found specific amino acid (AA bias for the 'x' positions in the motifs at the C-terminal ends. In general, hydrophilic AAs were favored. Our genomics-based findings confirm and largely extend the results of previous interaction-based studies, allowing us to propose refined consensus sequences for all of the examined PDZ-binding motifs. An ontological analysis revealed that the refined motifs are functionally relevant since a large fraction of the proteins bearing the motif appear to be involved in signal transduction. Furthermore, co-precipitation experiments confirmed two new protein interactions predicted by our genomics-based approach. Finally, we show that influenza virus pathogenicity can be correlated with PDZ-binding motif, with high-virulence viral proteins bearing a refined PDZ-binding motif. Conclusions Our refined definition of PDZ-binding motifs should provide important clues for identifying functional PDZ-binding motifs and proteins involved in signal transduction.

Distinct configurations of protein complexes and biochemical pathways revealed by epistatic interaction network motifs

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Casey, Fergal

2011-08-22

Abstract Background Gene and protein interactions are commonly represented as networks, with the genes or proteins comprising the nodes and the relationship between them as edges. Motifs, or small local configurations of edges and nodes that arise repeatedly, can be used to simplify the interpretation of networks. Results We examined triplet motifs in a network of quantitative epistatic genetic relationships, and found a non-random distribution of particular motif classes. Individual motif classes were found to be associated with different functional properties, suggestive of an underlying biological significance. These associations were apparent not only for motif classes, but for individual positions within the motifs. As expected, NNN (all negative) motifs were strongly associated with previously reported genetic (i.e. synthetic lethal) interactions, while PPP (all positive) motifs were associated with protein complexes. The two other motif classes (NNP: a positive interaction spanned by two negative interactions, and NPP: a negative spanned by two positives) showed very distinct functional associations, with physical interactions dominating for the former but alternative enrichments, typical of biochemical pathways, dominating for the latter. Conclusion We present a model showing how NNP motifs can be used to recognize supportive relationships between protein complexes, while NPP motifs often identify opposing or regulatory behaviour between a gene and an associated pathway. The ability to use motifs to point toward underlying biological organizational themes is likely to be increasingly important as more extensive epistasis mapping projects in higher organisms begin.

Fingerprint motifs of phytases | Fan | African Journal of Biotechnology

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Among the total of potential 173 phytases gained in 11 plant genomes through MAST, PAPhys are the major phytases, and HAPhys are the minor, and other phytase groups are not found in planta. Keywords: Phytase, fingerprint motif, multiple EM for motif elicitation (MEME), MAST African Journal of Biotechnology Vol.

Nicotine induced CpG methylation of Pax6 binding motif in StAR promoter reduces the gene expression and cortisol production

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang, Tingting; Chen, Man; Liu, Lian; Cheng, Huaiyan; Yan, You-E; Feng, Ying-Hong; Wang, Hui

2011-01-01

Steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR) mediates the rate-limiting step in the synthesis of steroid hormones, essential to fetal development. We have reported that the StAR expression in fetal adrenal is inhibited in a rat model of nicotine-induced intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR). Here using primary human fetal adrenal cortex (pHFAC) cells and a human fetal adrenal cell line NCI-H295A, we show that nicotine inhibits StAR expression and cortisol production in a dose- and time-dependent manner, and prolongs the inhibitory effect on cells proliferating over 5 passages after termination of nicotine treatment. Methylation detection within the StAR promoter region uncovers a single site CpG methylation at nt -377 that is sensitive to nicotine treatment. Nicotine-induced alterations in frequency of this point methylation correlates well with the levels of StAR expression, suggesting an important role of the single site in regulating StAR expression. Further studies using bioinformatics analysis and siRNA approach reveal that the single CpG site is part of the Pax6 binding motif (CGCCTGA) in the StAR promoter. The luciferase activity assays validate that Pax6 increases StAR gene expression by binding to the glucagon G3-like motif (CGCCTGA) and methylation of this site blocks Pax6 binding and thus suppresses StAR expression. These data identify a nicotine-sensitive CpG site at the Pax6 binding motif in the StAR promoter that may play a central role in regulating StAR expression. The results suggest an epigenetic mechanism that may explain how nicotine contributes to onset of adult diseases or disorders such as metabolic syndrome via fetal programming. -- Highlights: ► Nicotine-induced StAR inhibition in two human adrenal cell models. ► Nicotine-induced single CpG site methylation in StAR promoter. ► Persistent StAR inhibition and single CpG methylation after nicotine termination. ► Single CpG methylation located at Pax6 binding motif regulates St

Skeletal muscle cell contraction reduces a novel myokine, chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 10 (CXCL10): potential roles in exercise-regulated angiogenesis.

Science.gov (United States)

Ishiuchi, Yuri; Sato, Hitoshi; Tsujimura, Kazuki; Kawaguchi, Hideo; Matsuwaki, Takashi; Yamanouchi, Keitaro; Nishihara, Masugi; Nedachi, Taku

2018-01-01

Accumulating evidence indicates that skeletal muscle secrets proteins referred to as myokines and that exercise contributes to their regulation. In this study, we propose that chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 10 (CXCL10) functions as a novel myokine. Initially, we stimulated differentiated C2C12 myotubes with or without electrical pulse stimulation (EPS) to identify novel myokines. Cytokine array analysis revealed that CXCL10 secretion was significantly reduced by EPS, which was further confirmed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis. Treadmill experiments in mice identified significant reduction of Cxcl10 gene expression in the soleus muscle. Additionally, contraction-dependent p38 MAPK activation appeared to be involved in this reduction. Furthermore, C2C12 conditioned medium obtained after applying EPS could induce survival of MSS31, a vascular endothelial cell model, which was partially attenuated by the addition of recombinant CXCL10. Overall, our findings suggest CXCL10 as a novel exercise-reducible myokine, to control endothelial cell viability.

Short Arginine Motifs Drive Protein Stickiness in the Escherichia coli Cytoplasm.

Science.gov (United States)

Kyne, Ciara; Crowley, Peter B

2017-09-19

Although essential to numerous biotech applications, knowledge of molecular recognition by arginine-rich motifs in live cells remains limited. 1 H, 15 N HSQC and 19 F NMR spectroscopies were used to investigate the effects of C-terminal -GR n (n = 1-5) motifs on GB1 interactions in Escherichia coli cells and cell extracts. While the "biologically inert" GB1 yields high-quality in-cell spectra, the -GR n fusions with n = 4 or 5 were undetectable. This result suggests that a tetra-arginine motif is sufficient to drive interactions between a test protein and macromolecules in the E. coli cytoplasm. The inclusion of a 12 residue flexible linker between GB1 and the -GR 5 motif did not improve detection of the "inert" domain. In contrast, all of the constructs were detectable in cell lysates and extracts, suggesting that the arginine-mediated complexes were weak. Together these data reveal the significance of weak interactions between short arginine-rich motifs and the E. coli cytoplasm and demonstrate the potential of such motifs to modify protein interactions in living cells. These interactions must be considered in the design of (in vivo) nanoscale assemblies that rely on arginine-rich sequences.

Skeletal muscle interleukin-6 regulates metabolic factors in iWAT during HFD and exercise training

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Knudsen, Jakob Grunnet; Bertholdt, Lærke; Joensen, Ella

2015-01-01

in combination with exercise training (HFD ExTr) for 16 weeks. RESULTS: Total fat mass increased (P mass than HFD Floxed mice. Accordingly, iWAT glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4) protein content, 5'AMP......OBJECTIVE: To investigate the role of skeletal muscle (SkM) interleukin (IL)-6 in the regulation of adipose tissue metabolism. METHODS: Muscle-specific IL-6 knockout (IL-6 MKO) and IL-6(loxP/loxP) (Floxed) mice were subjected to standard rodent diet (Chow), high-fat diet (HFD), or HFD.......05) in HFD IL-6 MKO than HFD Floxed mice, and pyruvate dehydrogenase E1α (PDH-E1α) protein content was higher (P mass through regulation of glucose uptake capacity as well as lipogenic...

Anion induced conformational preference of Cα NN motif residues in functional proteins.

Science.gov (United States)

Patra, Piya; Ghosh, Mahua; Banerjee, Raja; Chakrabarti, Jaydeb

2017-12-01

Among different ligand binding motifs, anion binding C α NN motif consisting of peptide backbone atoms of three consecutive residues are observed to be important for recognition of free anions, like sulphate or biphosphate and participate in different key functions. Here we study the interaction of sulphate and biphosphate with C α NN motif present in different proteins. Instead of total protein, a peptide fragment has been studied keeping C α NN motif flanked in between other residues. We use classical force field based molecular dynamics simulations to understand the stability of this motif. Our data indicate fluctuations in conformational preferences of the motif residues in absence of the anion. The anion gives stability to one of these conformations. However, the anion induced conformational preferences are highly sequence dependent and specific to the type of anion. In particular, the polar residues are more favourable compared to the other residues for recognising the anion. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Finding a Leucine in a Haystack: Searching the Proteome for ambigous Leucine-Aspartic Acid motifs

KAUST Repository

Arold, Stefan T.

2016-01-25

Leucine-aspartic acid (LD) motifs are short helical protein-protein interaction motifs involved in cell motility, survival and communication. LD motif interactions are also implicated in cancer metastasis and are targeted by several viruses. LD motifs are notoriously difficult to detect because sequence pattern searches lead to an excessively high number of false positives. Hence, despite 20 years of research, only six LD motif–containing proteins are known in humans, three of which are close homologues of the paxillin family. To enable the proteome-wide discovery of LD motifs, we developed LD Motif Finder (LDMF), a web tool based on machine learning that combines sequence information with structural predictions to detect LD motifs with high accuracy. LDMF predicted 13 new LD motifs in humans. Using biophysical assays, we experimentally confirmed in vitro interactions for four novel LD motif proteins. Thus, LDMF allows proteome-wide discovery of LD motifs, despite a highly ambiguous sequence pattern. Functional implications will be discussed.

A proposed vestigial translation initiation motif in VP1 of hepatitis A virus.

Science.gov (United States)

Kang, Jeong-Ah; Funkhouser, Ann W

2002-07-01

The internal ribosome entry site (IRES) of picornaviruses has a 3' polypyrimidine tract (PPT) 16-24 bases upstream of an AUG triplet (PPT/AUG motif). This motif is critical in determining the efficiency of cap-independent translation. HAV has a conserved PPT/AUG motif consisting of a nine base sequence (AGGUUUUUC) 23 bases upstream of the preferred AUG start codon. This HAV-specific PPT/AUG motif is repeated and conserved in VP1 of HAV, but not of other picornaviruses. We proposed that the PPT/AUG motif in the open reading frame initiated translation and/or had an impact on the life cycle of the virus. In vitro translation of mutant bicistronic mRNAs and growth in cell culture of mutant viruses provided no evidence that the VP1 PPT/AUG motif had any impact on either translation or growth. HAV differs from other picornaviruses in its inefficient growth in cell culture. Since the HAV-specific PPT/AUG motif is found in only 1 in 300,000 reported viral sequences outside the hepatovirus genus, this motif may be a vestigial translation initiation element and may have played a role in determining the unusual phenotype of HAV.

CMD: A Database to Store the Bonding States of Cysteine Motifs with Secondary Structures

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Hamed Bostan

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Computational approaches to the disulphide bonding state and its connectivity pattern prediction are based on various descriptors. One descriptor is the amino acid sequence motifs flanking the cysteine residue motifs. Despite the existence of disulphide bonding information in many databases and applications, there is no complete reference and motif query available at the moment. Cysteine motif database (CMD is the first online resource that stores all cysteine residues, their flanking motifs with their secondary structure, and propensity values assignment derived from the laboratory data. We extracted more than 3 million cysteine motifs from PDB and UniProt data, annotated with secondary structure assignment, propensity value assignment, and frequency of occurrence and coefficiency of their bonding status. Removal of redundancies generated 15875 unique flanking motifs that are always bonded and 41577 unique patterns that are always nonbonded. Queries are based on the protein ID, FASTA sequence, sequence motif, and secondary structure individually or in batch format using the provided APIs that allow remote users to query our database via third party software and/or high throughput screening/querying. The CMD offers extensive information about the bonded, free cysteine residues, and their motifs that allows in-depth characterization of the sequence motif composition.

Regulation of gene expression by manipulating transcriptional repressor activity using a novel CoSRI technology.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Yue; Li, Song Feng; Parish, Roger W

2017-07-01

Targeted gene manipulation is a central strategy for studying gene function and identifying related biological processes. However, a methodology for manipulating the regulatory motifs of transcription factors is lacking as these factors commonly possess multiple motifs (e.g. repression and activation motifs) which collaborate with each other to regulate multiple biological processes. We describe a novel approach designated conserved sequence-guided repressor inhibition (CoSRI) that can specifically reduce or abolish the repressive activities of transcription factors in vivo. The technology was evaluated using the chimeric MYB80-EAR transcription factor and subsequently the endogenous WUS transcription factor. The technology was employed to develop a reversible male sterility system applicable to hybrid seed production. In order to determine the capacity of the technology to regulate the activity of endogenous transcription factors, the WUS repressor was chosen. The WUS repression motif could be inhibited in vivo and the transformed plants exhibited the wus-1 phenotype. Consequently, the technology can be used to manipulate the activities of transcriptional repressor motifs regulating beneficial traits in crop plants and other eukaryotic organisms. © 2016 The Authors. Plant Biotechnology Journal published by Society for Experimental Biology and The Association of Applied Biologists and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

BEAM web server: a tool for structural RNA motif discovery.

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Pietrosanto, Marco; Adinolfi, Marta; Casula, Riccardo; Ausiello, Gabriele; Ferrè, Fabrizio; Helmer-Citterich, Manuela

2018-03-15

RNA structural motif finding is a relevant problem that becomes computationally hard when working on high-throughput data (e.g. eCLIP, PAR-CLIP), often represented by thousands of RNA molecules. Currently, the BEAM server is the only web tool capable to handle tens of thousands of RNA in input with a motif discovery procedure that is only limited by the current secondary structure prediction accuracies. The recently developed method BEAM (BEAr Motifs finder) can analyze tens of thousands of RNA molecules and identify RNA secondary structure motifs associated to a measure of their statistical significance. BEAM is extremely fast thanks to the BEAR encoding that transforms each RNA secondary structure in a string of characters. BEAM also exploits the evolutionary knowledge contained in a substitution matrix of secondary structure elements, extracted from the RFAM database of families of homologous RNAs. The BEAM web server has been designed to streamline data pre-processing by automatically handling folding and encoding of RNA sequences, giving users a choice for the preferred folding program. The server provides an intuitive and informative results page with the list of secondary structure motifs identified, the logo of each motif, its significance, graphic representation and information about its position in the RNA molecules sharing it. The web server is freely available at http://beam.uniroma2.it/ and it is implemented in NodeJS and Python with all major browsers supported. marco.pietrosanto@uniroma2.it. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Review article: The mountain motif in the plot of Matthew

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Gert J. Volschenk

2010-09-01

Full Text Available This article reviewed T.L. Donaldson’s book, Jesus on the mountain: A study in Matthean theology, published in 1985 by JSOT Press, Sheffield, and focused on the mountain motif in the structure and plot of the Gospel of Matthew, in addition to the work of Donaldson on the mountain motif as a literary motif and as theological symbol. The mountain is a primary theological setting for Jesus’ ministry and thus is an important setting, serving as one of the literary devices by which Matthew structured and progressed his narrative. The Zion theological and eschatological significance and Second Temple Judaism serve as the historical and theological background for the mountain motif. The last mountain setting (Mt 28:16–20 is the culmination of the three theological themes in the plot of Matthew, namely Christology, ecclesiology and salvation history.

Phospholipid composition and a polybasic motif determine D6 PROTEIN KINASE polar association with the plasma membrane and tropic responses.

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Barbosa, Inês C R; Shikata, Hiromasa; Zourelidou, Melina; Heilmann, Mareike; Heilmann, Ingo; Schwechheimer, Claus

2016-12-15

Polar transport of the phytohormone auxin through PIN-FORMED (PIN) auxin efflux carriers is essential for the spatiotemporal control of plant development. The Arabidopsis thaliana serine/threonine kinase D6 PROTEIN KINASE (D6PK) is polarly localized at the plasma membrane of many cells where it colocalizes with PINs and activates PIN-mediated auxin efflux. Here, we show that the association of D6PK with the basal plasma membrane and PINs is dependent on the phospholipid composition of the plasma membrane as well as on the phosphatidylinositol phosphate 5-kinases PIP5K1 and PIP5K2 in epidermis cells of the primary root. We further show that D6PK directly binds polyacidic phospholipids through a polybasic lysine-rich motif in the middle domain of the kinase. The lysine-rich motif is required for proper PIN3 phosphorylation and for auxin transport-dependent tropic growth. Polybasic motifs are also present at a conserved position in other D6PK-related kinases and required for membrane and phospholipid binding. Thus, phospholipid-dependent recruitment to membranes through polybasic motifs might not only be required for D6PK-mediated auxin transport but also other processes regulated by these, as yet, functionally uncharacterized kinases. © 2016. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

Seed storage protein gene promoters contain conserved DNA motifs in Brassicaceae, Fabaceae and Poaceae

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Fauteux, François; Strömvik, Martina V

2009-01-01

Background Accurate computational identification of cis-regulatory motifs is difficult, particularly in eukaryotic promoters, which typically contain multiple short and degenerate DNA sequences bound by several interacting factors. Enrichment in combinations of rare motifs in the promoter sequence of functionally or evolutionarily related genes among several species is an indicator of conserved transcriptional regulatory mechanisms. This provides a basis for the computational identification of cis-regulatory motifs. Results We have used a discriminative seeding DNA motif discovery algorithm for an in-depth analysis of 54 seed storage protein (SSP) gene promoters from three plant families, namely Brassicaceae (mustards), Fabaceae (legumes) and Poaceae (grasses) using backgrounds based on complete sets of promoters from a representative species in each family, namely Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh.), soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) and rice (Oryza sativa L.) respectively. We have identified three conserved motifs (two RY-like and one ACGT-like) in Brassicaceae and Fabaceae SSP gene promoters that are similar to experimentally characterized seed-specific cis-regulatory elements. Fabaceae SSP gene promoter sequences are also enriched in a novel, seed-specific E2Fb-like motif. Conserved motifs identified in Poaceae SSP gene promoters include a GCN4-like motif, two prolamin-box-like motifs and an Skn-1-like motif. Evidence of the presence of a variant of the TATA-box is found in the SSP gene promoters from the three plant families. Motifs discovered in SSP gene promoters were used to score whole-genome sets of promoters from Arabidopsis, soybean and rice. The highest-scoring promoters are associated with genes coding for different subunits or precursors of seed storage proteins. Conclusion Seed storage protein gene promoter motifs are conserved in diverse species, and different plant families are characterized by a distinct combination of conserved motifs

Seed storage protein gene promoters contain conserved DNA motifs in Brassicaceae, Fabaceae and Poaceae

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Fauteux François

2009-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Accurate computational identification of cis-regulatory motifs is difficult, particularly in eukaryotic promoters, which typically contain multiple short and degenerate DNA sequences bound by several interacting factors. Enrichment in combinations of rare motifs in the promoter sequence of functionally or evolutionarily related genes among several species is an indicator of conserved transcriptional regulatory mechanisms. This provides a basis for the computational identification of cis-regulatory motifs. Results We have used a discriminative seeding DNA motif discovery algorithm for an in-depth analysis of 54 seed storage protein (SSP gene promoters from three plant families, namely Brassicaceae (mustards, Fabaceae (legumes and Poaceae (grasses using backgrounds based on complete sets of promoters from a representative species in each family, namely Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana (L. Heynh., soybean (Glycine max (L. Merr. and rice (Oryza sativa L. respectively. We have identified three conserved motifs (two RY-like and one ACGT-like in Brassicaceae and Fabaceae SSP gene promoters that are similar to experimentally characterized seed-specific cis-regulatory elements. Fabaceae SSP gene promoter sequences are also enriched in a novel, seed-specific E2Fb-like motif. Conserved motifs identified in Poaceae SSP gene promoters include a GCN4-like motif, two prolamin-box-like motifs and an Skn-1-like motif. Evidence of the presence of a variant of the TATA-box is found in the SSP gene promoters from the three plant families. Motifs discovered in SSP gene promoters were used to score whole-genome sets of promoters from Arabidopsis, soybean and rice. The highest-scoring promoters are associated with genes coding for different subunits or precursors of seed storage proteins. Conclusion Seed storage protein gene promoter motifs are conserved in diverse species, and different plant families are characterized by a distinct combination

On the origin of distribution patterns of motifs in biological networks

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Lesk Arthur M

2008-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Inventories of small subgraphs in biological networks have identified commonly-recurring patterns, called motifs. The inference that these motifs have been selected for function rests on the idea that their occurrences are significantly more frequent than random. Results Our analysis of several large biological networks suggests, in contrast, that the frequencies of appearance of common subgraphs are similar in natural and corresponding random networks. Conclusion Indeed, certain topological features of biological networks give rise naturally to the common appearance of the motifs. We therefore question whether frequencies of occurrences are reasonable evidence that the structures of motifs have been selected for their functional contribution to the operation of networks.

Distance-dependent duplex DNA destabilization proximal to G-quadruplex/i-motif sequences

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König, Sebastian L. B.; Huppert, Julian L.; Sigel, Roland K. O.; Evans, Amanda C.

2013-01-01

G-quadruplexes and i-motifs are complementary examples of non-canonical nucleic acid substructure conformations. G-quadruplex thermodynamic stability has been extensively studied for a variety of base sequences, but the degree of duplex destabilization that adjacent quadruplex structure formation can cause has yet to be fully addressed. Stable in vivo formation of these alternative nucleic acid structures is likely to be highly dependent on whether sufficient spacing exists between neighbouring duplex- and quadruplex-/i-motif-forming regions to accommodate quadruplexes or i-motifs without disrupting duplex stability. Prediction of putative G-quadruplex-forming regions is likely to be assisted by further understanding of what distance (number of base pairs) is required for duplexes to remain stable as quadruplexes or i-motifs form. Using oligonucleotide constructs derived from precedented G-quadruplexes and i-motif-forming bcl-2 P1 promoter region, initial biophysical stability studies indicate that the formation of G-quadruplex and i-motif conformations do destabilize proximal duplex regions. The undermining effect that quadruplex formation can have on duplex stability is mitigated with increased distance from the duplex region: a spacing of five base pairs or more is sufficient to maintain duplex stability proximal to predicted quadruplex/i-motif-forming regions. PMID:23771141

Fast social-like learning of complex behaviors based on motor motifs

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Calvo Tapia, Carlos; Tyukin, Ivan Y.; Makarov, Valeri A.

2018-05-01

Social learning is widely observed in many species. Less experienced agents copy successful behaviors exhibited by more experienced individuals. Nevertheless, the dynamical mechanisms behind this process remain largely unknown. Here we assume that a complex behavior can be decomposed into a sequence of n motor motifs. Then a neural network capable of activating motor motifs in a given sequence can drive an agent. To account for (n -1 )! possible sequences of motifs in a neural network, we employ the winnerless competition approach. We then consider a teacher-learner situation: one agent exhibits a complex movement, while another one aims at mimicking the teacher's behavior. Despite the huge variety of possible motif sequences we show that the learner, equipped with the provided learning model, can rewire "on the fly" its synaptic couplings in no more than (n -1 ) learning cycles and converge exponentially to the durations of the teacher's motifs. We validate the learning model on mobile robots. Experimental results show that the learner is indeed capable of copying the teacher's behavior composed of six motor motifs in a few learning cycles. The reported mechanism of learning is general and can be used for replicating different functions, including, for example, sound patterns or speech.

Thermal Stability of Modified i-Motif Oligonucleotides with Naphthalimide Intercalating Nucleic Acids

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

El-Sayed, Ahmed Ali; Pedersen, Erik B.; Khaireldin, Nahid Y.

2016-01-01

In continuation of our investigation of characteristics and thermodynamic properties of the i-motif 5′-d[(CCCTAA)3CCCT)] upon insertion of intercalating nucleotides into the cytosine-rich oligonucleotide, this article evaluates the stabilities of i-motif oligonucleotides upon insertion of naphtha......In continuation of our investigation of characteristics and thermodynamic properties of the i-motif 5′-d[(CCCTAA)3CCCT)] upon insertion of intercalating nucleotides into the cytosine-rich oligonucleotide, this article evaluates the stabilities of i-motif oligonucleotides upon insertion...... of naphthalimide (1H-benzo[de]isoquinoline-1,3(2H)-dione) as the intercalating nucleic acid. The stabilities of i-motif structures with inserted naphthalimide intercalating nucleotides were studied using UV melting temperatures (Tm) and circular dichroism spectra at different pH values and conditions (crowding...

WildSpan: mining structured motifs from protein sequences

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Chen Chien-Yu

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Automatic extraction of motifs from biological sequences is an important research problem in study of molecular biology. For proteins, it is desired to discover sequence motifs containing a large number of wildcard symbols, as the residues associated with functional sites are usually largely separated in sequences. Discovering such patterns is time-consuming because abundant combinations exist when long gaps (a gap consists of one or more successive wildcards are considered. Mining algorithms often employ constraints to narrow down the search space in order to increase efficiency. However, improper constraint models might degrade the sensitivity and specificity of the motifs discovered by computational methods. We previously proposed a new constraint model to handle large wildcard regions for discovering functional motifs of proteins. The patterns that satisfy the proposed constraint model are called W-patterns. A W-pattern is a structured motif that groups motif symbols into pattern blocks interleaved with large irregular gaps. Considering large gaps reflects the fact that functional residues are not always from a single region of protein sequences, and restricting motif symbols into clusters corresponds to the observation that short motifs are frequently present within protein families. To efficiently discover W-patterns for large-scale sequence annotation and function prediction, this paper first formally introduces the problem to solve and proposes an algorithm named WildSpan (sequential pattern mining across large wildcard regions that incorporates several pruning strategies to largely reduce the mining cost. Results WildSpan is shown to efficiently find W-patterns containing conserved residues that are far separated in sequences. We conducted experiments with two mining strategies, protein-based and family-based mining, to evaluate the usefulness of W-patterns and performance of WildSpan. The protein-based mining mode

Motif formation and industry specific topologies in the Japanese business firm network

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Maluck, Julian; Donner, Reik V.; Takayasu, Hideki; Takayasu, Misako

2017-05-01

Motifs and roles are basic quantities for the characterization of interactions among 3-node subsets in complex networks. In this work, we investigate how the distribution of 3-node motifs can be influenced by modifying the rules of an evolving network model while keeping the statistics of simpler network characteristics, such as the link density and the degree distribution, invariant. We exemplify this problem for the special case of the Japanese Business Firm Network, where a well-studied and relatively simple yet realistic evolving network model is available, and compare the resulting motif distribution in the real-world and simulated networks. To better approximate the motif distribution of the real-world network in the model, we introduce both subgraph dependent and global additional rules. We find that a specific rule that allows only for the merging process between nodes with similar link directionality patterns reduces the observed excess of densely connected motifs with bidirectional links. Our study improves the mechanistic understanding of motif formation in evolving network models to better describe the characteristic features of real-world networks with a scale-free topology.

High-Resolution RNA Maps Suggest Common Principles of Splicing and Polyadenylation Regulation by TDP-43

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Gregor Rot

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Many RNA-binding proteins (RBPs regulate both alternative exons and poly(A site selection. To understand their regulatory principles, we developed expressRNA, a web platform encompassing computational tools for integration of iCLIP and RNA motif analyses with RNA-seq and 3′ mRNA sequencing. This reveals at nucleotide resolution the “RNA maps” describing how the RNA binding positions of RBPs relate to their regulatory functions. We use this approach to examine how TDP-43, an RBP involved in several neurodegenerative diseases, binds around its regulated poly(A sites. Binding close to the poly(A site generally represses, whereas binding further downstream enhances use of the site, which is similar to TDP-43 binding around regulated exons. Our RNAmotifs2 software also identifies sequence motifs that cluster together with the binding motifs of TDP-43. We conclude that TDP-43 directly regulates diverse types of pre-mRNA processing according to common position-dependent principles.

Binding properties of SUMO-interacting motifs (SIMs) in yeast.

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Jardin, Christophe; Horn, Anselm H C; Sticht, Heinrich

2015-03-01

Small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) conjugation and interaction play an essential role in many cellular processes. A large number of yeast proteins is known to interact non-covalently with SUMO via short SUMO-interacting motifs (SIMs), but the structural details of this interaction are yet poorly characterized. In the present work, sequence analysis of a large dataset of 148 yeast SIMs revealed the existence of a hydrophobic core binding motif and a preference for acidic residues either within or adjacent to the core motif. Thus the sequence properties of yeast SIMs are highly similar to those described for human. Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to investigate the binding preferences for four representative SIM peptides differing in the number and distribution of acidic residues. Furthermore, the relative stability of two previously observed alternative binding orientations (parallel, antiparallel) was assessed. For all SIMs investigated, the antiparallel binding mode remained stable in the simulations and the SIMs were tightly bound via their hydrophobic core residues supplemented by polar interactions of the acidic residues. In contrary, the stability of the parallel binding mode is more dependent on the sequence features of the SIM motif like the number and position of acidic residues or the presence of additional adjacent interaction motifs. This information should be helpful to enhance the prediction of SIMs and their binding properties in different organisms to facilitate the reconstruction of the SUMO interactome.

Identification of coupling DNA motif pairs on long-range chromatin interactions in human K562 cells

KAUST Repository

Wong, Ka-Chun; Li, Yue; Peng, Chengbin

2015-01-01

Motivation: The protein-DNA interactions between transcription factors (TFs) and transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs, also known as DNA motifs) are critical activities in gene transcription. The identification of the DNA motifs is a vital task for downstream analysis. Unfortunately, the long-range coupling information between different DNA motifs is still lacking. To fill the void, as the first-of-its-kind study, we have identified the coupling DNA motif pairs on long-range chromatin interactions in human. Results: The coupling DNA motif pairs exhibit substantially higher DNase accessibility than the background sequences. Half of the DNA motifs involved are matched to the existing motif databases, although nearly all of them are enriched with at least one gene ontology term. Their motif instances are also found statistically enriched on the promoter and enhancer regions. Especially, we introduce a novel measurement called motif pairing multiplicity which is defined as the number of motifs that are paired with a given motif on chromatin interactions. Interestingly, we observe that motif pairing multiplicity is linked to several characteristics such as regulatory region type, motif sequence degeneracy, DNase accessibility and pairing genomic distance. Taken into account together, we believe the coupling DNA motif pairs identified in this study can shed lights on the gene transcription mechanism under long-range chromatin interactions. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press.

Identification of coupling DNA motif pairs on long-range chromatin interactions in human K562 cells

KAUST Repository

Wong, Ka-Chun

2015-09-27

Motivation: The protein-DNA interactions between transcription factors (TFs) and transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs, also known as DNA motifs) are critical activities in gene transcription. The identification of the DNA motifs is a vital task for downstream analysis. Unfortunately, the long-range coupling information between different DNA motifs is still lacking. To fill the void, as the first-of-its-kind study, we have identified the coupling DNA motif pairs on long-range chromatin interactions in human. Results: The coupling DNA motif pairs exhibit substantially higher DNase accessibility than the background sequences. Half of the DNA motifs involved are matched to the existing motif databases, although nearly all of them are enriched with at least one gene ontology term. Their motif instances are also found statistically enriched on the promoter and enhancer regions. Especially, we introduce a novel measurement called motif pairing multiplicity which is defined as the number of motifs that are paired with a given motif on chromatin interactions. Interestingly, we observe that motif pairing multiplicity is linked to several characteristics such as regulatory region type, motif sequence degeneracy, DNase accessibility and pairing genomic distance. Taken into account together, we believe the coupling DNA motif pairs identified in this study can shed lights on the gene transcription mechanism under long-range chromatin interactions. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press.

Disruption of Fyn SH3 domain interaction with a proline-rich motif in liver kinase B1 results in activation of AMP-activated protein kinase.

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Eijiro Yamada

Full Text Available Fyn-deficient mice display increased AMP-activated Protein Kinase (AMPK activity as a result of Fyn-dependent regulation of Liver Kinase B1 (LKB1 in skeletal muscle. Mutation of Fyn-specific tyrosine sites in LKB1 results in LKB1 export into the cytoplasm and increased AMPK activation site phosphorylation. This study characterizes the structural elements responsible for the physical interaction between Fyn and LKB1. Effects of point mutations in the Fyn SH2/SH3 domains and in the LKB1 proline-rich motif on 1 Fyn and LKB1 binding, 2 LKB1 subcellular localization and 3 AMPK phosphorylation were investigated in C2C12 muscle cells. Additionally, novel LKB1 proline-rich motif mimicking cell permeable peptides were generated to disrupt Fyn/LKB1 binding and investigate the consequences on AMPK activity in both C2C12 cells and mouse skeletal muscle. Mutation of either Fyn SH3 domain or the proline-rich motif of LKB1 resulted in the disruption of Fyn/LKB1 binding, re-localization of 70% of LKB1 signal in the cytoplasm and a 2-fold increase in AMPK phosphorylation. In vivo disruption of the Fyn/LKB1 interaction using LKB1 proline-rich motif mimicking cell permeable peptides recapitulated Fyn pharmacological inhibition. We have pinpointed the structural elements within Fyn and LKB1 that are responsible for their binding, demonstrating the functionality of this interaction in regulating AMPK activity.

Canonical Bcl-2 Motifs of the Na+/K+ Pump Revealed by the BH3 Mimetic Chelerythrine: Early Signal Transducers of Apoptosis?

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Peter K. Lauf

2013-02-01

unrecognized signal transducers in the initial phases of apoptosis. CET action on NKCC1 and K+ channels may involve PKC-regulated mechanisms; however, limited sequence homologies to BH1-like motifs cannot exclude direct effects.

Efficient sequential and parallel algorithms for finding edit distance based motifs.

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Pal, Soumitra; Xiao, Peng; Rajasekaran, Sanguthevar

2016-08-18

Motif search is an important step in extracting meaningful patterns from biological data. The general problem of motif search is intractable and there is a pressing need to develop efficient, exact and approximation algorithms to solve this problem. In this paper, we present several novel, exact, sequential and parallel algorithms for solving the (l,d) Edit-distance-based Motif Search (EMS) problem: given two integers l,d and n biological strings, find all strings of length l that appear in each input string with atmost d errors of types substitution, insertion and deletion. One popular technique to solve the problem is to explore for each input string the set of all possible l-mers that belong to the d-neighborhood of any substring of the input string and output those which are common for all input strings. We introduce a novel and provably efficient neighborhood exploration technique. We show that it is enough to consider the candidates in neighborhood which are at a distance exactly d. We compactly represent these candidate motifs using wildcard characters and efficiently explore them with very few repetitions. Our sequential algorithm uses a trie based data structure to efficiently store and sort the candidate motifs. Our parallel algorithm in a multi-core shared memory setting uses arrays for storing and a novel modification of radix-sort for sorting the candidate motifs. The algorithms for EMS are customarily evaluated on several challenging instances such as (8,1), (12,2), (16,3), (20,4), and so on. The best previously known algorithm, EMS1, is sequential and in estimated 3 days solves up to instance (16,3). Our sequential algorithms are more than 20 times faster on (16,3). On other hard instances such as (9,2), (11,3), (13,4), our algorithms are much faster. Our parallel algorithm has more than 600 % scaling performance while using 16 threads. Our algorithms have pushed up the state-of-the-art of EMS solvers and we believe that the techniques introduced in

Physical-chemical property based sequence motifs and methods regarding same

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Braun, Werner [Friendswood, TX; Mathura, Venkatarajan S [Sarasota, FL; Schein, Catherine H [Friendswood, TX

2008-09-09

A data analysis system, program, and/or method, e.g., a data mining/data exploration method, using physical-chemical property motifs. For example, a sequence database may be searched for identifying segments thereof having physical-chemical properties similar to the physical-chemical property motifs.

Dissecting protein loops with a statistical scalpel suggests a functional implication of some structural motifs.

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Regad, Leslie; Martin, Juliette; Camproux, Anne-Claude

2011-06-20

One of the strategies for protein function annotation is to search particular structural motifs that are known to be shared by proteins with a given function. Here, we present a systematic extraction of structural motifs of seven residues from protein loops and we explore their correspondence with functional sites. Our approach is based on the structural alphabet HMM-SA (Hidden Markov Model - Structural Alphabet), which allows simplification of protein structures into uni-dimensional sequences, and advanced pattern statistics adapted to short sequences. Structural motifs of interest are selected by looking for structural motifs significantly over-represented in SCOP superfamilies in protein loops. We discovered two types of structural motifs significantly over-represented in SCOP superfamilies: (i) ubiquitous motifs, shared by several superfamilies and (ii) superfamily-specific motifs, over-represented in few superfamilies. A comparison of ubiquitous words with known small structural motifs shows that they contain well-described motifs as turn, niche or nest motifs. A comparison between superfamily-specific motifs and biological annotations of Swiss-Prot reveals that some of them actually correspond to functional sites involved in the binding sites of small ligands, such as ATP/GTP, NAD(P) and SAH/SAM. Our findings show that statistical over-representation in SCOP superfamilies is linked to functional features. The detection of over-represented motifs within structures simplified by HMM-SA is therefore a promising approach for prediction of functional sites and annotation of uncharacterized proteins.

Dissecting protein loops with a statistical scalpel suggests a functional implication of some structural motifs

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Martin Juliette

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background One of the strategies for protein function annotation is to search particular structural motifs that are known to be shared by proteins with a given function. Results Here, we present a systematic extraction of structural motifs of seven residues from protein loops and we explore their correspondence with functional sites. Our approach is based on the structural alphabet HMM-SA (Hidden Markov Model - Structural Alphabet, which allows simplification of protein structures into uni-dimensional sequences, and advanced pattern statistics adapted to short sequences. Structural motifs of interest are selected by looking for structural motifs significantly over-represented in SCOP superfamilies in protein loops. We discovered two types of structural motifs significantly over-represented in SCOP superfamilies: (i ubiquitous motifs, shared by several superfamilies and (ii superfamily-specific motifs, over-represented in few superfamilies. A comparison of ubiquitous words with known small structural motifs shows that they contain well-described motifs as turn, niche or nest motifs. A comparison between superfamily-specific motifs and biological annotations of Swiss-Prot reveals that some of them actually correspond to functional sites involved in the binding sites of small ligands, such as ATP/GTP, NAD(P and SAH/SAM. Conclusions Our findings show that statistical over-representation in SCOP superfamilies is linked to functional features. The detection of over-represented motifs within structures simplified by HMM-SA is therefore a promising approach for prediction of functional sites and annotation of uncharacterized proteins.

Organization of feed-forward loop motifs reveals architectural principles in natural and engineered networks.

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Gorochowski, Thomas E; Grierson, Claire S; di Bernardo, Mario

2018-03-01

Network motifs are significantly overrepresented subgraphs that have been proposed as building blocks for natural and engineered networks. Detailed functional analysis has been performed for many types of motif in isolation, but less is known about how motifs work together to perform complex tasks. To address this issue, we measure the aggregation of network motifs via methods that extract precisely how these structures are connected. Applying this approach to a broad spectrum of networked systems and focusing on the widespread feed-forward loop motif, we uncover striking differences in motif organization. The types of connection are often highly constrained, differ between domains, and clearly capture architectural principles. We show how this information can be used to effectively predict functionally important nodes in the metabolic network of Escherichia coli . Our findings have implications for understanding how networked systems are constructed from motif parts and elucidate constraints that guide their evolution.

RSAT matrix-clustering: dynamic exploration and redundancy reduction of transcription factor binding motif collections.

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Castro-Mondragon, Jaime Abraham; Jaeger, Sébastien; Thieffry, Denis; Thomas-Chollier, Morgane; van Helden, Jacques

2017-07-27

Transcription factor (TF) databases contain multitudes of binding motifs (TFBMs) from various sources, from which non-redundant collections are derived by manual curation. The advent of high-throughput methods stimulated the production of novel collections with increasing numbers of motifs. Meta-databases, built by merging these collections, contain redundant versions, because available tools are not suited to automatically identify and explore biologically relevant clusters among thousands of motifs. Motif discovery from genome-scale data sets (e.g. ChIP-seq) also produces redundant motifs, hampering the interpretation of results. We present matrix-clustering, a versatile tool that clusters similar TFBMs into multiple trees, and automatically creates non-redundant TFBM collections. A feature unique to matrix-clustering is its dynamic visualisation of aligned TFBMs, and its capability to simultaneously treat multiple collections from various sources. We demonstrate that matrix-clustering considerably simplifies the interpretation of combined results from multiple motif discovery tools, and highlights biologically relevant variations of similar motifs. We also ran a large-scale application to cluster ∼11 000 motifs from 24 entire databases, showing that matrix-clustering correctly groups motifs belonging to the same TF families, and drastically reduced motif redundancy. matrix-clustering is integrated within the RSAT suite (http://rsat.eu/), accessible through a user-friendly web interface or command-line for its integration in pipelines. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Structural fragment clustering reveals novel structural and functional motifs in α-helical transmembrane proteins

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Vassilev Boris

2010-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background A large proportion of an organism's genome encodes for membrane proteins. Membrane proteins are important for many cellular processes, and several diseases can be linked to mutations in them. With the tremendous growth of sequence data, there is an increasing need to reliably identify membrane proteins from sequence, to functionally annotate them, and to correctly predict their topology. Results We introduce a technique called structural fragment clustering, which learns sequential motifs from 3D structural fragments. From over 500,000 fragments, we obtain 213 statistically significant, non-redundant, and novel motifs that are highly specific to α-helical transmembrane proteins. From these 213 motifs, 58 of them were assigned to function and checked in the scientific literature for a biological assessment. Seventy percent of the motifs are found in co-factor, ligand, and ion binding sites, 30% at protein interaction interfaces, and 12% bind specific lipids such as glycerol or cardiolipins. The vast majority of motifs (94% appear across evolutionarily unrelated families, highlighting the modularity of functional design in membrane proteins. We describe three novel motifs in detail: (1 a dimer interface motif found in voltage-gated chloride channels, (2 a proton transfer motif found in heme-copper oxidases, and (3 a convergently evolved interface helix motif found in an aspartate symporter, a serine protease, and cytochrome b. Conclusions Our findings suggest that functional modules exist in membrane proteins, and that they occur in completely different evolutionary contexts and cover different binding sites. Structural fragment clustering allows us to link sequence motifs to function through clusters of structural fragments. The sequence motifs can be applied to identify and characterize membrane proteins in novel genomes.

Role of the SUMO-interacting motif in HIPK2 targeting to the PML nuclear bodies and regulation of p53

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sung, Ki Sa; Lee, Yun-Ah; Kim, Eui Tae; Lee, Seung-Rock; Ahn, Jin-Hyun; Choi, Cheol Yong

2011-01-01

Homeodomain-interacting protein kinase 2 (HIPK2) is a key regulator of various transcription factors including p53 and CtBP in the DNA damage signaling pathway. PML-nuclear body (NB) is required for HIPK2-mediated p53 phosphorylation at Ser46 and induction of apoptosis. Although PML-NB targeting of HIPK2 has been shown, much is not clear about the molecular mechanism of HIPK2 recruitment to PML-NBs. Here we show that HIPK2 colocalizes specifically with PML-I and PML-IV. Mutational analysis showed that HIPK2 recruitment to PML-IV-NBs is mediated by the SUMO-interaction motifs (SIMs) of both PML-IV and HIPK2. Wild-type HIPK2 associated with SUMO-conjugated PML-IV at a higher affinity than with un-conjugated PML-IV, while the association of a HIPK2 SIM mutant with SUMO-modified PML-IV was impaired. In colony formation assays, HIPK2 strongly suppressed cell proliferation, but HIPK2 SIM mutants did not. In addition, activation and phosphorylation of p53 at the Ser46 residue were impaired by HIPK2 SIM mutants. These results suggest that SIM-mediated HIPK2 targeting to PML-NBs is crucial for HIPK2-mediated p53 activation and induction of apoptosis.

[Cover motifs of the Tidsskrift. A 14-year cavalcade].

Science.gov (United States)

Nylenna, M

1998-12-10

In 1985 the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association changed its cover policy, moving the table of contents inside the Journal and introducing cover illustrations. This article provides an analysis of all cover illustrations published over this 14-year period, 420 covers in all. There is a great variation in cover motifs and designs and a development towards more general motifs. The initial emphasis on historical and medical aspects is now less pronounced, while the use of works of art and nature motifs has increased, and the cover now more often has a direct bearing on the specific contents of the issue. Professor of medical history Oivind Larsen has photographed two thirds of the covers and contributed 95% of the inside essay-style reflections on the cover motif. Over the years, he has expanded the role of the historian of medicine disseminating knowledge to include that of the raconteur with a personal tone of voice. The Journal's covers are now one of its most characteristic features, emblematic of the Journal's ambition of standing for quality and timelessness vis-à-vis the news media, and of its aim of bridging the gap between medicine and the humanities.

Insights into the motif preference of APOBEC3 enzymes.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Diako Ebrahimi

Full Text Available We used a multivariate data analysis approach to identify motifs associated with HIV hypermutation by different APOBEC3 enzymes. The analysis showed that APOBEC3G targets G mainly within GG, TG, TGG, GGG, TGGG and also GGGT. The G nucleotides flanked by a C at the 3' end (in +1 and +2 positions were indicated as disfavoured targets by APOBEC3G. The G nucleotides within GGGG were found to be targeted at a frequency much less than what is expected. We found that the infrequent G-to-A mutation within GGGG is not limited to the inaccessibility, to APOBEC3, of poly Gs in the central and 3'polypurine tracts (PPTs which remain double stranded during the HIV reverse transcription. GGGG motifs outside the PPTs were also disfavoured. The motifs GGAG and GAGG were also found to be disfavoured targets for APOBEC3. The motif-dependent mutation of G within the HIV genome by members of the APOBEC3 family other than APOBEC3G was limited to GA→AA changes. The results did not show evidence of other types of context dependent G-to-A changes in the HIV genome.

I-motif DNA structures are formed in the nuclei of human cells

Science.gov (United States)

Zeraati, Mahdi; Langley, David B.; Schofield, Peter; Moye, Aaron L.; Rouet, Romain; Hughes, William E.; Bryan, Tracy M.; Dinger, Marcel E.; Christ, Daniel

2018-06-01

Human genome function is underpinned by the primary storage of genetic information in canonical B-form DNA, with a second layer of DNA structure providing regulatory control. I-motif structures are thought to form in cytosine-rich regions of the genome and to have regulatory functions; however, in vivo evidence for the existence of such structures has so far remained elusive. Here we report the generation and characterization of an antibody fragment (iMab) that recognizes i-motif structures with high selectivity and affinity, enabling the detection of i-motifs in the nuclei of human cells. We demonstrate that the in vivo formation of such structures is cell-cycle and pH dependent. Furthermore, we provide evidence that i-motif structures are formed in regulatory regions of the human genome, including promoters and telomeric regions. Our results support the notion that i-motif structures provide key regulatory roles in the genome.

Multiple POU-binding motifs, recognized by tissue-specific nuclear factors, are important for Dll1 gene expression in neural stem cells

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nakayama, Kohzo; Nagase, Kazuko; Tokutake, Yuriko; Koh, Chang-Sung; Hiratochi, Masahiro; Ohkawara, Takeshi; Nakayama, Noriko

2004-01-01

We cloned the 5'-flanking region of the mouse homolog of the Delta gene (Dll1) and demonstrated that the sequence between nucleotide position -514 and -484 in the 5'-flanking region of Dll1 played a critical role in the regulation of its tissue-specific expression in neural stem cells (NSCs). Further, we showed that multiple POU-binding motifs, located within this short sequence of 30 bp, were essential for transcriptional activation of Dll1 and also that multiple tissue-specific nuclear factors recognized these POU-binding motifs in various combinations through differentiation of NSCs. Thus, POU-binding factors may play an important role in Dll1 expression in developing NSCs

Proteome-level assessment of origin, prevalence and function of Leucine-Aspartic Acid (LD) motifs

KAUST Repository

Alam, Tanvir

2018-03-11

Short Linear Motifs (SLiMs) contribute to almost every cellular function by connecting appropriate protein partners. Accurate prediction of SLiMs is difficult due to their shortness and sequence degeneracy. Leucine-aspartic acid (LD) motifs are SLiMs that link paxillin family proteins to factors controlling (cancer) cell adhesion, motility and survival. The existence and importance of LD motifs beyond the paxillin family is poorly understood. To enable a proteome-wide assessment of these motifs, we developed an active-learning based framework that iteratively integrates computational predictions with experimental validation. Our analysis of the human proteome identified a dozen proteins that contain LD motifs, all being involved in cell adhesion and migration, and revealed a new type of inverse LD motif consensus. Our evolutionary analysis suggested that LD motif signalling originated in the common unicellular ancestor of opisthokonts and amoebozoa by co-opting nuclear export sequences. Inter-species comparison revealed a conserved LD signalling core, and reveals the emergence of species-specific adaptive connections, while maintaining a strong functional focus of the LD motif interactome. Collectively, our data elucidate the mechanisms underlying the origin and adaptation of an ancestral SLiM.

A phosphorylation-motif for tuneable helix stabilisation in intrinsically disordered proteins - Lessons from the sodium proton exchanger 1 (NHE1)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hendus-Altenburger, Ruth; Lambrughi, Matteo; Terkelsen, Thilde Bagger

2017-01-01

). Using NMR spectroscopy, we found that two out of those six phosphorylation sites had a stabilizing effect on transient helices. One of these was further investigated by circular dichroism and NMR spectroscopy as well as by molecular dynamic simulations, which confirmed the stabilizing effect......-spread role in phosphorylation-mediated regulation of intrinsically disordered proteins. The identification of such motifs is important for understanding the molecular mechanism of cellular signalling, and is crucial for the development of predictors for the structural effect of phosphorylation; a tool......Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) are involved in many pivotal cellular processes including phosphorylation and signalling. The structural and functional effects of phosphorylation of IDPs remain poorly understood and difficult to predict. Thus, a need exists to identify motifs that confer...

Leucine-based receptor sorting motifs are dependent on the spacing relative to the plasma membrane

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Geisler, C; Dietrich, J; Nielsen, B L

1998-01-01

Many integral membrane proteins contain leucine-based motifs within their cytoplasmic domains that mediate internalization and intracellular sorting. Two types of leucine-based motifs have been identified. One type is dependent on phosphorylation, whereas the other type, which includes an acidic...... amino acid, is constitutively active. In this study, we have investigated how the spacing relative to the plasma membrane affects the function of both types of leucine-based motifs. For phosphorylation-dependent leucine-based motifs, a minimal spacing of 7 residues between the plasma membrane...... and the phospho-acceptor was required for phosphorylation and thereby activation of the motifs. For constitutively active leucine-based motifs, a minimal spacing of 6 residues between the plasma membrane and the acidic residue was required for optimal activity of the motifs. In addition, we found that the acidic...

Structure of Rot, a global regulator of virulence genes in Staphylococcus aureus.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Yuwei; Fan, Xiaojiao; Zhang, Xu; Jiang, Xuguang; Niu, Liwen; Teng, Maikun; Li, Xu

2014-09-01

Staphylococcus aureus is a highly versatile pathogen that can infect human tissue by producing a large arsenal of virulence factors that are tightly regulated by a complex regulatory network. Rot, which shares sequence similarity with SarA homologues, is a global regulator that regulates numerous virulence genes. However, the recognition model of Rot for the promoter region of target genes and the putative regulation mechanism remain elusive. In this study, the 1.77 Å resolution X-ray crystal structure of Rot is reported. The structure reveals that two Rot molecules form a compact homodimer, each of which contains a typical helix-turn-helix module and a β-hairpin motif connected by a flexible loop. Fluorescence polarization results indicate that Rot preferentially recognizes AT-rich dsDNA with ~30-base-pair nucleotides and that the conserved positively charged residues on the winged-helix motif are vital for binding to the AT-rich dsDNA. It is proposed that the DNA-recognition model of Rot may be similar to that of SarA, SarR and SarS, in which the helix-turn-helix motifs of each monomer interact with the major grooves of target dsDNA and the winged motifs contact the minor grooves. Interestingly, the structure shows that Rot adopts a novel dimerization model that differs from that of other SarA homologues. As expected, perturbation of the dimer interface abolishes the dsDNA-binding ability of Rot, suggesting that Rot functions as a dimer. In addition, the results have been further confirmed in vivo by measuring the transcriptional regulation of α-toxin, a major virulence factor produced by most S. aureus strains.

Nicotine induced CpG methylation of Pax6 binding motif in StAR promoter reduces the gene expression and cortisol production

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, Tingting [Department of Pharmacology, Basic Medical School of Wuhan University, Wuhan 430071 (China); Department of Pharmacology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland (United States); Chen, Man; Liu, Lian [Department of Pharmacology, Basic Medical School of Wuhan University, Wuhan 430071 (China); Cheng, Huaiyan [Department of Pharmacology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland (United States); Yan, You-E [Department of Pharmacology, Basic Medical School of Wuhan University, Wuhan 430071 (China); Feng, Ying-Hong, E-mail: yhfeng@usuhs.edu [Department of Pharmacology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland (United States); Wang, Hui, E-mail: wanghui19@whu.edu.cn [Department of Pharmacology, Basic Medical School of Wuhan University, Wuhan 430071 (China); Research Center of Food and Drug Evaluation, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430071 (China)

2011-12-15

Steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR) mediates the rate-limiting step in the synthesis of steroid hormones, essential to fetal development. We have reported that the StAR expression in fetal adrenal is inhibited in a rat model of nicotine-induced intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR). Here using primary human fetal adrenal cortex (pHFAC) cells and a human fetal adrenal cell line NCI-H295A, we show that nicotine inhibits StAR expression and cortisol production in a dose- and time-dependent manner, and prolongs the inhibitory effect on cells proliferating over 5 passages after termination of nicotine treatment. Methylation detection within the StAR promoter region uncovers a single site CpG methylation at nt -377 that is sensitive to nicotine treatment. Nicotine-induced alterations in frequency of this point methylation correlates well with the levels of StAR expression, suggesting an important role of the single site in regulating StAR expression. Further studies using bioinformatics analysis and siRNA approach reveal that the single CpG site is part of the Pax6 binding motif (CGCCTGA) in the StAR promoter. The luciferase activity assays validate that Pax6 increases StAR gene expression by binding to the glucagon G3-like motif (CGCCTGA) and methylation of this site blocks Pax6 binding and thus suppresses StAR expression. These data identify a nicotine-sensitive CpG site at the Pax6 binding motif in the StAR promoter that may play a central role in regulating StAR expression. The results suggest an epigenetic mechanism that may explain how nicotine contributes to onset of adult diseases or disorders such as metabolic syndrome via fetal programming. -- Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Nicotine-induced StAR inhibition in two human adrenal cell models. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Nicotine-induced single CpG site methylation in StAR promoter. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Persistent StAR inhibition and single CpG methylation after nicotine termination

DistAMo: A web-based tool to characterize DNA-motif distribution on bacterial chromosomes

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Patrick eSobetzko

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Short DNA motifs are involved in a multitude of functions such as for example chromosome segregation, DNA replication or mismatch repair. Distribution of such motifs is often not random and the specific chromosomal pattern relates to the respective motif function. Computational approaches which quantitatively assess such chromosomal motif patterns are necessary. Here we present a new computer tool DistAMo (Distribution Analysis of DNA Motifs. The algorithm uses codon redundancy to calculate the relative abundance of short DNA motifs from single genes to entire chromosomes. Comparative genomics analyses of the GATC-motif distribution in γ-proteobacterial genomes using DistAMo revealed that (i genes beside the replication origin are enriched in GATCs, (ii genome-wide GATC distribution follows a distinct pattern and (iii genes involved in DNA replication and repair are enriched in GATCs. These features are specific for bacterial chromosomes encoding a Dam methyltransferase. The new software is available as a stand-alone or as an easy-to-use web-based server version at http://www.computational.bio.uni-giessen.de/distamo.

Sequence-specific DNA binding by MYC/MAX to low-affinity non-E-box motifs.

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Michael Allevato

Full Text Available The MYC oncoprotein regulates transcription of a large fraction of the genome as an obligatory heterodimer with the transcription factor MAX. The MYC:MAX heterodimer and MAX:MAX homodimer (hereafter MYC/MAX bind Enhancer box (E-box DNA elements (CANNTG and have the greatest affinity for the canonical MYC E-box (CME CACGTG. However, MYC:MAX also recognizes E-box variants and was reported to bind DNA in a "non-specific" fashion in vitro and in vivo. Here, in order to identify potential additional non-canonical binding sites for MYC/MAX, we employed high throughput in vitro protein-binding microarrays, along with electrophoretic mobility-shift assays and bioinformatic analyses of MYC-bound genomic loci in vivo. We identified all hexameric motifs preferentially bound by MYC/MAX in vitro, which include the low-affinity non-E-box sequence AACGTT, and found that the vast majority (87% of MYC-bound genomic sites in a human B cell line contain at least one of the top 21 motifs bound by MYC:MAX in vitro. We further show that high MYC/MAX concentrations are needed for specific binding to the low-affinity sequence AACGTT in vitro and that elevated MYC levels in vivo more markedly increase the occupancy of AACGTT sites relative to CME sites, especially at distal intergenic and intragenic loci. Hence, MYC binds diverse DNA motifs with a broad range of affinities in a sequence-specific and dose-dependent manner, suggesting that MYC overexpression has more selective effects on the tumor transcriptome than previously thought.

CGGBP1-CTCF dynamics in regulation of chromosomal interactions

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Divyesh Patel

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Genome organisation and gene expression is regulated by specific DNA sequences that include “insulator elements”. Insulator proteins, such as CTCF bind to insulator elements to block spreading of silent chromatin in-cis or inhibit interactions between transcriptional enhancers and promoters. By binding to insulators in a methylation-sensittive manner, CTCF establishes and maintains contrasting transcription patterns on either side of the insulator elements [1]. Though details of CTCF-insulator activities have been worked out, mechanisms of regulation of insulator activity by other proteins is unknown. CTCF-binding insulators are retrotransposon-derived, the same elements to which CGGBP1 binds making CGGBP1 a candidate insulator regulator factor [2]. Objective is to explore role of CGGBP1-CTCF dynamics in regulation of insulator activity. 1064Sk skin fibroblasts were grown in presence or absence of CGGBP1 in growth stimulated or starved condition. ChIP-seq was performed to identify CGGBP1-binding DNA sequence motifs [3]. We have observed a strong overlap between binding sites of CTCF and CGGBP1 [4, 5].  CGGBP1 and CTCF seem to share the retrotransposons-derived M1 and M2 motifs. Unlike in quiescent cells, growth factor-stimulation increased CGGBP1 binding to CTCF-CGGBP1 binding sites with decreased CTCF insulator activity. The distance between CGGBP1 M1 and M2 motifs was longer in quiescent cells as compared to growth stimulated cells. Our results suggest that CGGBP1 negatively regulates CTCF insulator activity in normal cells in a growth signal-dependent manner.

Multiple ETS family proteins regulate PF4 gene expression by binding to the same ETS binding site.

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Yoshiaki Okada

Full Text Available In previous studies on the mechanism underlying megakaryocyte-specific gene expression, several ETS motifs were found in each megakaryocyte-specific gene promoter. Although these studies suggested that several ETS family proteins regulate megakaryocyte-specific gene expression, only a few ETS family proteins have been identified. Platelet factor 4 (PF4 is a megakaryocyte-specific gene and its promoter includes multiple ETS motifs. We had previously shown that ETS-1 binds to an ETS motif in the PF4 promoter. However, the functions of the other ETS motifs are still unclear. The goal of this study was to investigate a novel functional ETS motif in the PF4 promoter and identify proteins binding to the motif. In electrophoretic mobility shift assays and a chromatin immunoprecipitation assay, FLI-1, ELF-1, and GABP bound to the -51 ETS site. Expression of FLI-1, ELF-1, and GABP activated the PF4 promoter in HepG2 cells. Mutation of a -51 ETS site attenuated FLI-1-, ELF-1-, and GABP-mediated transactivation of the promoter. siRNA analysis demonstrated that FLI-1, ELF-1, and GABP regulate PF4 gene expression in HEL cells. Among these three proteins, only FLI-1 synergistically activated the promoter with GATA-1. In addition, only FLI-1 expression was increased during megakaryocytic differentiation. Finally, the importance of the -51 ETS site for the activation of the PF4 promoter during physiological megakaryocytic differentiation was confirmed by a novel reporter gene assay using in vitro ES cell differentiation system. Together, these data suggest that FLI-1, ELF-1, and GABP regulate PF4 gene expression through the -51 ETS site in megakaryocytes and implicate the differentiation stage-specific regulation of PF4 gene expression by multiple ETS factors.

Lucky Motifs in Chinese Folk Art: Interpreting Paper-cut from Chinese Shaanxi

OpenAIRE

Xuxiao WANG

2013-01-01

Paper-cut is not simply a form of traditional Chinese folk art. Lucky motifs developed in paper-cut certainly acquired profound cultural connotations. As paper-cut is a time-honoured skill across the nation, interpreting those motifs requires cultural receptiveness and anthropological sensitivity. The author of this article analyzes examples of paper-cut from Northern Shaanxi, China, to identify the cohesive motifs and explore the auspiciousness of the specific concepts of Fu, Lu, Shou, Xi. T...

MOMFER: A Search Engine of Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk Literature

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Karsdorp, F.B.; van der Meulen, Marten; Meder, Theo; van den Bosch, Antal

2015-01-01

More than fifty years after the first edition of Thompson's seminal Motif-Indexof Folk Literature, we present an online search engine tailored to fully disclose the index digitally. This search engine, called MOMFER, greatly enhances the searchability of the Motif-Index and provides exciting new

Rictor/mTORC2 Loss in the Myf5 Lineage Reprograms Brown Fat Metabolism and Protects Mice against Obesity and Metabolic Disease

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Chien-Min Hung

2014-07-01

Full Text Available The in vivo functions of mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 2 (mTORC2 and the signaling mechanisms that control brown adipose tissue (BAT fuel utilization and activity are not well understood. Here, by conditionally deleting Rictor in the Myf5 lineage, we provide in vivo evidence that mTORC2 is dispensable for skeletal muscle development and regeneration but essential for BAT growth. Furthermore, deleting Rictor in Myf5 precursors shifts BAT metabolism to a more oxidative and less lipogenic state and protects mice from obesity and metabolic disease at thermoneutrality. We additionally find that Rictor is required for brown adipocyte differentiation in vitro and that the mechanism specifically requires AKT1 hydrophobic motif phosphorylation but is independent of pan-AKT signaling and is rescued with BMP7. Our findings provide insights into the signaling circuitry that regulates brown adipocytes and could have important implications for developing therapies aimed at increasing energy expenditure as a means to combat human obesity.

How pathogens use linear motifs to perturb host cell networks

KAUST Repository

Via, Allegra; Uyar, Bora; Brun, Christine; Zanzoni, Andreas

2015-01-01

Molecular mimicry is one of the powerful stratagems that pathogens employ to colonise their hosts and take advantage of host cell functions to guarantee their replication and dissemination. In particular, several viruses have evolved the ability to interact with host cell components through protein short linear motifs (SLiMs) that mimic host SLiMs, thus facilitating their internalisation and the manipulation of a wide range of cellular networks. Here we present convincing evidence from the literature that motif mimicry also represents an effective, widespread hijacking strategy in prokaryotic and eukaryotic parasites. Further insights into host motif mimicry would be of great help in the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms behind host cell invasion and the development of anti-infective therapeutic strategies.

Structural insights into the regulation of Bacillus subtilis SigW activity by anti-sigma RsiW.

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Shankar Raj Devkota

Full Text Available Bacillus subtilis SigW is localized to the cell membrane and is inactivated by the tight interaction with anti-sigma RsiW under normal growth conditions. Whereas SigW is discharged from RsiW binding and thus initiates the transcription of its regulon under diverse stress conditions such as antibiotics and alkaline shock. The release and activation of SigW in response to extracytoplasmic signals is induced by the regulated intramembrane proteolysis of RsiW. As a ZAS (Zinc-containing anti-sigma family protein, RsiW has a CHCC zinc binding motif, which implies that its anti-sigma activity may be regulated by the state of zinc coordination in addition to the proteolytic cleavage of RsiW. To understand the regulation mode of SigW activity by RsiW, we determined the crystal structures of SigW in complex with the cytoplasmic domain of RsiW, and compared the conformation of the CHCC motif in the reduced/zinc binding and the oxidized states. The structures revealed that RsiW inhibits the promoter binding of SigW by interacting with the surface groove of SigW. The interaction between SigW and RsiW is not disrupted by the oxidation of the CHCC motif in RsiW, suggesting that SigW activity might not be regulated by the zinc coordination states of the CHCC motif.

BayesMD: flexible biological modeling for motif discovery

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tang, Man-Hung Eric; Krogh, Anders; Winther, Ole

2008-01-01

We present BayesMD, a Bayesian Motif Discovery model with several new features. Three different types of biological a priori knowledge are built into the framework in a modular fashion. A mixture of Dirichlets is used as prior over nucleotide probabilities in binding sites. It is trained on trans......We present BayesMD, a Bayesian Motif Discovery model with several new features. Three different types of biological a priori knowledge are built into the framework in a modular fashion. A mixture of Dirichlets is used as prior over nucleotide probabilities in binding sites. It is trained...

oPOSSUM: integrated tools for analysis of regulatory motif over-representation

Science.gov (United States)

Ho Sui, Shannan J.; Fulton, Debra L.; Arenillas, David J.; Kwon, Andrew T.; Wasserman, Wyeth W.

2007-01-01

The identification of over-represented transcription factor binding sites from sets of co-expressed genes provides insights into the mechanisms of regulation for diverse biological contexts. oPOSSUM, an internet-based system for such studies of regulation, has been improved and expanded in this new release. New features include a worm-specific version for investigating binding sites conserved between Caenorhabditis elegans and C. briggsae, as well as a yeast-specific version for the analysis of co-expressed sets of Saccharomyces cerevisiae genes. The human and mouse applications feature improvements in ortholog mapping, sequence alignments and the delineation of multiple alternative promoters. oPOSSUM2, introduced for the analysis of over-represented combinations of motifs in human and mouse genes, has been integrated with the original oPOSSUM system. Analysis using user-defined background gene sets is now supported. The transcription factor binding site models have been updated to include new profiles from the JASPAR database. oPOSSUM is available at http://www.cisreg.ca/oPOSSUM/ PMID:17576675

Lucky Motifs in Chinese Folk Art: Interpreting Paper-cut from Chinese Shaanxi

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xuxiao WANG

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Paper-cut is not simply a form of traditional Chinese folk art. Lucky motifs developed in paper-cut certainly acquired profound cultural connotations. As paper-cut is a time-honoured skill across the nation, interpreting those motifs requires cultural receptiveness and anthropological sensitivity. The author of this article analyzes examples of paper-cut from Northern Shaanxi, China, to identify the cohesive motifs and explore the auspiciousness of the specific concepts of Fu, Lu, Shou, Xi. The paper-cut of Northern Shaanxi is an ideal representative of the craft as a whole because of the relative stability of this region in history, in terms of both art and culture. Furthermore, its straightforward style provides a clear demonstration of motifs regarding folk understanding of expectations for life.

Stem/Progenitor Cell Proteoglycans Decorated with 7-D-4, 4-C-3 and 3-B-3(-) Chondroitin Sulphate Motifs Are Morphogenetic Markers Of Tissue Development.

Science.gov (United States)

Hayes, Anthony J; Smith, Susan M; Caterson, Bruce; Melrose, James

2018-06-11

This study reviewed the occurrence of chondroitin sulphate (CS) motifs 4-C-3, 7-D-4 and 3-B-3(-) which are expressed by progenitor cells in tissues undergoing morphogenesis. These motifs have a transient early expression pattern during tissue development and also appear in mature tissues during pathological remodeling and attempted repair processes by activated adult stem cells. The CS motifs are information and recognition modules, which may regulate cellular behavior and delineate stem cell niches in developmental tissues. One of the difficulties in determining the precise role of stem cells in tissue development and repair processes is their short engraftment period and the lack of specific markers, which differentiate the activated stem cell lineages from the resident cells. The CS sulphation motifs 7-D-4, 4-C-3 and 3-B-3 (-) decorate cell surface proteoglycans on activated stem/progenitor cells and appear to identify these cells in transitional areas of tissue development and in tissue repair and may be applicable to determining a more precise role for stem cells in tissue morphogenesis. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. © 2018 AlphaMed Press.

miRNA Enriched in Human Neuroblast Nuclei Bind the MAZ Transcription Factor and Their Precursors Contain the MAZ Consensus Motif.

Science.gov (United States)

Goldie, Belinda J; Fitzsimmons, Chantel; Weidenhofer, Judith; Atkins, Joshua R; Wang, Dan O; Cairns, Murray J

2017-01-01

While the cytoplasmic function of microRNA (miRNA) as post-transcriptional regulators of mRNA has been the subject of significant research effort, their activity in the nucleus is less well characterized. Here we use a human neuronal cell model to show that some mature miRNA are preferentially enriched in the nucleus. These molecules were predominantly primate-specific and contained a sequence motif with homology to the consensus MAZ transcription factor binding element. Precursor miRNA containing this motif were shown to have affinity for MAZ protein in nuclear extract. We then used Ago1/2 RIP-Seq to explore nuclear miRNA-associated mRNA targets. Interestingly, the genes for Ago2-associated transcripts were also significantly enriched with MAZ binding sites and neural function, whereas Ago1-transcripts were associated with general metabolic processes and localized with SC35 spliceosomes. These findings suggest the MAZ transcription factor is associated with miRNA in the nucleus and may influence the regulation of neuronal development through Ago2-associated miRNA induced silencing complexes. The MAZ transcription factor may therefore be important for organizing higher order integration of transcriptional and post-transcriptional processes in primate neurons.

Sequence alignment reveals possible MAPK docking motifs on HIV proteins.

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Perry Evans

Full Text Available Over the course of HIV infection, virus replication is facilitated by the phosphorylation of HIV proteins by human ERK1 and ERK2 mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs. MAPKs are known to phosphorylate their substrates by first binding with them at a docking site. Docking site interactions could be viable drug targets because the sequences guiding them are more specific than phosphorylation consensus sites. In this study we use multiple bioinformatics tools to discover candidate MAPK docking site motifs on HIV proteins known to be phosphorylated by MAPKs, and we discuss the possibility of targeting docking sites with drugs. Using sequence alignments of HIV proteins of different subtypes, we show that MAPK docking patterns previously described for human proteins appear on the HIV matrix, Tat, and Vif proteins in a strain dependent manner, but are absent from HIV Rev and appear on all HIV Nef strains. We revise the regular expressions of previously annotated MAPK docking patterns in order to provide a subtype independent motif that annotates all HIV proteins. One revision is based on a documented human variant of one of the substrate docking motifs, and the other reduces the number of required basic amino acids in the standard docking motifs from two to one. The proposed patterns are shown to be consistent with in silico docking between ERK1 and the HIV matrix protein. The motif usage on HIV proteins is sufficiently different from human proteins in amino acid sequence similarity to allow for HIV specific targeting using small-molecule drugs.

Stochastic Resonance in Neuronal Network Motifs with Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Colored Noise

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Xuyang Lou

2014-01-01

Full Text Available We consider here the effect of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck colored noise on the stochastic resonance of the feed-forward-loop (FFL network motif. The FFL motif is modeled through the FitzHugh-Nagumo neuron model as well as the chemical coupling. Our results show that the noise intensity and the correlation time of the noise process serve as the control parameters, which have great impacts on the stochastic dynamics of the FFL motif. We find that, with a proper choice of noise intensities and the correlation time of the noise process, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR can display more than one peak.

Gene Isolation Using Degenerate Primers Targeting Protein Motif: A Laboratory Exercise

Science.gov (United States)

Yeo, Brandon Pei Hui; Foong, Lian Chee; Tam, Sheh May; Lee, Vivian; Hwang, Siaw San

2018-01-01

Structures and functions of protein motifs are widely included in many biology-based course syllabi. However, little emphasis is placed to link this knowledge to applications in biotechnology to enhance the learning experience. Here, the conserved motifs of nucleotide binding site-leucine rich repeats (NBS-LRR) proteins, successfully used for the…

Wayward Warriors: The Viking Motif in Swedish and English Children's Literature

Science.gov (United States)

Sundmark, Björn

2014-01-01

In this article the Viking motif in children's literature is explored--from its roots in (adult) nationalist and antiquarian discourse, over pedagogical and historical texts for children, to the eventual diversification (or dissolution) of the motif into different genres and forms. The focus is on Swedish Viking narratives, but points of…

A conserved cysteine motif is critical for rice ceramide kinase activity and function.

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Fang-Cheng Bi

Full Text Available Ceramide kinase (CERK is a key regulator of cell survival in dicotyledonous plants and animals. Much less is known about the roles of CERK and ceramides in mediating cellular processes in monocot plants. Here, we report the characterization of a ceramide kinase, OsCERK, from rice (Oryza sativa spp. Japonica cv. Nipponbare and investigate the effects of ceramides on rice cell viability.OsCERK can complement the Arabidopsis CERK mutant acd5. Recombinant OsCERK has ceramide kinase activity with Michaelis-Menten kinetics and optimal activity at 7.0 pH and 40°C. Mg2+ activates OsCERK in a concentration-dependent manner. Importantly, a CXXXCXXC motif, conserved in all ceramide kinases and important for the activity of the human enzyme, is critical for OsCERK enzyme activity and in planta function. In a rice protoplast system, inhibition of CERK leads to cell death and the ratio of added ceramide and ceramide-1-phosphate, CERK's substrate and product, respectively, influences cell survival. Ceramide-induced rice cell death has apoptotic features and is an active process that requires both de novo protein synthesis and phosphorylation, respectively. Finally, mitochondria membrane potential loss previously associated with ceramide-induced cell death in Arabidopsis was also found in rice, but it occurred with different timing.OsCERK is a bona fide ceramide kinase with a functionally and evolutionarily conserved Cys-rich motif that plays an important role in modulating cell fate in plants. The vital function of the conserved motif in both human and rice CERKs suggests that the biochemical mechanism of CERKs is similar in animals and plants. Furthermore, ceramides induce cell death with similar features in monocot and dicot plants.

RNA-protein binding motifs mining with a new hybrid deep learning based cross-domain knowledge integration approach.

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Pan, Xiaoyong; Shen, Hong-Bin

2017-02-28

RNAs play key roles in cells through the interactions with proteins known as the RNA-binding proteins (RBP) and their binding motifs enable crucial understanding of the post-transcriptional regulation of RNAs. How the RBPs correctly recognize the target RNAs and why they bind specific positions is still far from clear. Machine learning-based algorithms are widely acknowledged to be capable of speeding up this process. Although many automatic tools have been developed to predict the RNA-protein binding sites from the rapidly growing multi-resource data, e.g. sequence, structure, their domain specific features and formats have posed significant computational challenges. One of current difficulties is that the cross-source shared common knowledge is at a higher abstraction level beyond the observed data, resulting in a low efficiency of direct integration of observed data across domains. The other difficulty is how to interpret the prediction results. Existing approaches tend to terminate after outputting the potential discrete binding sites on the sequences, but how to assemble them into the meaningful binding motifs is a topic worth of further investigation. In viewing of these challenges, we propose a deep learning-based framework (iDeep) by using a novel hybrid convolutional neural network and deep belief network to predict the RBP interaction sites and motifs on RNAs. This new protocol is featured by transforming the original observed data into a high-level abstraction feature space using multiple layers of learning blocks, where the shared representations across different domains are integrated. To validate our iDeep method, we performed experiments on 31 large-scale CLIP-seq datasets, and our results show that by integrating multiple sources of data, the average AUC can be improved by 8% compared to the best single-source-based predictor; and through cross-domain knowledge integration at an abstraction level, it outperforms the state-of-the-art predictors by 6

SA-Mot: a web server for the identification of motifs of interest extracted from protein loops.

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Regad, Leslie; Saladin, Adrien; Maupetit, Julien; Geneix, Colette; Camproux, Anne-Claude

2011-07-01

The detection of functional motifs is an important step for the determination of protein functions. We present here a new web server SA-Mot (Structural Alphabet Motif) for the extraction and location of structural motifs of interest from protein loops. Contrary to other methods, SA-Mot does not focus only on functional motifs, but it extracts recurrent and conserved structural motifs involved in structural redundancy of loops. SA-Mot uses the structural word notion to extract all structural motifs from uni-dimensional sequences corresponding to loop structures. Then, SA-Mot provides a description of these structural motifs using statistics computed in the loop data set and in SCOP superfamily, sequence and structural parameters. SA-Mot results correspond to an interactive table listing all structural motifs extracted from a target structure and their associated descriptors. Using this information, the users can easily locate loop regions that are important for the protein folding and function. The SA-Mot web server is available at http://sa-mot.mti.univ-paris-diderot.fr.

Identification of a cis-regulatory element by transient analysis of co-ordinately regulated genes

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Allan Andrew C

2008-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Transcription factors (TFs co-ordinately regulate target genes that are dispersed throughout the genome. This co-ordinate regulation is achieved, in part, through the interaction of transcription factors with conserved cis-regulatory motifs that are in close proximity to the target genes. While much is known about the families of transcription factors that regulate gene expression in plants, there are few well characterised cis-regulatory motifs. In Arabidopsis, over-expression of the MYB transcription factor PAP1 (PRODUCTION OF ANTHOCYANIN PIGMENT 1 leads to transgenic plants with elevated anthocyanin levels due to the co-ordinated up-regulation of genes in the anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway. In addition to the anthocyanin biosynthetic genes, there are a number of un-associated genes that also change in expression level. This may be a direct or indirect consequence of the over-expression of PAP1. Results Oligo array analysis of PAP1 over-expression Arabidopsis plants identified genes co-ordinately up-regulated in response to the elevated expression of this transcription factor. Transient assays on the promoter regions of 33 of these up-regulated genes identified eight promoter fragments that were transactivated by PAP1. Bioinformatic analysis on these promoters revealed a common cis-regulatory motif that we showed is required for PAP1 dependent transactivation. Conclusion Co-ordinated gene regulation by individual transcription factors is a complex collection of both direct and indirect effects. Transient transactivation assays provide a rapid method to identify direct target genes from indirect target genes. Bioinformatic analysis of the promoters of these direct target genes is able to locate motifs that are common to this sub-set of promoters, which is impossible to identify with the larger set of direct and indirect target genes. While this type of analysis does not prove a direct interaction between protein and DNA

Noise transmission and delay-induced stochasticoscillations in biochemical network motifs

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Liu Sheng-Jun; Wang Qi; Liu Bo; Yan Shi-Wei; Fumihiko Sakata

2011-01-01

With the aid of stochastic delayed-feedback differential equations,we derive an analytic expression for the power spectra of reacting molecules included in a generic biological network motif that is incorporated with a feedback mechanism and time delays in gene regulation.We systematically analyse the effects of time delays,the feedback mechanism,and biological stochasticity on the power spectra.It has been clarified that the time delays together with the feedback mechanism can induce stochastic oscillations at the molecular level and invalidate the noise addition rule for a modular description of the noise propagator.Delay-induced stochastic resonance can be expected,which is related to the stability loss of the reaction systems and Hopf bifurcation occurring for solutions of the corresponding deterministic reaction equations.Through the analysis of the power spectrum,a new approach is proposed to estimate the oscillation period.

The combinatorial PP1-binding consensus Motif (R/Kx( (0,1V/IxFxx(R/Kx(R/K is a new apoptotic signature.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Angélique N Godet

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Previous studies established that PP1 is a target for Bcl-2 proteins and an important regulator of apoptosis. The two distinct functional PP1 consensus docking motifs, R/Kx((0,1V/IxF and FxxR/KxR/K, involved in PP1 binding and cell death were previously characterized in the BH1 and BH3 domains of some Bcl-2 proteins. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In this study, we demonstrate that DPT-AIF(1, a peptide containing the AIF(562-571 sequence located in a c-terminal domain of AIF, is a new PP1 interacting and cell penetrating molecule. We also showed that DPT-AIF(1 provoked apoptosis in several human cell lines. Furthermore, DPT-APAF(1 a bi-partite cell penetrating peptide containing APAF-1(122-131, a non penetrating sequence from APAF-1 protein, linked to our previously described DPT-sh1 peptide shuttle, is also a PP1-interacting death molecule. Both AIF(562-571 and APAF-1(122-131 sequences contain a common R/Kx((0,1V/IxFxxR/KxR/K motif, shared by several proteins involved in control of cell survival pathways. This motif combines the two distinct PP1c consensus docking motifs initially identified in some Bcl-2 proteins. Interestingly DPT-AIF(2 and DPT-APAF(2 that carry a F to A mutation within this combinatorial motif, no longer exhibited any PP1c binding or apoptotic effects. Moreover the F to A mutation in DPT-AIF(2 also suppressed cell penetration. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that the combinatorial PP1c docking motif R/Kx((0,1V/IxFxxR/KxR/K, deduced from AIF(562-571 and APAF-1(122-131 sequences, is a new PP1c-dependent Apoptotic Signature. This motif is also a new tool for drug design that could be used to characterize potential anti-tumour molecules.

Helping Students Understand Gene Regulation with Online Tools: A Review of MEME and Melina II, Motif Discovery Tools for Active Learning in Biology

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David Treves

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Review of: MEME and Melina II, which are two free and easy-to-use online motif discovery tools that can be employed to actively engage students in learning about gene regulatory elements.

Finding a Leucine in a Haystack: Searching the Proteome for ambigous Leucine-Aspartic Acid motifs

KAUST Repository

Arold, Stefan T.

2016-01-01

LDMF predicted 13 new LD motifs in humans. Using biophysical assays, we experimentally confirmed in vitro interactions for four novel LD motif proteins. Thus, LDMF allows proteome-wide discovery of LD motifs, despite a highly ambiguous sequence pattern. Functional implications will be discussed.

Discovery of cell-type specific DNA motif grammar in cis-regulatory elements using random Forest.

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Wang, Xin; Lin, Peijie; Ho, Joshua W K

2018-01-19

It has been observed that many transcription factors (TFs) can bind to different genomic loci depending on the cell type in which a TF is expressed in, even though the individual TF usually binds to the same core motif in different cell types. How a TF can bind to the genome in such a highly cell-type specific manner, is a critical research question. One hypothesis is that a TF requires co-binding of different TFs in different cell types. If this is the case, it may be possible to observe different combinations of TF motifs - a motif grammar - located at the TF binding sites in different cell types. In this study, we develop a bioinformatics method to systematically identify DNA motifs in TF binding sites across multiple cell types based on published ChIP-seq data, and address two questions: (1) can we build a machine learning classifier to predict cell-type specificity based on motif combinations alone, and (2) can we extract meaningful cell-type specific motif grammars from this classifier model. We present a Random Forest (RF) based approach to build a multi-class classifier to predict the cell-type specificity of a TF binding site given its motif content. We applied this RF classifier to two published ChIP-seq datasets of TF (TCF7L2 and MAX) across multiple cell types. Using cross-validation, we show that motif combinations alone are indeed predictive of cell types. Furthermore, we present a rule mining approach to extract the most discriminatory rules in the RF classifier, thus allowing us to discover the underlying cell-type specific motif grammar. Our bioinformatics analysis supports the hypothesis that combinatorial TF motif patterns are cell-type specific.

APOCALYPTIC MOTIFS IN THE CYCLE OF STORIES BY M.A. BULGAKOV «NOTES OF A YOUNG DOCTOR»

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Evgeniy Igorevich Erokhov

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The motif analysis of a cycle of stories by M.A. Bulgakov «Notes of a Young Doctor» from the point of view of their apocalyptic problematics was first performed in this article. To identify apocalyptic motifs the method of motif analysis, developed by B.M. Gasparov, was used which will also help to prove the interpenetration of motifs in the cycle of stories. The result of the research work is the identification of apocalyptic motifs which are manifested in the experiences of the main character and the events taking place around him and passing through the prism of physician’s perception of the world. Our identified motifs show that the stories in the cycle are united not only thematically and with the help of the image of the main character, but with the help of the motifs which reflect interpenetration of apocalyptic motifs in the stories of one cycle. There are the following apocalyptic motifs in the cycle of stories by Bulgakov: diseases, darkness (as part of the landscape, resurrection from the dead and beast. They all belong to the biblical type which is allocated on the basis of the associative bond of these motifs with the biblical texts.

Poly(A) motif prediction using spectral latent features from human DNA sequences

KAUST Repository

Xie, Bo; Jankovic, Boris R.; Bajic, Vladimir B.; Song, Le; Gao, Xin

2013-01-01

Motivation: Polyadenylation is the addition of a poly(A) tail to an RNA molecule. Identifying DNA sequence motifs that signal the addition of poly(A) tails is essential to improved genome annotation and better understanding of the regulatory mechanisms and stability of mRNA.Existing poly(A) motif predictors demonstrate that information extracted from the surrounding nucleotide sequences of candidate poly(A) motifs can differentiate true motifs from the false ones to a great extent. A variety of sophisticated features has been explored, including sequential, structural, statistical, thermodynamic and evolutionary properties. However, most of these methods involve extensive manual feature engineering, which can be time-consuming and can require in-depth domain knowledge.Results: We propose a novel machine-learning method for poly(A) motif prediction by marrying generative learning (hidden Markov models) and discriminative learning (support vector machines). Generative learning provides a rich palette on which the uncertainty and diversity of sequence information can be handled, while discriminative learning allows the performance of the classification task to be directly optimized. Here, we used hidden Markov models for fitting the DNA sequence dynamics, and developed an efficient spectral algorithm for extracting latent variable information from these models. These spectral latent features were then fed into support vector machines to fine-tune the classification performance.We evaluated our proposed method on a comprehensive human poly(A) dataset that consists of 14 740 samples from 12 of the most abundant variants of human poly(A) motifs. Compared with one of the previous state-of-the-art methods in the literature (the random forest model with expert-crafted features), our method reduces the average error rate, false-negative rate and false-positive rate by 26, 15 and 35%, respectively. Meanwhile, our method makes ?30% fewer error predictions relative to the other

Poly(A) motif prediction using spectral latent features from human DNA sequences

KAUST Repository

Xie, Bo

2013-06-21

Motivation: Polyadenylation is the addition of a poly(A) tail to an RNA molecule. Identifying DNA sequence motifs that signal the addition of poly(A) tails is essential to improved genome annotation and better understanding of the regulatory mechanisms and stability of mRNA.Existing poly(A) motif predictors demonstrate that information extracted from the surrounding nucleotide sequences of candidate poly(A) motifs can differentiate true motifs from the false ones to a great extent. A variety of sophisticated features has been explored, including sequential, structural, statistical, thermodynamic and evolutionary properties. However, most of these methods involve extensive manual feature engineering, which can be time-consuming and can require in-depth domain knowledge.Results: We propose a novel machine-learning method for poly(A) motif prediction by marrying generative learning (hidden Markov models) and discriminative learning (support vector machines). Generative learning provides a rich palette on which the uncertainty and diversity of sequence information can be handled, while discriminative learning allows the performance of the classification task to be directly optimized. Here, we used hidden Markov models for fitting the DNA sequence dynamics, and developed an efficient spectral algorithm for extracting latent variable information from these models. These spectral latent features were then fed into support vector machines to fine-tune the classification performance.We evaluated our proposed method on a comprehensive human poly(A) dataset that consists of 14 740 samples from 12 of the most abundant variants of human poly(A) motifs. Compared with one of the previous state-of-the-art methods in the literature (the random forest model with expert-crafted features), our method reduces the average error rate, false-negative rate and false-positive rate by 26, 15 and 35%, respectively. Meanwhile, our method makes ?30% fewer error predictions relative to the other

The Human Papillomavirus E6 PDZ Binding Motif: From Life Cycle to Malignancy

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Ketaki Ganti

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Cancer-causing HPV E6 oncoproteins are characterized by the presence of a PDZ binding motif (PBM at their extreme carboxy terminus. It was long thought that this region of E6 had a sole function to confer interaction with a defined set of cellular substrates. However, more recent studies have shown that the E6 PBM has a complex pattern of regulation, whereby phosphorylation within the PBM can regulate interaction with two classes of cellular proteins: those containing PDZ domains and the members of the 14-3-3 family of proteins. In this review, we explore the roles that the PBM and its ligands play in the virus life cycle, and subsequently how these can inadvertently contribute towards the development of malignancy. We also explore how subtle alterations in cellular signal transduction pathways might result in aberrant E6 phosphorylation, which in turn might contribute towards disease progression.

Two CGTCA motifs and a GHF1/Pit1 binding site mediate cAMP-dependent protein kinase A regulation of human growth hormone gene expression in rat anterior pituitary GC cells.

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Shepard, A R; Zhang, W; Eberhardt, N L

1994-01-21

We established the cis-acting elements which mediate cAMP responsiveness of the human growth hormone (hGH) gene in transiently transfected rat anterior pituitary tumor GC cells. Analysis of the intact hGH gene or hGH 5'-flanking DNA (5'-FR) coupled to the hGh cDNA or chloramphenicol acetyltransferase or luciferase genes, indicated that cAMP primarily stimulated hGH promoter activity. Cotransfection of a protein kinase A inhibitory protein cDNA demonstrated that the cAMP response was mediated by protein kinase A. Mutational analysis of the hGH promoter identified two core cAMP response element motifs (CGTCA) located at nucleotides -187/-183 (distal cAMP response element; dCRE) and -99/-95 (proximal cAMP response element; pCRE) and a pituitary-specific transcription factor (GHF1/Pit1) binding site at nucleotides -123/-112 (dGHF1) which were required for cAMP responsiveness. GHF1 was not a limiting factor, since overexpression of GHF1 in cotransfections increased basal but not forskolin induction levels. Gel shift analyses indicated that similar, ubiquitous, thermostable protein(s) specifically bound the pCRE and dCRE motifs. The CGTCA motif-binding factors were cAMP response element binding protein (CREB)/activating transcription factor-1 (ATF-1)-related, since the DNA-protein complex was competed by unlabeled CREB consensus oligonucleotide, specifically supershifted by antisera to CREB and ATF-1 but not ATF-2, and was bound by purified CREB with the same relative binding affinity (pCRE < dCRE < CREB) and mobility as the GC nuclear extract. UV cross-linking and Southwestern blot analyses revealed multiple DNA-protein interactions of which approximately 100- and approximately 45-kDa proteins were predominant; the approximately 45-kDa protein may represent CREB. These results indicate that CREB/ATF-1-related factors act coordinately with the cell-specific factor GHF1 to mediate cAMP-dependent regulation of hGH-1 gene transcription in anterior pituitary somatotrophs.

Discriminative Motif Discovery via Simulated Evolution and Random Under-Sampling

OpenAIRE

Song, Tao; Gu, Hong

2014-01-01

Conserved motifs in biological sequences are closely related to their structure and functions. Recently, discriminative motif discovery methods have attracted more and more attention. However, little attention has been devoted to the data imbalance problem, which is one of the main reasons affecting the performance of the discriminative models. In this article, a simulated evolution method is applied to solve the multi-class imbalance problem at the stage of data preprocessing, and at the sta...

Manipulation of EphB2 regulatory motifs and SH2 binding sites switches MAPK signaling and biological activity.

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Tong, Jiefei; Elowe, Sabine; Nash, Piers; Pawson, Tony

2003-02-21

Signaling by the Eph family of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) is complex, because they can interact with a variety of intracellular targets, and can potentially induce distinct responses in different cell types. In NG108 neuronal cells, activated EphB2 recruits p120RasGAP, in a fashion that is associated with down-regulation of the Ras-Erk mitogen-activated kinase (MAPK) pathway and neurite retraction. To pursue the role of the Ras-MAPK pathway in EphB2-mediated growth cone collapse, and to explore the biochemical and biological functions of Eph receptors, we sought to re-engineer the signaling properties of EphB2 by manipulating its regulatory motifs and SH2 binding sites. An EphB2 mutant that retained juxtamembrane (JM) RasGAP binding sites but incorporated a Grb2 binding motif at an alternate RasGAP binding site within the kinase domain had little effect on basal Erk MAPK activation. In contrast, elimination of all RasGAP binding sites, accompanied by the addition of a Grb2 binding site within the kinase domain, led to an increase in phospho-Erk levels in NG108 cells following ephrin-B1 stimulation. Functional assays indicated a correlation between neurite retraction and the ability of the EphB2 mutants to down-regulate Ras-Erk MAPK signaling. These data suggest that EphB2 can be designed to repress, stabilize, or activate the Ras-Erk MAPK pathway by the manipulation of RasGAP and Grb2 SH2 domain binding sites and support the notion that Erk MAPK regulation plays a significant role in axon guidance. The behavior of EphB2 variants with mutations in the JM region and kinase domains suggests an intricate pattern of regulation and target recognition by Eph receptors.

Identification of helix capping and {beta}-turn motifs from NMR chemical shifts

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shen Yang; Bax, Ad, E-mail: bax@nih.gov [National Institutes of Health, Laboratory of Chemical Physics, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (United States)

2012-03-15

We present an empirical method for identification of distinct structural motifs in proteins on the basis of experimentally determined backbone and {sup 13}C{sup {beta}} chemical shifts. Elements identified include the N-terminal and C-terminal helix capping motifs and five types of {beta}-turns: I, II, I Prime , II Prime and VIII. Using a database of proteins of known structure, the NMR chemical shifts, together with the PDB-extracted amino acid preference of the helix capping and {beta}-turn motifs are used as input data for training an artificial neural network algorithm, which outputs the statistical probability of finding each motif at any given position in the protein. The trained neural networks, contained in the MICS (motif identification from chemical shifts) program, also provide a confidence level for each of their predictions, and values ranging from ca 0.7-0.9 for the Matthews correlation coefficient of its predictions far exceed those attainable by sequence analysis. MICS is anticipated to be useful both in the conventional NMR structure determination process and for enhancing on-going efforts to determine protein structures solely on the basis of chemical shift information, where it can aid in identifying protein database fragments suitable for use in building such structures.

Identification of helix capping and β-turn motifs from NMR chemical shifts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shen Yang; Bax, Ad

2012-01-01

We present an empirical method for identification of distinct structural motifs in proteins on the basis of experimentally determined backbone and 13 C β chemical shifts. Elements identified include the N-terminal and C-terminal helix capping motifs and five types of β-turns: I, II, I′, II′ and VIII. Using a database of proteins of known structure, the NMR chemical shifts, together with the PDB-extracted amino acid preference of the helix capping and β-turn motifs are used as input data for training an artificial neural network algorithm, which outputs the statistical probability of finding each motif at any given position in the protein. The trained neural networks, contained in the MICS (motif identification from chemical shifts) program, also provide a confidence level for each of their predictions, and values ranging from ca 0.7–0.9 for the Matthews correlation coefficient of its predictions far exceed those attainable by sequence analysis. MICS is anticipated to be useful both in the conventional NMR structure determination process and for enhancing on-going efforts to determine protein structures solely on the basis of chemical shift information, where it can aid in identifying protein database fragments suitable for use in building such structures.

A novel k-mer set memory (KSM) motif representation improves regulatory variant prediction.

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Yuchun; Tian, Kevin; Zeng, Haoyang; Guo, Xiaoyun; Gifford, David Kenneth

2018-04-13

The representation and discovery of transcription factor (TF) sequence binding specificities is critical for understanding gene regulatory networks and interpreting the impact of disease-associated noncoding genetic variants. We present a novel TF binding motif representation, the k -mer set memory (KSM), which consists of a set of aligned k -mers that are overrepresented at TF binding sites, and a new method called KMAC for de novo discovery of KSMs. We find that KSMs more accurately predict in vivo binding sites than position weight matrix (PWM) models and other more complex motif models across a large set of ChIP-seq experiments. Furthermore, KSMs outperform PWMs and more complex motif models in predicting in vitro binding sites. KMAC also identifies correct motifs in more experiments than five state-of-the-art motif discovery methods. In addition, KSM-derived features outperform both PWM and deep learning model derived sequence features in predicting differential regulatory activities of expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) alleles. Finally, we have applied KMAC to 1600 ENCODE TF ChIP-seq data sets and created a public resource of KSM and PWM motifs. We expect that the KSM representation and KMAC method will be valuable in characterizing TF binding specificities and in interpreting the effects of noncoding genetic variations. © 2018 Guo et al.; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

Pipeline for the Analysis of ChIP-seq Data and New Motif Ranking Procedure

KAUST Repository

Ashoor, Haitham

2011-06-01

This thesis presents a computational methodology for ab-initio identification of transcription factor binding sites based on ChIP-seq data. This method consists of three main steps, namely ChIP-seq data processing, motif discovery and models selection. A novel method for ranking the models of motifs identified in this process is proposed. This method combines multiple factors in order to rank the provided candidate motifs. It combines the model coverage of the ChIP-seq fragments that contain motifs from which that model is built, the suitable background data made up of shuffled ChIP-seq fragments, and the p-value that resulted from evaluating the model on actual and background data. Two ChIP-seq datasets retrieved from ENCODE project are used to evaluate and demonstrate the ability of the method to predict correct TFBSs with high precision. The first dataset relates to neuron-restrictive silencer factor, NRSF, while the second one corresponds to growth-associated binding protein, GABP. The pipeline system shows high precision prediction for both datasets, as in both cases the top ranked motif closely resembles the known motifs for the respective transcription factors.

Regulation of glycogen metabolism by the CRE-1, RCO-1 and RCM-1 proteins in Neurospora crassa. The role of CRE-1 as the central transcriptional regulator.

Science.gov (United States)

Cupertino, Fernanda Barbosa; Virgilio, Stela; Freitas, Fernanda Zanolli; Candido, Thiago de Souza; Bertolini, Maria Célia

2015-04-01

The transcription factor CreA/Mig1/CRE-1 is a repressor protein that regulates the use of alternative carbon sources via a mechanism known as Carbon Catabolite Repression (CCR). In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Mig1 recruits the complex Ssn6-Tup1, the Neurospora crassa RCM-1 and RCO-1 orthologous proteins, respectively, to bind to promoters of glucose-repressible genes. We have been studying the regulation of glycogen metabolism in N. crassa and the identification of the RCO-1 corepressor as a regulator led us to investigate the regulatory role of CRE-1 in this process. Glycogen content is misregulated in the rco-1(KO), rcm-1(RIP) and cre-1(KO) strains, and the glycogen synthase phosphorylation is decreased in all strains, showing that CRE-1, RCO-1 and RCM-1 proteins are involved in glycogen accumulation and in the regulation of GSN activity by phosphorylation. We also confirmed the regulatory role of CRE-1 in CCR and its nuclear localization under repressing condition in N. crassa. The expression of all glycogenic genes is misregulated in the cre-1(KO) strain, suggesting that CRE-1 also controls glycogen metabolism by regulating gene expression. The existence of a high number of the Aspergillus nidulans CreA motif (5'-SYGGRG-3') in the glycogenic gene promoters led us to analyze the binding of CRE-1 to some DNA motifs both in vitro by DNA gel shift and in vivo by ChIP-qPCR analysis. CRE-1 bound in vivo to all motifs analyzed demonstrating that it down-regulates glycogen metabolism by controlling gene expression and GSN phosphorylation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Identification of important nodes in directed biological networks: a network motif approach.

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Pei Wang

Full Text Available Identification of important nodes in complex networks has attracted an increasing attention over the last decade. Various measures have been proposed to characterize the importance of nodes in complex networks, such as the degree, betweenness and PageRank. Different measures consider different aspects of complex networks. Although there are numerous results reported on undirected complex networks, few results have been reported on directed biological networks. Based on network motifs and principal component analysis (PCA, this paper aims at introducing a new measure to characterize node importance in directed biological networks. Investigations on five real-world biological networks indicate that the proposed method can robustly identify actually important nodes in different networks, such as finding command interneurons, global regulators and non-hub but evolutionary conserved actually important nodes in biological networks. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC curves for the five networks indicate remarkable prediction accuracy of the proposed measure. The proposed index provides an alternative complex network metric. Potential implications of the related investigations include identifying network control and regulation targets, biological networks modeling and analysis, as well as networked medicine.

PKCδ regulates hepatic insulin sensitivity and hepatosteatosis in mice and humans

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bezy, Olivier; Tran, Thien T; Pihlajamäki, Jussi

2011-01-01

C57BL/6J and 129S6/Sv (B6 and 129) mice differ dramatically in their susceptibility to developing diabetes in response to diet- or genetically induced insulin resistance. A major locus contributing to this difference has been mapped to a region on mouse chromosome 14 that contains the gene encoding...... tolerance, and reduced hepatosteatosis with aging. Conversely, mice with liver-specific overexpression of PKCδ developed hepatic insulin resistance characterized by decreased insulin signaling, enhanced lipogenic gene expression, and hepatosteatosis. Therefore, changes in the expression and regulation...... of PKCδ between strains of mice and in obese humans play an important role in the genetic risk of hepatic insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, and hepatosteatosis; and thus PKCδ may be a potential target in the treatment of metabolic syndrome....

The PDZ motif of the α1C subunit is not required for surface trafficking and adrenergic modulation of CaV1.2 channel in the heart.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Lin; Katchman, Alexander; Weinberg, Richard L; Abrams, Jeffrey; Samad, Tahmina; Wan, Elaine; Pitt, Geoffrey S; Marx, Steven O

2015-01-23

Voltage-gated Ca(2+) channels play a key role in initiating muscle excitation-contraction coupling, neurotransmitter release, gene expression, and hormone secretion. The association of CaV1.2 with a supramolecular complex impacts trafficking, localization, turnover, and, most importantly, multifaceted regulation of its function in the heart. Several studies hint at an important role for the C terminus of the α1C subunit as a hub for multidimensional regulation of CaV1.2 channel trafficking and function. Recent studies have demonstrated an important role for the four-residue PDZ binding motif at the C terminus of α1C in interacting with scaffold proteins containing PDZ domains, in the subcellular localization of CaV1.2 in neurons, and in the efficient signaling to cAMP-response element-binding protein in neurons. However, the role of the α1C PDZ ligand domain in the heart is not known. To determine whether the α1C PDZ motif is critical for CaV1.2 trafficking and function in cardiomyocytes, we generated transgenic mice with inducible expression of an N-terminal FLAG epitope-tagged dihydropyridine-resistant α1C with the PDZ motif deleted (ΔPDZ). These mice were crossed with α-myosin heavy chain reverse transcriptional transactivator transgenic mice, and the double-transgenic mice were fed doxycycline. The ΔPDZ channels expressed, trafficked to the membrane, and supported robust excitation-contraction coupling in the presence of nisoldipine, a dihydropyridine Ca(2+) channel blocker, providing functional evidence that they appropriately target to dyads. The ΔPDZ Ca(2+) channels were appropriately regulated by isoproterenol and forskolin. These data indicate that the α1C PDZ motif is not required for surface trafficking, localization to the dyad, or adrenergic stimulation of CaV1.2 in adult cardiomyocytes. © 2015 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

ROMANIAN TRADITIONAL MOTIF ELEMENT OF MODERNITY IN CLOTHING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ŞUTEU Marius Darius

2017-05-01

Full Text Available In this paper are presented the phases for improving from an aesthetic point of view a clothing item, the T-shirt for women using software design patterns, computerised graphics and textile different modern technologies including: industrial embroidery, digital printing, sublimation. In the first phase a documentation was prepared in the University of Oradea and traditional motif was selected from a collection comprising a number of Romanian traditional motifs from different parts of the country and were reintepreted and stylized whilst preserving the symbolism and color range specified to the area. For the styling phase was used CorelDraw vector graphics program that allows changing the shape, size and color of the drawings without affecting the identity of the pattern. The embroidery was done using BERNINA Embroidery Software Designer Plus Software. This software allows you to export the model to any domestic or industrial embroidery machine regardless of brand. Finally we observed the resistance of the printed and embroided model to various: elasticity, resistance to abrasion and a sensory analysis on the preservation of color. After testing we noticed the imprint resistance applied to the fabric, resulting in a quality that makes possible to keep the Romanian traditional motif from generation to generation.

A Novel Protein Interaction between Nucleotide Binding Domain of Hsp70 and p53 Motif

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Asita Elengoe

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Currently, protein interaction of Homo sapiens nucleotide binding domain (NBD of heat shock 70 kDa protein (PDB: 1HJO with p53 motif remains to be elucidated. The NBD-p53 motif complex enhances the p53 stabilization, thereby increasing the tumor suppression activity in cancer treatment. Therefore, we identified the interaction between NBD and p53 using STRING version 9.1 program. Then, we modeled the three-dimensional structure of p53 motif through homology modeling and determined the binding affinity and stability of NBD-p53 motif complex structure via molecular docking and dynamics (MD simulation. Human DNA binding domain of p53 motif (SCMGGMNR retrieved from UniProt (UniProtKB: P04637 was docked with the NBD protein, using the Autodock version 4.2 program. The binding energy and intermolecular energy for the NBD-p53 motif complex were −0.44 Kcal/mol and −9.90 Kcal/mol, respectively. Moreover, RMSD, RMSF, hydrogen bonds, salt bridge, and secondary structure analyses revealed that the NBD protein had a strong bond with p53 motif and the protein-ligand complex was stable. Thus, the current data would be highly encouraging for designing Hsp70 structure based drug in cancer therapy.

Multiple Copies of a Simple MYB-Binding Site Confers Trans-regulation by Specific Flavonoid-Related R2R3 MYBs in Diverse Species

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Cyril Brendolise

2017-10-01

Full Text Available In apple, the MYB transcription factor MYB10 controls the accumulation of anthocyanins. MYB10 is able to auto-activate its expression by binding its own promoter at a specific motif, the R1 motif. In some apple accessions a natural mutation, termed R6, has more copies of this motif within the MYB10 promoter resulting in stronger auto-activation and elevated anthocyanins. Here we show that other anthocyanin-related MYBs selected from apple, pear, strawberry, petunia, kiwifruit and Arabidopsis are able to activate promoters containing the R6 motif. To examine the specificity of this motif, members of the R2R3 MYB family were screened against a promoter harboring the R6 mutation. Only MYBs from subgroups 5 and 6 activate expression by binding the R6 motif, with these MYBs sharing conserved residues in their R2R3 DNA binding domains. Insertion of the apple R6 motif into orthologous promoters of MYB10 in pear (PcMYB10 and Arabidopsis (AtMY75 elevated anthocyanin levels. Introduction of the R6 motif into the promoter region of an anthocyanin biosynthetic enzyme F3′5′H of kiwifruit imparts regulation by MYB10. This results in elevated levels of delphinidin in both tobacco and kiwifruit. Finally, an R6 motif inserted into the promoter the vitamin C biosynthesis gene GDP-L-Gal phosphorylase increases vitamin C content in a MYB10-dependent manner. This motif therefore provides a tool to re-engineer novel MYB-regulated responses in plants.

Parallel motif extraction from very long sequences

KAUST Repository

Sahli, Majed; Mansour, Essam; Kalnis, Panos

2013-01-01

Motifs are frequent patterns used to identify biological functionality in genomic sequences, periodicity in time series, or user trends in web logs. In contrast to a lot of existing work that focuses on collections of many short sequences, modern

Efficient sequential and parallel algorithms for planted motif search.

Science.gov (United States)

Nicolae, Marius; Rajasekaran, Sanguthevar

2014-01-31

Motif searching is an important step in the detection of rare events occurring in a set of DNA or protein sequences. One formulation of the problem is known as (l,d)-motif search or Planted Motif Search (PMS). In PMS we are given two integers l and d and n biological sequences. We want to find all sequences of length l that appear in each of the input sequences with at most d mismatches. The PMS problem is NP-complete. PMS algorithms are typically evaluated on certain instances considered challenging. Despite ample research in the area, a considerable performance gap exists because many state of the art algorithms have large runtimes even for moderately challenging instances. This paper presents a fast exact parallel PMS algorithm called PMS8. PMS8 is the first algorithm to solve the challenging (l,d) instances (25,10) and (26,11). PMS8 is also efficient on instances with larger l and d such as (50,21). We include a comparison of PMS8 with several state of the art algorithms on multiple problem instances. This paper also presents necessary and sufficient conditions for 3 l-mers to have a common d-neighbor. The program is freely available at http://engr.uconn.edu/~man09004/PMS8/. We present PMS8, an efficient exact algorithm for Planted Motif Search. PMS8 introduces novel ideas for generating common neighborhoods. We have also implemented a parallel version for this algorithm. PMS8 can solve instances not solved by any previous algorithms.

Regulation of the Osem gene by abscisic acid and the transcriptional activator VP1: analysis of cis-acting promoter elements required for regulation by abscisic acid and VP1.

Science.gov (United States)

Hattori, T; Terada, T; Hamasuna, S

1995-06-01

Osem, a rice gene homologous to the wheat Em gene, which encodes one of the late-embryogenesis abundant proteins was isolated. The gene was characterized with respect to control of transcription by abscisic acid (ABA) and the transcriptional activator VP1, which is involved in the ABA-regulated gene expression during late embryo-genesis. A fusion gene (Osem-GUS) consisting of the Osem promoter and the bacterial beta-glucuronidase (GUS) gene was constructed and tested in a transient expression system, using protoplasts derived from a suspension-cultured line of rice cells, for activation by ABA and by co-transfection with an expression vector (35S-Osvp1) for the rice VP1 (OSVP1) cDNA. The expression of Osem-GUS was strongly (40- to 150-fold) activated by externally applied ABA and by over-expression of (OS)VP1. The Osem promoter has three ACGTG-containing sequences, motif A, motif B and motif A', which resemble the abscisic acid-responsive element (ABRE) that was previously identified in the wheat Em and the rice Rab16. There is also a CATGCATG sequence, which is known as the Sph box and is shown to be essential for the regulation by VP1 of the maize anthocyanin regulatory gene C1. Focusing on these sequence elements, various mutant derivatives of the Osem promoter in the transient expression system were assayed. The analysis revealed that motif A functions not only as an ABRE but also as a sequence element required for the regulation by (OS)VP1.

Emerging roles of Lipasin as a critical lipid regulator.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Ren; Abou-Samra, Abdul B

2013-03-15

Patients with metabolic syndrome are at high risk for developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. In addition to total cholesterol, LDL-C and HDL-C, elevated plasma triglycerides (TG) are increasingly recognized as an independent risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. Recently 3 groups independently reported the identification and characterization of a novel blood lipid regulator, Lipasin/RIFL/ANGPTL8, which here is referred to as Lipasin for its lipoprotein lipase inhibition effect and for being a circulating factor denoted by 'in'. Being highly enriched in the liver, Lipasin is a hepatocyte-derived circulating factor that regulates plasma TG levels. Lipasin is nutritionally regulated, as its mRNA levels in liver and fat as well as its protein level in serum are reduced by fasting. Mice deficient for Lipasin have lower serum TG levels; conversely, its adenovirus-mediated overexpression increases serum TG levels, in part, through promoting ANGPTL3 cleavage, releasing its N-terminal domain that inhibits lipoprotein lipase. Lipasin sequence variations are associated with LDL-C and HDL-C concentrations in humans. Being lipogenic, Lipasin is highly induced during adipogenesis. Levels of Lipasin and ANGPTL4 show opposite changes in response to fasting or cold environment. Lipasin, a novel but atypical ANGPTL family member, is emerging as a critical lipid regulator and a potential drug target. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sequence motifs in MADS transcription factors responsible for specificity and diversification of protein-protein interaction.

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Aalt D J van Dijk

Full Text Available Protein sequences encompass tertiary structures and contain information about specific molecular interactions, which in turn determine biological functions of proteins. Knowledge about how protein sequences define interaction specificity is largely missing, in particular for paralogous protein families with high sequence similarity, such as the plant MADS domain transcription factor family. In comparison to the situation in mammalian species, this important family of transcription regulators has expanded enormously in plant species and contains over 100 members in the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana. Here, we provide insight into the mechanisms that determine protein-protein interaction specificity for the Arabidopsis MADS domain transcription factor family, using an integrated computational and experimental approach. Plant MADS proteins have highly similar amino acid sequences, but their dimerization patterns vary substantially. Our computational analysis uncovered small sequence regions that explain observed differences in dimerization patterns with reasonable accuracy. Furthermore, we show the usefulness of the method for prediction of MADS domain transcription factor interaction networks in other plant species. Introduction of mutations in the predicted interaction motifs demonstrated that single amino acid mutations can have a large effect and lead to loss or gain of specific interactions. In addition, various performed bioinformatics analyses shed light on the way evolution has shaped MADS domain transcription factor interaction specificity. Identified protein-protein interaction motifs appeared to be strongly conserved among orthologs, indicating their evolutionary importance. We also provide evidence that mutations in these motifs can be a source for sub- or neo-functionalization. The analyses presented here take us a step forward in understanding protein-protein interactions and the interplay between protein sequences and

Disparate requirements for the Walker A and B ATPase motifs ofhuman RAD51D in homologous recombination

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wiese, Claudia; Hinz, John M.; Tebbs, Robert S.; Nham, Peter B.; Urbin, Salustra S.; Collins, David W.; Thompson, Larry H.; Schild, David

2006-04-21

In vertebrates, homologous recombinational repair (HRR) requires RAD51 and five RAD51 paralogs (XRCC2, XRCC3, RAD51B, RAD51C, and RAD51D) that all contain conserved Walker A and B ATPase motifs. In human RAD51D we examined the requirement for these motifs in interactions with XRCC2 and RAD51C, and for survival of cells in response to DNA interstrand crosslinks. Ectopic expression of wild type human RAD51D or mutants having a non-functional A or B motif was used to test for complementation of a rad51d knockout hamster CHO cell line. Although A-motif mutants complement very efficiently, B-motif mutants do not. Consistent with these results, experiments using the yeast two- and three-hybrid systems show that the interactions between RAD51D and its XRCC2 and RAD51C partners also require a functional RAD51D B motif, but not motif A. Similarly, hamster Xrcc2 is unable to bind to the non-complementing human RAD51D B-motif mutants in co-immunoprecipitation assays. We conclude that a functional Walker B motif, but not A motif, is necessary for RAD51D's interactions with other paralogs and for efficient HRR. We present a model in which ATPase sites are formed in a bipartite manner between RAD51D and other RAD51 paralogs.

Temporal motifs reveal collaboration patterns in online task-oriented networks

Science.gov (United States)

Xuan, Qi; Fang, Huiting; Fu, Chenbo; Filkov, Vladimir

2015-05-01

Real networks feature layers of interactions and complexity. In them, different types of nodes can interact with each other via a variety of events. Examples of this complexity are task-oriented social networks (TOSNs), where teams of people share tasks towards creating a quality artifact, such as academic research papers or software development in commercial or open source environments. Accomplishing those tasks involves both work, e.g., writing the papers or code, and communication, to discuss and coordinate. Taking into account the different types of activities and how they alternate over time can result in much more precise understanding of the TOSNs behaviors and outcomes. That calls for modeling techniques that can accommodate both node and link heterogeneity as well as temporal change. In this paper, we report on methodology for finding temporal motifs in TOSNs, limited to a system of two people and an artifact. We apply the methods to publicly available data of TOSNs from 31 Open Source Software projects. We find that these temporal motifs are enriched in the observed data. When applied to software development outcome, temporal motifs reveal a distinct dependency between collaboration and communication in the code writing process. Moreover, we show that models based on temporal motifs can be used to more precisely relate both individual developer centrality and team cohesion to programmer productivity than models based on aggregated TOSNs.

Salt-bridge Swapping in the EXXERFXYY Motif of Proton Coupled Oligopeptide Transporters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Aduri, Nanda G; Prabhala, Bala K; Ernst, Heidi A

2015-01-01

to as E1XXE2R), located on Helix I, in interactions with the proton. In this study we investigated the intracellular substrate accumulation by motif variants with all possible combinations of glutamate residues changed to glutamine and arginine changed to a tyrosine; the latter being a natural variant......-motif salt bridge, i.e. R-E2 to R-E1, which is consistent with previous structural studies. Molecular dynamics simulations of the motif variants E1XXE2R and E1XXQ2R support this mechanism. The simulations showed that upon changing conformation, arginine pushes Helix V, through interactions with the highly...

Through the Portal: Viking Motifs Incorporated in the Romanesque Style in Telemark, Norway

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Kristine Ødeby

2013-09-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the results of an analysis of motifs identified on six carved wooden Romanesque portal panels from the Norwegian county of Telemark. The findings suggest that animal motifs in the Late Viking style survived long into the Late Medieval period and were reused on these medieval portals. Stylistically, late expressions of Viking animal art do not differ a great deal from those of the subsequent Romanesque style. However, their symbolical differences are considered to be significant. The motifs themselves, and the issue of whether the Romanesque style adopted motifs from pre-Christian art, have attracted less attention. The motif portraying Sigurd slaying the dragon is considered in depth. It will be suggested that Sigurd, serving as a mediator between the old and the new beliefs when he appeared in late Viking contexts, was given a new role when portrayed in Christian art. Metaphor and liminality are a central part of this paper, and the theories of Alfred Gell and Margrete Andås suggest that the portal itself affects those who pass through it, and that the iconography is meaningful from a liminal perspective.

miRNA Enriched in Human Neuroblast Nuclei Bind the MAZ Transcription Factor and Their Precursors Contain the MAZ Consensus Motif

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Belinda J. Goldie

2017-08-01

Full Text Available While the cytoplasmic function of microRNA (miRNA as post-transcriptional regulators of mRNA has been the subject of significant research effort, their activity in the nucleus is less well characterized. Here we use a human neuronal cell model to show that some mature miRNA are preferentially enriched in the nucleus. These molecules were predominantly primate-specific and contained a sequence motif with homology to the consensus MAZ transcription factor binding element. Precursor miRNA containing this motif were shown to have affinity for MAZ protein in nuclear extract. We then used Ago1/2 RIP-Seq to explore nuclear miRNA-associated mRNA targets. Interestingly, the genes for Ago2-associated transcripts were also significantly enriched with MAZ binding sites and neural function, whereas Ago1-transcripts were associated with general metabolic processes and localized with SC35 spliceosomes. These findings suggest the MAZ transcription factor is associated with miRNA in the nucleus and may influence the regulation of neuronal development through Ago2-associated miRNA induced silencing complexes. The MAZ transcription factor may therefore be important for organizing higher order integration of transcriptional and post-transcriptional processes in primate neurons.

qPMS7: a fast algorithm for finding (ℓ, d-motifs in DNA and protein sequences.

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Hieu Dinh

Full Text Available Detection of rare events happening in a set of DNA/protein sequences could lead to new biological discoveries. One kind of such rare events is the presence of patterns called motifs in DNA/protein sequences. Finding motifs is a challenging problem since the general version of motif search has been proven to be intractable. Motifs discovery is an important problem in biology. For example, it is useful in the detection of transcription factor binding sites and transcriptional regulatory elements that are very crucial in understanding gene function, human disease, drug design, etc. Many versions of the motif search problem have been proposed in the literature. One such is the (ℓ, d-motif search (or Planted Motif Search (PMS. A generalized version of the PMS problem, namely, Quorum Planted Motif Search (qPMS, is shown to accurately model motifs in real data. However, solving the qPMS problem is an extremely difficult task because a special case of it, the PMS Problem, is already NP-hard, which means that any algorithm solving it can be expected to take exponential time in the worse case scenario. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm named qPMS7 that tackles the qPMS problem on real data as well as challenging instances. Experimental results show that our Algorithm qPMS7 is on an average 5 times faster than the state-of-art algorithm. The executable program of Algorithm qPMS7 is freely available on the web at http://pms.engr.uconn.edu/downloads/qPMS7.zip. Our online motif discovery tools that use Algorithm qPMS7 are freely available at http://pms.engr.uconn.edu or http://motifsearch.com.

Identification of group specific motifs in Beta-lactamase family of proteins

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Saxena Akansha

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Beta-lactamases are one of the most serious threats to public health. In order to combat this threat we need to study the molecular and functional diversity of these enzymes and identify signatures specific to these enzymes. These signatures will enable us to develop inhibitors and diagnostic probes specific to lactamases. The existing classification of beta-lactamases was developed nearly 30 years ago when few lactamases were available. DLact database contain more than 2000 beta-lactamase, which can be used to study the molecular diversity and to identify signatures specific to this family. Methods A set of 2020 beta-lactamase proteins available in the DLact database http://59.160.102.202/DLact were classified using graph-based clustering of Best Bi-Directional Hits. Non-redundant (> 90 percent identical protein sequences from each group were aligned using T-Coffee and annotated using information available in literature. Motifs specific to each group were predicted using PRATT program. Results The graph-based classification of beta-lactamase proteins resulted in the formation of six groups (Four major groups containing 191, 726, 774 and 73 proteins while two minor groups containing 50 and 8 proteins. Based on the information available in literature, we found that each of the four major groups correspond to the four classes proposed by Ambler. The two minor groups were novel and do not contain molecular signatures of beta-lactamase proteins reported in literature. The group-specific motifs showed high sensitivity (> 70% and very high specificity (> 90%. The motifs from three groups (corresponding to class A, C and D had a high level of conservation at DNA as well as protein level whereas the motifs from the fourth group (corresponding to class B showed conservation at only protein level. Conclusion The graph-based classification of beta-lactamase proteins corresponds with the classification proposed by Ambler, thus there is

I-Ad-binding peptides derived from unrelated protein antigens share a common structural motif

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sette, A; Buus, S; Colon, S

1988-01-01

on the I-Ad binding of the immunogenic peptide OVA 323-339. The results obtained demonstrated the very permissive nature of Ag-Ia interaction. We also showed that unrelated peptides that are good I-Ad binders share a common structural motif and speculated that recognition of such motifs could represent...... that I-Ad molecules recognize a large library of Ag by virtue of common structural motifs present in peptides derived from phylogenetically unrelated proteins....

Comparison of loline alkaloid gene clusters across fungal endophytes: predicting the co-regulatory sequence motifs and the evolutionary history.

Science.gov (United States)

Kutil, Brandi L; Greenwald, Charles; Liu, Gang; Spiering, Martin J; Schardl, Christopher L; Wilkinson, Heather H

2007-10-01

LOL, a fungal secondary metabolite gene cluster found in Epichloë and Neotyphodium species, is responsible for production of insecticidal loline alkaloids. To analyze the genetic architecture and to predict the evolutionary history of LOL, we compared five clusters from four fungal species (single clusters from Epichloë festucae, Neotyphodium sp. PauTG-1, Neotyphodium coenophialum, and two clusters we previously characterized in Neotyphodium uncinatum). Using PhyloCon to compare putative lol gene promoter regions, we have identified four motifs conserved across the lol genes in all five clusters. Each motif has significant similarity to known fungal transcription factor binding sites in the TRANSFAC database. Conservation of these motifs is further support for the hypothesis that the lol genes are co-regulated. Interestingly, the history of asexual Neotyphodium spp. includes multiple interspecific hybridization events. Comparing clusters from three Neotyphodium species and E. festucae allowed us to determine which Epichloë ancestors are the most likely contributors of LOL in these asexual species. For example, while no present day Epichloë typhina isolates are known to produce lolines, our data support the hypothesis that the E. typhina ancestor(s) of three asexual endophyte species contained a LOL gene cluster. Thus, these data support a model of evolution in which the polymorphism in loline alkaloid production phenotypes among endophyte species is likely due to the loss of the trait over time.

Regulation of a Glycerol-Induced Quinoprotein Alcohol Dehydrogenase by σ54 and a LuxR-Type Regulator in Azospirillum brasilense Sp7.

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Vijay Shankar; Dubey, Ashutosh Prakash; Gupta, Ankush; Singh, Sudhir; Singh, Bhupendra Narain; Tripathi, Anil Kumar

2017-07-01

Azospirillum brasilense Sp7 uses glycerol as a carbon source for growth and nitrogen fixation. When grown in medium containing glycerol as a source of carbon, it upregulates the expression of a protein which was identified as quinoprotein alcohol dehydrogenase (ExaA). Inactivation of exaA adversely affects the growth of A. brasilense on glycerol. A determination of the transcription start site of exaA revealed an RpoN-dependent -12/-24 promoter consensus. The expression of an exaA :: lacZ fusion was induced maximally by glycerol and was dependent on σ 54 Bioinformatic analysis of the sequence flanking the -12/-24 promoter revealed a 17-bp sequence motif with a dyad symmetry of 6 nucleotides upstream of the promoter, the disruption of which caused a drastic reduction in promoter activity. The electrophoretic mobility of a DNA fragment containing the 17-bp sequence motif was retarded by purified EraR, a LuxR-type transcription regulator that is transcribed divergently from exaA EraR also showed a positive interaction with RpoN in two-hybrid and pulldown assays. IMPORTANCE Quinoprotein alcohol dehydrogenase (ExaA) plays an important role in the catabolism of alcohols in bacteria. Although exaA expression is thought to be regulated by a two-component system consisting of EraS and EraR, the mechanism of regulation was not known. This study shows the details of the regulation of expression of the exaA gene in A. brasilense We have shown here that exaA of A. brasilense is maximally induced by glycerol and harbors a σ 54 -dependent promoter. The response regulator EraR binds to an inverted repeat located upstream of the exaA promoter. This study shows that a LuxR-type response regulator (EraR) binds upstream of the exaA gene and physically interacts with σ 54 The unique feature of this regulation is that EraR is a LuxR-type transcription regulator that lacks the GAFTGA motif, a characteristic feature of the enhancer binding proteins that are known to interact with σ 54

Memfasilitasi Penalaran Geometri Transformasi Siswa Melalui Eksplorasi Motif Melayu dengan Bantuan Grid

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Febrian Febrian

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Geometri transformasi merupakan pengetahuan yang krusial dalam geometri yang dapat membangun banyak kemampuan lainnya seperti penalaran matematis. Oleh karena itu, geometri transformasi disarankan untuk diberikan pada pebelajar mulai dari usia dini. Penelitian terdahulu menunjukkan bahwa anak-anak memiliki sense untuk melihat karakteristik kedinamisan pada benda, oleh karena itu memfasilitasi pembelajaran yang dapat memanfaatkan sense ini menjadi sangat penting untuk membangun pemahaman geometri transformasi. Penelitian design research ini bertujuan untuk memfasilitasi siswa sekolah dasar untuk dapat mengembangkan pengetahuan awal mereka mengenai komposisi transformasi. Subjek penelitian adalah siswa kelas IV Sekolah Dasar Negeri 001 Toapaya, Kabupaten Bintan, Kepulauan Riau. Pendekatan pembelajaran yang digunakan adalah PMRI dengan konteks motif melayu itik pulang petang dengan bantuan grid. Hasil menunjukkan bahwa setting pembelajaran dapat memfasilitasi penalaran geometri transformasi melalui kegiatan eksplorasi motif dengan bantuan grid. Kata Kunci: komposisi transformasi, penalaran, motif melayu, grid, PMRI Transformation geometry is a crucial knowledge in geometry that can emerge many skills especially mathematical reasoning. Therefore, transformation geometry is suggested to be taught to children especially the young learners. Existing research implies that children have particular sense to see dynamic characteristic of an object or others. On the behalf of this statement, facilitating students in learning process that makes use of this students sense becomes important to undertake to help develop students reasoning of transformation geometry. The subtopic being highlighted is the composition of transformation. This design research aims to facilitate this situation. The subject of the research is fourth graders of the State Elementary School of 001 at Toapaya, Kabupaten Bintan, Kepulauan Riau. The learning approach used was PMRI by using

Lipogenic potential of liver from morbidly obese patients with and without non-insulin-dependent diabetes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barakat, H.A.; McLendon, V.D.; Carpenter, J.W.; Marks, R.H.; Legett, N.; O'Brien, K.; Caro, J.F.

1991-01-01

Intra-abdominal liver biopsies were obtained during surgery from fasted obese patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM), obese normoglycemic controls, and lean controls. Lipid synthesis was studied in freshly isolated hepatocytes and liver homogenates from the three groups of subjects. Incorporation of 3H2O into the lipids of hepatocytes was determined in the absence and presence of insulin (0.1 mumol/L). The activities of five enzymes involved in fatty acid synthesis, and the incorporation of 14C-glycerol-3-phosphate into lipids were determined in liver homogenates. Basal lipid synthesis by hepatocytes was not different in the three groups of patients. Insulin stimulated lipogenesis by 8% +/- 30% in the lean controls, 33% +/- 8% in the obese controls and 17% +/- 6% in the NIDDM patients. No significant differences in the activities of the five enzymes that are involved in de novo fatty acid synthesis among the three groups of patients were observed. Similarly, incorporation of 14C-glycerol-3-phosphate by liver homogenates, in the presence of saturating or submaximal concentrations of fatty acids, did not differ among the three groups. These results show that under the experimental conditions of this study, including the fasted state of the patients, the basal capacity of liver of NIDDM patients to synthesize fatty acids or glycerides is the same as that of liver from obese and lean controls. Thus, it is likely that an increase in fatty acid flux into a liver with normal lipogenic potential may contribute to the increased synthesis of triglycerides by the liver of these patients in vivo

Multiple TPR motifs characterize the Fanconi anemia FANCG protein.

Science.gov (United States)

Blom, Eric; van de Vrugt, Henri J; de Vries, Yne; de Winter, Johan P; Arwert, Fré; Joenje, Hans

2004-01-05

The genome protection pathway that is defective in patients with Fanconi anemia (FA) is controlled by at least eight genes, including BRCA2. A key step in the pathway involves the monoubiquitylation of FANCD2, which critically depends on a multi-subunit nuclear 'core complex' of at least six FANC proteins (FANCA, -C, -E, -F, -G, and -L). Except for FANCL, which has WD40 repeats and a RING finger domain, no significant domain structure has so far been recognized in any of the core complex proteins. By using a homology search strategy comparing the human FANCG protein sequence with its ortholog sequences in Oryzias latipes (Japanese rice fish) and Danio rerio (zebrafish) we identified at least seven tetratricopeptide repeat motifs (TPRs) covering a major part of this protein. TPRs are degenerate 34-amino acid repeat motifs which function as scaffolds mediating protein-protein interactions, often found in multiprotein complexes. In four out of five TPR motifs tested (TPR1, -2, -5, and -6), targeted missense mutagenesis disrupting the motifs at the critical position 8 of each TPR caused complete or partial loss of FANCG function. Loss of function was evident from failure of the mutant proteins to complement the cellular FA phenotype in FA-G lymphoblasts, which was correlated with loss of binding to FANCA. Although the TPR4 mutant fully complemented the cells, it showed a reduced interaction with FANCA, suggesting that this TPR may also be of functional importance. The recognition of FANCG as a typical TPR protein predicts this protein to play a key role in the assembly and/or stabilization of the nuclear FA protein core complex.

The city as a motif in Slovene youth literature

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Milena Mileva Blažić

2003-01-01

Full Text Available The article presents the city as motif of Slovenian youth literature in four different periods, beginning in the first period of original Slovenian youth literature in the second half of the 19th century, second period in the first half of the 20th century, third period in the second half of the 20th century and after 1950, when significant books were produced in the field of short modern stories, emphasising on picture books and realistic narrative prose, and the fourth period after 1990. A discernable shift can be observed in the thirties of the 20th century, during the times of socialist realism. The most significant change occurred after 1960, when massive migration from rural to urban environments caused by industrialisation began. The motif of urban environment especially marked modern realistic narrative, coined problematic narrative after 1990, with its focus on issues of growing up in such environments. The city as motif or theme doesn’t appear only in realistic narrative, but since the early 20th century also in fantastic narrative, thus it dichotomically presents the image of real world in Slovenian youth realistic narrative.

Peptide-binding motifs of two common equine class I MHC molecules in Thoroughbred horses.

Science.gov (United States)

Bergmann, Tobias; Lindvall, Mikaela; Moore, Erin; Moore, Eugene; Sidney, John; Miller, Donald; Tallmadge, Rebecca L; Myers, Paisley T; Malaker, Stacy A; Shabanowitz, Jeffrey; Osterrieder, Nikolaus; Peters, Bjoern; Hunt, Donald F; Antczak, Douglas F; Sette, Alessandro

2017-05-01

Quantitative peptide-binding motifs of MHC class I alleles provide a valuable tool to efficiently identify putative T cell epitopes. Detailed information on equine MHC class I alleles is still very limited, and to date, only a single equine MHC class I allele, Eqca-1*00101 (ELA-A3 haplotype), has been characterized. The present study extends the number of characterized ELA class I specificities in two additional haplotypes found commonly in the Thoroughbred breed. Accordingly, we here report quantitative binding motifs for the ELA-A2 allele Eqca-16*00101 and the ELA-A9 allele Eqca-1*00201. Utilizing analyses of endogenously bound and eluted ligands and the screening of positional scanning combinatorial libraries, detailed and quantitative peptide-binding motifs were derived for both alleles. Eqca-16*00101 preferentially binds peptides with aliphatic/hydrophobic residues in position 2 and at the C-terminus, and Eqca-1*00201 has a preference for peptides with arginine in position 2 and hydrophobic/aliphatic residues at the C-terminus. Interestingly, the Eqca-16*00101 motif resembles that of the human HLA A02-supertype, while the Eqca-1*00201 motif resembles that of the HLA B27-supertype and two macaque class I alleles. It is expected that the identified motifs will facilitate the selection of candidate epitopes for the study of immune responses in horses.

High affinity recognition of a Phytophthora protein by Arabidopsis via an RGD motif

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Senchou, V.; Weide, R.L.; Carrasco, A.; Bouyssou, H.; Pont-Lezica, R.; Govers, F.; Canut, H.

2004-01-01

The RGD tripeptide sequence, a cell adhesion motif present in several extracellular matrix proteins of mammalians, is involved in numerous plant processes. In plant-pathogen interactions, the RGD motif is believed to reduce plant defence responses by disrupting adhesions between the cell wall and

DXD Motif-Dependent and -Independent Effects of the Chlamydia trachomatis Cytotoxin CT166

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Miriam Bothe

2015-02-01

Full Text Available The Gram-negative, intracellular bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis causes acute and chronic urogenital tract infection, potentially leading to infertility and ectopic pregnancy. The only partially characterized cytotoxin CT166 of serovar D exhibits a DXD motif, which is important for the enzymatic activity of many bacterial and mammalian type A glycosyltransferases, leading to the hypothesis that CT166 possess glycosyltransferase activity. CT166-expressing HeLa cells exhibit actin reorganization, including cell rounding, which has been attributed to the inhibition of the Rho-GTPases Rac/Cdc42. Exploiting the glycosylation-sensitive Ras(27H5 antibody, we here show that CT166 induces an epitope change in Ras, resulting in inhibited ERK and PI3K signaling and delayed cell cycle progression. Consistent with the hypothesis that these effects strictly depend on the DXD motif, CT166 with the mutated DXD motif causes neither Ras-ERK inhibition nor delayed cell cycle progression. In contrast, CT166 with the mutated DXD motif is still capable of inhibiting cell migration, suggesting that CT166 with the mutated DXD motif cannot be regarded as inactive in any case. Taken together, CT166 affects various fundamental cellular processes, strongly suggesting its importance for the intracellular survival of chlamydia.

Alanine substitutions in the GXXXG motif alter C99 cleavage by γ-secretase but not its dimerization.

Science.gov (United States)

Higashide, Hidekazu; Ishihara, Seiko; Nobuhara, Mika; Ihara, Yasuo; Funamoto, Satoru

2017-03-01

The amyloid β (Aβ) protein is a major component of senile plaques, one of the neuropathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. Amyloidogenic processing of amyloid precursor protein (APP) by β- and γ-secretases leads to production of Aβ. APP contains tandem triple repeats of the GXXXG motif in its extracellular juxtamembrane and transmembrane regions. It is reported that the GXXXG motif is related to protein-protein interactions, but it remains controversial whether the GXXXG motif in APP is involved in substrate dimerization and whether dimerization affects γ-secretase-dependent cleavage. Therefore, the relationship between the GXXXG motifs, substrate dimerization, and γ-secretase-dependent cleavage sites remains unclear. Here, we applied blue native poly acrylamide gel electrophoresis to examine the effect of alanine substitutions within the GXXXG motifs of APP carboxyl terminal fragment (C99) on its dimerization and Aβ production. Surprisingly, alanine substitutions in the motif failed to alter C99 dimerization in detergent soluble state. Cell-based and solubilized γ-secretase assays demonstrated that increasing alanine substitutions in the motif tended to decrease long Aβ species such as Aβ42 and Aβ43 and to increase in short Aβ species concomitantly. Our data suggest that the GXXXG motif is crucial for Aβ production, but not for C99 dimerization. © 2016 International Society for Neurochemistry.

Disparate requirements for the Walker A and B ATPase motifs of human RAD51D in homologous recombination.

Science.gov (United States)

Wiese, Claudia; Hinz, John M; Tebbs, Robert S; Nham, Peter B; Urbin, Salustra S; Collins, David W; Thompson, Larry H; Schild, David

2006-01-01

In vertebrates, homologous recombinational repair (HRR) requires RAD51 and five RAD51 paralogs (XRCC2, XRCC3, RAD51B, RAD51C and RAD51D) that all contain conserved Walker A and B ATPase motifs. In human RAD51D we examined the requirement for these motifs in interactions with XRCC2 and RAD51C, and for survival of cells in response to DNA interstrand crosslinks (ICLs). Ectopic expression of wild-type human RAD51D or mutants having a non-functional A or B motif was used to test for complementation of a rad51d knockout hamster CHO cell line. Although A-motif mutants complement very efficiently, B-motif mutants do not. Consistent with these results, experiments using the yeast two- and three-hybrid systems show that the interactions between RAD51D and its XRCC2 and RAD51C partners also require a functional RAD51D B motif, but not motif A. Similarly, hamster Xrcc2 is unable to bind to the non-complementing human RAD51D B-motif mutants in co-immunoprecipitation assays. We conclude that a functional Walker B motif, but not A motif, is necessary for RAD51D's interactions with other paralogs and for efficient HRR. We present a model in which ATPase sites are formed in a bipartite manner between RAD51D and other RAD51 paralogs.

Liver X receptor regulates hepatic nuclear O-GlcNAc signaling and carbohydrate responsive element-binding protein activity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bindesbøll, Christian; Fan, Qiong; Nørgaard, Rikke C

2015-01-01

in response to feeding, which is believed to be mediated by insulin. We have previously shown that LXRs are targets for glucose-hexosamine-derived O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) modification enhancing their ability to regulate SREBP-1c promoter activity in vitro. To elucidate insulin...... of glycolytic and lipogenic enzymes, including glucokinase (GK), SREBP-1c, ChREBPα, and the newly identified shorter isoform ChREBPβ. Furthermore, glucose-dependent increases in LXR/retinoid X receptor-regulated luciferase activity driven by the ChREBPα promoter was mediated, at least in part, by O-GlcNAc...... transferase (OGT) signaling in Huh7 cells. Moreover, we show that LXR and OGT interact and colocalize in the nucleus and that loss of LXRs profoundly reduced nuclear O-GlcNAc signaling and ChREBPα promoter binding activity in vivo. In summary, our study provides evidence that LXRs act as nutrient and glucose...

The Verrucomicrobia LexA-binding Motif: Insights into the Evolutionary Dynamics of the SOS Response

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Ivan Erill

2016-07-01

Full Text Available The SOS response is the primary bacterial mechanism to address DNA damage, coordinating multiple cellular processes that include DNA repair, cell division and translesion synthesis. In contrast to other regulatory systems, the composition of the SOS genetic network and the binding motif of its transcriptional repressor, LexA, have been shown to vary greatly across bacterial clades, making it an ideal system to study the co-evolution of transcription factors and their regulons. Leveraging comparative genomics approaches and prior knowledge on the core SOS regulon, here we define the binding motif of the Verrucomicrobia, a recently described phylum of emerging interest due to its association with eukaryotic hosts. Site directed mutagenesis of the Verrucomicrobium spinosum recA promoter confirms that LexA binds a 14 bp palindromic motif with consensus sequence TGTTC-N4-GAACA. Computational analyses suggest that recognition of this novel motif is determined primarily by changes in base-contacting residues of the third alpha helix of the LexA helix-turn-helix DNA binding motif. In conjunction with comparative genomics analysis of the LexA regulon in the Verrucomicrobia phylum, electrophoretic shift assays reveal that LexA binds to operators in the promoter region of DNA repair genes and a mutagenesis cassette in this organism, and identify previously unreported components of the SOS response. The identification of tandem LexA-binding sites generating instances of other LexA-binding motifs in the lexA gene promoter of Verrucomicrobia species leads us to postulate a novel mechanism for LexA-binding motif evolution. This model, based on gene duplication, successfully addresses outstanding questions in the intricate co-evolution of the LexA protein, its binding motif and the regulatory network it controls.

The Verrucomicrobia LexA-Binding Motif: Insights into the Evolutionary Dynamics of the SOS Response.

Science.gov (United States)

Erill, Ivan; Campoy, Susana; Kılıç, Sefa; Barbé, Jordi

2016-01-01

The SOS response is the primary bacterial mechanism to address DNA damage, coordinating multiple cellular processes that include DNA repair, cell division, and translesion synthesis. In contrast to other regulatory systems, the composition of the SOS genetic network and the binding motif of its transcriptional repressor, LexA, have been shown to vary greatly across bacterial clades, making it an ideal system to study the co-evolution of transcription factors and their regulons. Leveraging comparative genomics approaches and prior knowledge on the core SOS regulon, here we define the binding motif of the Verrucomicrobia, a recently described phylum of emerging interest due to its association with eukaryotic hosts. Site directed mutagenesis of the Verrucomicrobium spinosum recA promoter confirms that LexA binds a 14 bp palindromic motif with consensus sequence TGTTC-N4-GAACA. Computational analyses suggest that recognition of this novel motif is determined primarily by changes in base-contacting residues of the third alpha helix of the LexA helix-turn-helix DNA binding motif. In conjunction with comparative genomics analysis of the LexA regulon in the Verrucomicrobia phylum, electrophoretic shift assays reveal that LexA binds to operators in the promoter region of DNA repair genes and a mutagenesis cassette in this organism, and identify previously unreported components of the SOS response. The identification of tandem LexA-binding sites generating instances of other LexA-binding motifs in the lexA gene promoter of Verrucomicrobia species leads us to postulate a novel mechanism for LexA-binding motif evolution. This model, based on gene duplication, successfully addresses outstanding questions in the intricate co-evolution of the LexA protein, its binding motif and the regulatory network it controls.

Altered DNA methylation of glycolytic and lipogenic genes in liver from obese and type 2 diabetic patients

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Henriette Kirchner

2016-03-01

Conclusion: Severely obese non-diabetic and type 2 diabetic patients have distinct alterations in the hepatic methylome and transcriptome, with hypomethylation of several genes controlling glucose metabolism within the ATF-motif regulatory site. Obesity appears to shift the epigenetic program of the liver towards increased glycolysis and lipogenesis, which may exacerbate the development of insulin resistance.

Proteome-level assessment of origin, prevalence and function of Leucine-Aspartic Acid (LD) motifs

KAUST Repository

Alam, Tanvir; Alazmi, Meshari; Naser, Rayan Mohammad Mahmoud; Huser, Franceline; Momin, Afaque Ahmad Imtiyaz; Walkiewicz, Katarzyna Wiktoria; Canlas, Christian; Huser, Raphaë l; Ali, Amal J.; Merzaban, Jasmeen; Bajic, Vladimir B.; Gao, Xin; Arold, Stefan T.

2018-01-01

and migration, and revealed a new type of inverse LD motif consensus. Our evolutionary analysis suggested that LD motif signalling originated in the common unicellular ancestor of opisthokonts and amoebozoa by co-opting nuclear export sequences. Inter

TOPDOM: database of conservatively located domains and motifs in proteins.

Science.gov (United States)

Varga, Julia; Dobson, László; Tusnády, Gábor E

2016-09-01

The TOPDOM database-originally created as a collection of domains and motifs located consistently on the same side of the membranes in α-helical transmembrane proteins-has been updated and extended by taking into consideration consistently localized domains and motifs in globular proteins, too. By taking advantage of the recently developed CCTOP algorithm to determine the type of a protein and predict topology in case of transmembrane proteins, and by applying a thorough search for domains and motifs as well as utilizing the most up-to-date version of all source databases, we managed to reach a 6-fold increase in the size of the whole database and a 2-fold increase in the number of transmembrane proteins. TOPDOM database is available at http://topdom.enzim.hu The webpage utilizes the common Apache, PHP5 and MySQL software to provide the user interface for accessing and searching the database. The database itself is generated on a high performance computer. tusnady.gabor@ttk.mta.hu Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.

Evidence for the additions of clustered interacting nodes during the evolution of protein interaction networks from network motifs

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Guo Hao

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background High-throughput screens have revealed large-scale protein interaction networks defining most cellular functions. How the proteins were added to the protein interaction network during its growth is a basic and important issue. Network motifs represent the simplest building blocks of cellular machines and are of biological significance. Results Here we study the evolution of protein interaction networks from the perspective of network motifs. We find that in current protein interaction networks, proteins of the same age class tend to form motifs and such co-origins of motif constituents are affected by their topologies and biological functions. Further, we find that the proteins within motifs whose constituents are of the same age class tend to be densely interconnected, co-evolve and share the same biological functions, and these motifs tend to be within protein complexes. Conclusions Our findings provide novel evidence for the hypothesis of the additions of clustered interacting nodes and point out network motifs, especially the motifs with the dense topology and specific function may play important roles during this process. Our results suggest functional constraints may be the underlying driving force for such additions of clustered interacting nodes.

Isoforms of elongation factor eEF1A may be differently regulated at post-transcriptional level in breast cancer progression

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Vislovukh A. A.

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Eukaryotic translation elongation factor 1A exists as two 98 % homologous isoforms: eEF1A1 (A1 and eEF1A2 (A2 which are tissue and development specific. Despite high homology in an open reading frame (ORF region, mRNAs coding for eEF1A1 and eEF1A2 are different in their untranslated regions (UTR, suggesting a possibility of their dissimilar post-transcriptional regulation. Aim. To analyze the existence of cis-acting motifs in the UTRs of EEF1A1/A2 mRNAs, to confirm the possibility of post-transcriptional control of eEF1A1 and eEF1A2 expression. Methods. An ensemble of bioinformatic methods was applied to predict regulatory motifs in the UTRs of EEF1A1/A2 mRNAs. Dual-luciferase reporter assay was employed to detect post-transcriptional regulation of eEF1A1/A2 expression. Results. Numerous regulatory motifs in the UTR of EEF1A1/A2 mRNAs were found bioinformatically. The experimental evidence was obtained for the existence of negative regulation of EEF1A1 and positive regulation of EEF1A2 mRNA in the model of breast cancer development. Conclusions. EEF1A1 and EEF1A2 mRNAs contain distinct motifs in the UTRs and are differently regulated in cancer suggesting the possibility of their control by different cellular signals.

Noise transmission and delay-induced stochastic oscillations in biochemical network motifs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu Sheng-Jun; Wang Qi; Liu Bo; Yan Shi-Wei; Sakata Fumihiko

2011-01-01

With the aid of stochastic delayed-feedback differential equations, we derive an analytic expression for the power spectra of reacting molecules included in a generic biological network motif that is incorporated with a feedback mechanism and time delays in gene regulation. We systematically analyse the effects of time delays, the feedback mechanism, and biological stochasticity on the power spectra. It has been clarified that the time delays together with the feedback mechanism can induce stochastic oscillations at the molecular level and invalidate the noise addition rule for a modular description of the noise propagator. Delay-induced stochastic resonance can be expected, which is related to the stability loss of the reaction systems and Hopf bifurcation occurring for solutions of the corresponding deterministic reaction equations. Through the analysis of the power spectrum, a new approach is proposed to estimate the oscillation period. (interdisciplinary physics and related areas of science and technology)

FTZ-Factor1 and Fushi tarazu interact via conserved nuclear receptor and coactivator motifs

Science.gov (United States)

Schwartz, Carol J.E.; Sampson, Heidi M.; Hlousek, Daniela; Percival-Smith, Anthony; Copeland, John W.R.; Simmonds, Andrew J.; Krause, Henry M.

2001-01-01

To activate transcription, most nuclear receptor proteins require coactivators that bind to their ligand-binding domains (LBDs). The Drosophila FTZ-Factor1 (FTZ-F1) protein is a conserved member of the nuclear receptor superfamily, but was previously thought to lack an AF2 motif, a motif that is required for ligand and coactivator binding. Here we show that FTZ-F1 does have an AF2 motif and that it is required to bind a coactivator, the homeodomain-containing protein Fushi tarazu (FTZ). We also show that FTZ contains an AF2-interacting nuclear receptor box, the first to be found in a homeodomain protein. Both interaction motifs are shown to be necessary for physical interactions in vitro and for functional interactions in developing embryos. These unexpected findings have important implications for the conserved homologs of the two proteins. PMID:11157757

Motifs in triadic random graphs based on Steiner triple systems

Science.gov (United States)

Winkler, Marco; Reichardt, Jörg

2013-08-01

Conventionally, pairwise relationships between nodes are considered to be the fundamental building blocks of complex networks. However, over the last decade, the overabundance of certain subnetwork patterns, i.e., the so-called motifs, has attracted much attention. It has been hypothesized that these motifs, instead of links, serve as the building blocks of network structures. Although the relation between a network's topology and the general properties of the system, such as its function, its robustness against perturbations, or its efficiency in spreading information, is the central theme of network science, there is still a lack of sound generative models needed for testing the functional role of subgraph motifs. Our work aims to overcome this limitation. We employ the framework of exponential random graph models (ERGMs) to define models based on triadic substructures. The fact that only a small portion of triads can actually be set independently poses a challenge for the formulation of such models. To overcome this obstacle, we use Steiner triple systems (STSs). These are partitions of sets of nodes into pair-disjoint triads, which thus can be specified independently. Combining the concepts of ERGMs and STSs, we suggest generative models capable of generating ensembles of networks with nontrivial triadic Z-score profiles. Further, we discover inevitable correlations between the abundance of triad patterns, which occur solely for statistical reasons and need to be taken into account when discussing the functional implications of motif statistics. Moreover, we calculate the degree distributions of our triadic random graphs analytically.

Exon silencing by UAGG motifs in response to neuronal excitation.

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Ping An

2007-02-01

Full Text Available Alternative pre-mRNA splicing plays fundamental roles in neurons by generating functional diversity in proteins associated with the communication and connectivity of the synapse. The CI cassette of the NMDA R1 receptor is one of a variety of exons that show an increase in exon skipping in response to cell excitation, but the molecular nature of this splicing responsiveness is not yet understood. Here we investigate the molecular basis for the induced changes in splicing of the CI cassette exon in primary rat cortical cultures in response to KCl-induced depolarization using an expression assay with a tight neuron-specific readout. In this system, exon silencing in response to neuronal excitation was mediated by multiple UAGG-type silencing motifs, and transfer of the motifs to a constitutive exon conferred a similar responsiveness by gain of function. Biochemical analysis of protein binding to UAGG motifs in extracts prepared from treated and mock-treated cortical cultures showed an increase in nuclear hnRNP A1-RNA binding activity in parallel with excitation. Evidence for the role of the NMDA receptor and calcium signaling in the induced splicing response was shown by the use of specific antagonists, as well as cell-permeable inhibitors of signaling pathways. Finally, a wider role for exon-skipping responsiveness is shown to involve additional exons with UAGG-related silencing motifs, and transcripts involved in synaptic functions. These results suggest that, at the post-transcriptional level, excitable exons such as the CI cassette may be involved in strategies by which neurons mount adaptive responses to hyperstimulation.

A Conserved GPG-Motif in the HIV-1 Nef Core Is Required for Principal Nef-Activities.

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Marta Martínez-Bonet

Full Text Available To find out new determinants required for Nef activity we performed a functional alanine scanning analysis along a discrete but highly conserved region at the core of HIV-1 Nef. We identified the GPG-motif, located at the 121-137 region of HIV-1 NL4.3 Nef, as a novel protein signature strictly required for the p56Lck dependent Nef-induced CD4-downregulation in T-cells. Since the Nef-GPG motif was dispensable for CD4-downregulation in HeLa-CD4 cells, Nef/AP-1 interaction and Nef-dependent effects on Tf-R trafficking, the observed effects on CD4 downregulation cannot be attributed to structure constraints or to alterations on general protein trafficking. Besides, we found that the GPG-motif was also required for Nef-dependent inhibition of ring actin re-organization upon TCR triggering and MHCI downregulation, suggesting that the GPG-motif could actively cooperate with the Nef PxxP motif for these HIV-1 Nef-related effects. Finally, we observed that the Nef-GPG motif was required for optimal infectivity of those viruses produced in T-cells. According to these findings, we propose the conserved GPG-motif in HIV-1 Nef as functional region required for HIV-1 infectivity and therefore with a potential interest for the interference of Nef activity during HIV-1 infection.

Linear motif atlas for phosphorylation-dependent signaling

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Miller, Martin Lee; Jensen, LJ; Diella, F

2008-01-01

bind to them remains a challenge. NetPhorest is an atlas of consensus sequence motifs that covers 179 kinases and 104 phosphorylation-dependent binding domains [Src homology 2 (SH2), phosphotyrosine binding (PTB), BRCA1 C-terminal (BRCT), WW, and 14-3-3]. The atlas reveals new aspects of signaling...

Analysis of network motifs in cellular regulation: Structural similarities, input-output relations and signal integration.

Science.gov (United States)

Straube, Ronny

2017-12-01

Much of the complexity of regulatory networks derives from the necessity to integrate multiple signals and to avoid malfunction due to cross-talk or harmful perturbations. Hence, one may expect that the input-output behavior of larger networks is not necessarily more complex than that of smaller network motifs which suggests that both can, under certain conditions, be described by similar equations. In this review, we illustrate this approach by discussing the similarities that exist in the steady state descriptions of a simple bimolecular reaction, covalent modification cycles and bacterial two-component systems. Interestingly, in all three systems fundamental input-output characteristics such as thresholds, ultrasensitivity or concentration robustness are described by structurally similar equations. Depending on the system the meaning of the parameters can differ ranging from protein concentrations and affinity constants to complex parameter combinations which allows for a quantitative understanding of signal integration in these systems. We argue that this approach may also be extended to larger regulatory networks. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Codon based co-occurrence network motifs in human mitochondria

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Pramod Shinde

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The nucleotide polymorphism in human mitochondrial genome (mtDNA tolled by codon position bias plays an indispensable role in human population dispersion and expansion. Herein, we constructed genome-wide nucleotide co-occurrence networks using a massive data consisting of five different geographical regions and around 3000 samples for each region. We developed a powerful network model to describe complex mitochondrial evolutionary patterns between codon and non-codon positions. It was interesting to report a different evolution of Asian genomes than those of the rest which is divulged by network motifs. We found evidence that mtDNA undergoes substantial amounts of adaptive evolution, a finding which was supported by a number of previous studies. The dominance of higher order motifs indicated the importance of long-range nucleotide co-occurrence in genomic diversity. Most notably, codon motifs apparently underpinned the preferences among codon positions for co-evolution which is probably highly biased during the origin of the genetic code. Our analyses manifested that codon position co-evolution is very well conserved across human sub-populations and independently maintained within human sub-populations implying the selective role of evolutionary processes on codon position co-evolution. Ergo, this study provided a framework to investigate cooperative genomic interactions which are critical in underlying complex mitochondrial evolution.

Dystroglycan versatility in cell adhesion: a tale of multiple motifs

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Winder Steve J

2010-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Dystroglycan is a ubiquitously expressed heterodimeric adhesion receptor. The extracellular α-subunit makes connections with a number of laminin G domain ligands including laminins, agrin and perlecan in the extracellular matrix and the transmembrane β-subunit makes connections to the actin filament network via cytoskeletal linkers including dystrophin, utrophin, ezrin and plectin, depending on context. Originally discovered as part of the dystrophin glycoprotein complex of skeletal muscle, dystroglycan is an important adhesion molecule and signalling scaffold in a multitude of cell types and tissues and is involved in several diseases. Dystroglycan has emerged as a multifunctional adhesion platform with many interacting partners associating with its short unstructured cytoplasmic domain. Two particular hotspots are the cytoplasmic juxtamembrane region and at the very carboxy terminus of dystroglycan. Regions which between them have several overlapping functions: in the juxtamembrane region; a nuclear localisation signal, ezrin/radixin/moesin protein, rapsyn and ERK MAP Kinase binding function, and at the C terminus a regulatory tyrosine governing WW, SH2 and SH3 domain interactions. We will discuss the binding partners for these motifs and how their interactions and regulation can modulate the involvement of dystroglycan in a range of different adhesion structures and functions depending on context. Thus dystroglycan presents as a multifunctional scaffold involved in adhesion and adhesion-mediated signalling with its functions under exquisite spatio-temporal regulation.

The conjugal-bed motif in the Alcestis Barcinonensis: two notes

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Rosario Moreno Soldevila

2011-06-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on the centrality occupied by the conjugal-bed motif in the anonymous poem known as Alcestis Barcinonensis, in the light of which two new interpretations of lines 21-22 and 83-85 are provided. In the first passage, beato … toro should be read as a subtle allusion to marital love, one of the central themes of the poem; in the second, uestigia alludes to a well-known literary motif related to the bed of love, thus providing a more accurate interpretation of the post mortem fidelity which Alcestis demands from her husband.

The BsaHI restriction-modification system: Cloning, sequencing and analysis of conserved motifs

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Roberts Richard J

2008-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Restriction and modification enzymes typically recognise short DNA sequences of between two and eight bases in length. Understanding the mechanism of this recognition represents a significant challenge that we begin to address for the BsaHI restriction-modification system, which recognises the six base sequence GRCGYC. Results The DNA sequences of the genes for the BsaHI methyltransferase, bsaHIM, and restriction endonuclease, bsaHIR, have been determined (GenBank accession #EU386360, cloned and expressed in E. coli. Both the restriction endonuclease and methyltransferase enzymes share significant similarity with a group of 6 other enzymes comprising the restriction-modification systems HgiDI and HgiGI and the putative HindVP, NlaCORFDP, NpuORFC228P and SplZORFNP restriction-modification systems. A sequence alignment of these homologues shows that their amino acid sequences are largely conserved and highlights several motifs of interest. We target one such conserved motif, reading SPERRFD, at the C-terminal end of the bsaHIR gene. A mutational analysis of these amino acids indicates that the motif is crucial for enzymatic activity. Sequence alignment of the methyltransferase gene reveals a short motif within the target recognition domain that is conserved among enzymes recognising the same sequences. Thus, this motif may be used as a diagnostic tool to define the recognition sequences of the cytosine C5 methyltransferases. Conclusion We have cloned and sequenced the BsaHI restriction and modification enzymes. We have identified a region of the R. BsaHI enzyme that is crucial for its activity. Analysis of the amino acid sequence of the BsaHI methyltransferase enzyme led us to propose two new motifs that can be used in the diagnosis of the recognition sequence of the cytosine C5-methyltransferases.

A Simple Decision Rule for Recognition of Poly(A) Tail Signal Motifs in Human Genome

KAUST Repository

AbouEisha, Hassan M.

2015-05-12

Background is the numerous attempts were made to predict motifs in genomic sequences that correspond to poly (A) tail signals. Vast portion of this effort has been directed to a plethora of nonlinear classification methods. Even when such approaches yield good discriminant results, identifying dominant features of regulatory mechanisms nevertheless remains a challenge. In this work, we look at decision rules that may help identifying such features. Findings are we present a simple decision rule for classification of candidate poly (A) tail signal motifs in human genomic sequence obtained by evaluating features during the construction of gradient boosted trees. We found that values of a single feature based on the frequency of adenine in the genomic sequence surrounding candidate signal and the number of consecutive adenine molecules in a well-defined region immediately following the motif displays good discriminative potential in classification of poly (A) tail motifs for samples covered by the rule. Conclusions is the resulting simple rule can be used as an efficient filter in construction of more complex poly(A) tail motifs classification algorithms.

An Analysis of Multi-type Relational Interactions in FMA Using Graph Motifs with Disjointness Constraints

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Guo-Qiang; Luo, Lingyun; Ogbuji, Chime; Joslyn, Cliff; Mejino, Jose; Sahoo, Satya S

2012-01-01

The interaction of multiple types of relationships among anatomical classes in the Foundational Model of Anatomy (FMA) can provide inferred information valuable for quality assurance. This paper introduces a method called Motif Checking (MOCH) to study the effects of such multi-relation type interactions for detecting logical inconsistencies as well as other anomalies represented by the motifs. MOCH represents patterns of multi-type interaction as small labeled (with multiple types of edges) sub-graph motifs, whose nodes represent class variables, and labeled edges represent relational types. By representing FMA as an RDF graph and motifs as SPARQL queries, fragments of FMA are automatically obtained as auditing candidates. Leveraging the scalability and reconfigurability of Semantic Web Technology, we performed exhaustive analyses of a variety of labeled sub-graph motifs. The quality assurance feature of MOCH comes from the distinct use of a subset of the edges of the graph motifs as constraints for disjointness, whereby bringing in rule-based flavor to the approach as well. With possible disjointness implied by antonyms, we performed manual inspection of the resulting FMA fragments and tracked down sources of abnormal inferred conclusions (logical inconsistencies), which are amendable for programmatic revision of the FMA. Our results demonstrate that MOCH provides a unique source of valuable information for quality assurance. Since our approach is general, it is applicable to any ontological system with an OWL representation. PMID:23304382

An analysis of multi-type relational interactions in FMA using graph motifs with disjointness constraints.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Guo-Qiang; Luo, Lingyun; Ogbuji, Chime; Joslyn, Cliff; Mejino, Jose; Sahoo, Satya S

2012-01-01

The interaction of multiple types of relationships among anatomical classes in the Foundational Model of Anatomy (FMA) can provide inferred information valuable for quality assurance. This paper introduces a method called Motif Checking (MOCH) to study the effects of such multi-relation type interactions for detecting logical inconsistencies as well as other anomalies represented by the motifs. MOCH represents patterns of multi-type interaction as small labeled (with multiple types of edges) sub-graph motifs, whose nodes represent class variables, and labeled edges represent relational types. By representing FMA as an RDF graph and motifs as SPARQL queries, fragments of FMA are automatically obtained as auditing candidates. Leveraging the scalability and reconfigurability of Semantic Web Technology, we performed exhaustive analyses of a variety of labeled sub-graph motifs. The quality assurance feature of MOCH comes from the distinct use of a subset of the edges of the graph motifs as constraints for disjointness, whereby bringing in rule-based flavor to the approach as well. With possible disjointness implied by antonyms, we performed manual inspection of the resulting FMA fragments and tracked down sources of abnormal inferred conclusions (logical inconsistencies), which are amendable for programmatic revision of the FMA. Our results demonstrate that MOCH provides a unique source of valuable information for quality assurance. Since our approach is general, it is applicable to any ontological system with an OWL representation.

Accurate quantification of microRNA via single strand displacement reaction on DNA origami motif.

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Jie Zhu

Full Text Available DNA origami is an emerging technology that assembles hundreds of staple strands and one single-strand DNA into certain nanopattern. It has been widely used in various fields including detection of biological molecules such as DNA, RNA and proteins. MicroRNAs (miRNAs play important roles in post-transcriptional gene repression as well as many other biological processes such as cell growth and differentiation. Alterations of miRNAs' expression contribute to many human diseases. However, it is still a challenge to quantitatively detect miRNAs by origami technology. In this study, we developed a novel approach based on streptavidin and quantum dots binding complex (STV-QDs labeled single strand displacement reaction on DNA origami to quantitatively detect the concentration of miRNAs. We illustrated a linear relationship between the concentration of an exemplary miRNA as miRNA-133 and the STV-QDs hybridization efficiency; the results demonstrated that it is an accurate nano-scale miRNA quantifier motif. In addition, both symmetrical rectangular motif and asymmetrical China-map motif were tested. With significant linearity in both motifs, our experiments suggested that DNA Origami motif with arbitrary shape can be utilized in this method. Since this DNA origami-based method we developed owns the unique advantages of simple, time-and-material-saving, potentially multi-targets testing in one motif and relatively accurate for certain impurity samples as counted directly by atomic force microscopy rather than fluorescence signal detection, it may be widely used in quantification of miRNAs.

Accurate Quantification of microRNA via Single Strand Displacement Reaction on DNA Origami Motif

Science.gov (United States)

Lou, Jingyu; Li, Weidong; Li, Sheng; Zhu, Hongxin; Yang, Lun; Zhang, Aiping; He, Lin; Li, Can

2013-01-01

DNA origami is an emerging technology that assembles hundreds of staple strands and one single-strand DNA into certain nanopattern. It has been widely used in various fields including detection of biological molecules such as DNA, RNA and proteins. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in post-transcriptional gene repression as well as many other biological processes such as cell growth and differentiation. Alterations of miRNAs' expression contribute to many human diseases. However, it is still a challenge to quantitatively detect miRNAs by origami technology. In this study, we developed a novel approach based on streptavidin and quantum dots binding complex (STV-QDs) labeled single strand displacement reaction on DNA origami to quantitatively detect the concentration of miRNAs. We illustrated a linear relationship between the concentration of an exemplary miRNA as miRNA-133 and the STV-QDs hybridization efficiency; the results demonstrated that it is an accurate nano-scale miRNA quantifier motif. In addition, both symmetrical rectangular motif and asymmetrical China-map motif were tested. With significant linearity in both motifs, our experiments suggested that DNA Origami motif with arbitrary shape can be utilized in this method. Since this DNA origami-based method we developed owns the unique advantages of simple, time-and-material-saving, potentially multi-targets testing in one motif and relatively accurate for certain impurity samples as counted directly by atomic force microscopy rather than fluorescence signal detection, it may be widely used in quantification of miRNAs. PMID:23990889

Accurate quantification of microRNA via single strand displacement reaction on DNA origami motif.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Jie; Feng, Xiaolu; Lou, Jingyu; Li, Weidong; Li, Sheng; Zhu, Hongxin; Yang, Lun; Zhang, Aiping; He, Lin; Li, Can

2013-01-01

DNA origami is an emerging technology that assembles hundreds of staple strands and one single-strand DNA into certain nanopattern. It has been widely used in various fields including detection of biological molecules such as DNA, RNA and proteins. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in post-transcriptional gene repression as well as many other biological processes such as cell growth and differentiation. Alterations of miRNAs' expression contribute to many human diseases. However, it is still a challenge to quantitatively detect miRNAs by origami technology. In this study, we developed a novel approach based on streptavidin and quantum dots binding complex (STV-QDs) labeled single strand displacement reaction on DNA origami to quantitatively detect the concentration of miRNAs. We illustrated a linear relationship between the concentration of an exemplary miRNA as miRNA-133 and the STV-QDs hybridization efficiency; the results demonstrated that it is an accurate nano-scale miRNA quantifier motif. In addition, both symmetrical rectangular motif and asymmetrical China-map motif were tested. With significant linearity in both motifs, our experiments suggested that DNA Origami motif with arbitrary shape can be utilized in this method. Since this DNA origami-based method we developed owns the unique advantages of simple, time-and-material-saving, potentially multi-targets testing in one motif and relatively accurate for certain impurity samples as counted directly by atomic force microscopy rather than fluorescence signal detection, it may be widely used in quantification of miRNAs.

SSTRAP: A computational model for genomic motif discovery ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Computational methods can potentially provide high-quality prediction of biological molecules such as DNA binding sites and Transcription factors and therefore reduce the time needed for experimental verification and challenges associated with experimental methods. These biological molecules or motifs have significant ...

Effects of Growth Hormone Gene Polymorphism on Lipogenic Gene Expression Levels in Diaphragm Tissues of Japanese Black Heifers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Astrid Ardiyanti

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Two SNPs, i.e. L127V and T172M, of bovine growth hormone (GH causing the presence of GH gene haplotypes A, B, and C was previously shown to alter intramuscular fatty acid (FA composition in Japanese Black (JB heifers. To determine the SNP effect on somatotropic hormone concentration and lipogenesis, we measured plasma GH, insulin, and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1 concentrations. We also measured mRNA levels of fatty acid synthase (FASN, stearoyl-coA desaturase (SCD, and sterol regulatory element binding proteins-1 (SREBP-1 and FA composition in diaphragm tissues. Heifers with genotype CC had the lowest plasma insulin concentration and FASN and SCD mRNA levels among genotypes. FASN mRNA levels in haplotype A tended to positively correlate with saturated FA (SFA content and negatively correlated with C18:2 and unsaturated FA (USFA contents. SCD mRNA levels in haplotype A positively correlated with monounsaturated FA (MUFA contents and negatively correlated with C18:0 content. They also tended to positively correlate with C16:1, C18:1, and USFA contents and USFA/SFA ratio and negatively correlate with SFA content. Taken together, GH gene polymorphism affects the lipogenic genes expression levels and their relationships with fatty acid compositions in diaphragm tissues of JB heifers at 31 months of age.

New PAH gene promoter KLF1 and 3'-region C/EBPalpha motifs influence transcription in vitro.

Science.gov (United States)

Klaassen, Kristel; Stankovic, Biljana; Kotur, Nikola; Djordjevic, Maja; Zukic, Branka; Nikcevic, Gordana; Ugrin, Milena; Spasovski, Vesna; Srzentic, Sanja; Pavlovic, Sonja; Stojiljkovic, Maja

2017-02-01

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a metabolic disease caused by mutations in the phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH) gene. Although the PAH genotype remains the main determinant of PKU phenotype severity, genotype-phenotype inconsistencies have been reported. In this study, we focused on unanalysed sequences in non-coding PAH gene regions to assess their possible influence on the PKU phenotype. We transiently transfected HepG2 cells with various chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (CAT) reporter constructs which included PAH gene non-coding regions. Selected non-coding regions were indicated by in silico prediction to contain transcription factor binding sites. Furthermore, electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) and supershift assays were performed to identify which transcriptional factors were engaged in the interaction. We found novel KLF1 motif in the PAH promoter, which decreases CAT activity by 50 % in comparison to basal transcription in vitro. The cytosine at the c.-170 promoter position creates an additional binding site for the protein complex involving KLF1 transcription factor. Moreover, we assessed for the first time the role of a multivariant variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) region located in the 3'-region of the PAH gene. We found that the VNTR3, VNTR7 and VNTR8 constructs had approximately 60 % of CAT activity. The regulation is mediated by the C/EBPalpha transcription factor, present in protein complex binding to VNTR3. Our study highlighted two novel promoter KLF1 and 3'-region C/EBPalpha motifs in the PAH gene which decrease transcription in vitro and, thus, could be considered as PAH expression modifiers. New transcription motifs in non-coding regions will contribute to better understanding of the PKU phenotype complexity and may become important for the optimisation of PKU treatment.

Positive evolutionary selection of an HD motif on Alzheimer precursor protein orthologues suggests a functional role.

Science.gov (United States)

Miklós, István; Zádori, Zoltán

2012-02-01

HD amino acid duplex has been found in the active center of many different enzymes. The dyad plays remarkably different roles in their catalytic processes that usually involve metal coordination. An HD motif is positioned directly on the amyloid beta fragment (Aβ) and on the carboxy-terminal region of the extracellular domain (CAED) of the human amyloid precursor protein (APP) and a taxonomically well defined group of APP orthologues (APPOs). In human Aβ HD is part of a presumed, RGD-like integrin-binding motif RHD; however, neither RHD nor RXD demonstrates reasonable conservation in APPOs. The sequences of CAEDs and the position of the HD are not particularly conserved either, yet we show with a novel statistical method using evolutionary modeling that the presence of HD on CAEDs cannot be the result of neutral evolutionary forces (pHD motif is underrepresented in the proteomes of all species of the animal kingdom. Position migration can be explained by high probability occurrence of multiple copies of HD on intermediate sequences, from which only one is kept by selective evolutionary forces, in a similar way as in the case of the "transcription binding site turnover." CAED of all APP orthologues and homologues are predicted to bind metal ions including Amyloid-like protein 1 (APLP1) and Amyloid-like protein 2 (APLP2). Our results suggest that HDs on the CAEDs are most probably key components of metal-binding domains, which facilitate and/or regulate inter- or intra-molecular interactions in a metal ion-dependent or metal ion concentration-dependent manner. The involvement of naturally occurring mutations of HD (Tottori (D7N) and English (H6R) mutations) in early onset Alzheimer's disease gives additional support to our finding that HD has an evolutionary preserved function on APPOs.

Structural motifs of pre-nucleation clusters.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Y; Türkmen, I R; Wassermann, B; Erko, A; Rühl, E

2013-10-07

Structural motifs of pre-nucleation clusters prepared in single, optically levitated supersaturated aqueous aerosol microparticles containing CaBr2 as a model system are reported. Cluster formation is identified by means of X-ray absorption in the Br K-edge regime. The salt concentration beyond the saturation point is varied by controlling the humidity in the ambient atmosphere surrounding the 15-30 μm microdroplets. This leads to the formation of metastable supersaturated liquid particles. Distinct spectral shifts in near-edge spectra as a function of salt concentration are observed, in which the energy position of the Br K-edge is red-shifted by up to 7.1 ± 0.4 eV if the dilute solution is compared to the solid. The K-edge positions of supersaturated solutions are found between these limits. The changes in electronic structure are rationalized in terms of the formation of pre-nucleation clusters. This assumption is verified by spectral simulations using first-principle density functional theory and molecular dynamics calculations, in which structural motifs are considered, explaining the experimental results. These consist of solvated CaBr2 moieties, rather than building blocks forming calcium bromide hexahydrates, the crystal system that is formed by drying aqueous CaBr2 solutions.

Elucidation of functional markers from Aspergillus nidulans developmental regulator FlbB and their phylogenetic distribution.

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Marc S Cortese

Full Text Available Aspergillus nidulans is a filamentous fungus widely used as a model for biotechnological and clinical research. It is also used as a platform for the study of basic eukaryotic developmental processes. Previous studies identified and partially characterized a set of proteins controlling cellular transformations in this ascomycete. Among these proteins, the bZip type transcription factor FlbB is a key regulator of reproduction, stress responses and cell-death. Our aim here was the prediction, through various bioinformatic methods, of key functional residues and motifs within FlbB in order to inform the design of future laboratory experiments and further the understanding of the molecular mechanisms that control fungal development. A dataset of FlbB orthologs and those of its key interaction partner FlbE was assembled from 40 members of the Pezizomycotina. Unique features were identified in each of the three structural domains of FlbB. The N-terminal region encoded a bZip transcription factor domain with a novel histidine-containing DNA binding motif while the dimerization determinants exhibited two distinct profiles that segregated by class. The C-terminal region of FlbB showed high similarity with the AP-1 family of stress response regulators but with variable patterns of conserved cysteines that segregated by class and order. Motif conservation analysis revealed that nine FlbB orthologs belonging to the Eurotiales order contained a motif in the central region that could mediate interaction with FlbE. The key residues and motifs identified here provide a basis for the design of follow-up experimental investigations. Additionally, the presence or absence of these residues and motifs among the FlbB orthologs could help explain the differences in the developmental programs among fungal species as well as define putative complementation groups that could serve to extend known functional characterizations to other species.

ATP-binding motifs play key roles in Krp1p, kinesin-related protein 1, function for bi-polar growth control in fission yeast

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rhee, Dong Keun; Cho, Bon A; Kim, Hyong Bai

2005-01-01

Kinesin is a microtubule-based motor protein with various functions related to the cell growth and division. It has been reported that Krp1p, kinesin-related protein 1, which belongs to the kinesin heavy chain superfamily, localizes on microtubules and may play an important role in cytokinesis. However, the function of Krp1p has not been fully elucidated. In this study, we overexpressed an intact form and three different mutant forms of Krp1p in fission yeast constructed by site-directed mutagenesis in two ATP-binding motifs or by truncation of the leucine zipper-like motif (LZiP). We observed hyper-extended microtubules and the aberrant nuclear shape in Krp1p-overexpressed fission yeast. As a functional consequence, a point mutation of ATP-binding domain 1 (G89E) in Krp1p reversed the effect of Krp1p overexpression in fission yeast, whereas the specific mutation in ATP-binding domain 2 (G238E) resulted in the altered cell polarity. Additionally, truncation of the leucine zipper-like domain (LZiP) at the C-terminal of Krp1p showed a normal nuclear division. Taken together, we suggest that krp1p is involved in regulation of cell-polarized growth through ATP-binding motifs in fission yeast

Nuclear magnetic resonance studies of metabolic regulation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sillerud, L.O.; Han, C.H.; Whaley, T.W.

1983-01-01

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques for the detection of the metabolic transformations of biological compounds labeled with stable isotopes, particularly carbon-13 have been explored. We have studied adipose tissue in the intact rat, the exteriorized epididymal fat pad, and the isolated adipocyte. Triacylglycerol metabolism in adipose tissue is regulated by lipogenic factors (insulin, corticosterone, thyroxine, and growth hormone) and lipolytic factors (glucagon and catecholamines). The synthesis of triglyceride from 5.5 mM glucose was stimulated by about 4-fold by 10 nM insulin. Triglyceride synthesis from glucose in the presence of insulin occurred at a rate of 330 nmol/hr/10 6 cells. Since the NMR signals from free and esterified fatty acids and glycerol are distinct, we could directly measure the rate of hormone-stimulated lipolysis. Epinephrine (10 μM) gave a lipolytic rate of 0.30 μmol/hr/10 6 cells as monitored by free-glycerol appearance in the medium. 13 C NMR provides a superior method for the measurement of triglyceride metabolism since it directly measures the changes in the substrates and products in situ

Insights into the evolution and diversification of the AT-hook Motif Nuclear Localized gene family in land plants.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Jianfei; Favero, David S; Qiu, Jiwen; Roalson, Eric H; Neff, Michael M

2014-10-14

Members of the ancient land-plant-specific transcription factor AT-Hook Motif Nuclear Localized (AHL) gene family regulate various biological processes. However, the relationships among the AHL genes, as well as their evolutionary history, still remain unexplored. We analyzed over 500 AHL genes from 19 land plant species, ranging from the early diverging Physcomitrella patens and Selaginella to a variety of monocot and dicot flowering plants. We classified the AHL proteins into three types (Type-I/-II/-III) based on the number and composition of their functional domains, the AT-hook motif(s) and PPC domain. We further inferred their phylogenies via Bayesian inference analysis and predicted gene gain/loss events throughout their diversification. Our analyses suggested that the AHL gene family emerged in embryophytes and further evolved into two distinct clades, with Type-I AHLs forming one clade (Clade-A), and the other two types together diversifying in another (Clade-B). The two AHL clades likely diverged before the separation of Physcomitrella patens from the vascular plant lineage. In angiosperms, Clade-A AHLs expanded into 5 subfamilies; while, the ones in Clade-B expanded into 4 subfamilies. Examination of their expression patterns suggests that the AHLs within each clade share similar expression patterns with each other; however, AHLs in one monophyletic clade exhibit distinct expression patterns from the ones in the other clade. Over-expression of a Glycine max AHL PPC domain in Arabidopsis thaliana recapitulates the phenotype observed when over-expressing its Arabidopsis thaliana counterpart. This result suggests that the AHL genes from different land plant species may share conserved functions in regulating plant growth and development. Our study further suggests that such functional conservation may be due to conserved physical interactions among the PPC domains of AHL proteins. Our analyses reveal a possible evolutionary scenario for the AHL gene family

Functional motifs responsible for human metapneumovirus M2-2-mediated innate immune evasion.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yu; Deng, Xiaoling; Deng, Junfang; Zhou, Jiehua; Ren, Yuping; Liu, Shengxuan; Prusak, Deborah J; Wood, Thomas G; Bao, Xiaoyong

2016-12-01

Human metapneumovirus (hMPV) is a major cause of lower respiratory infection in young children. Repeated infections occur throughout life, but its immune evasion mechanisms are largely unknown. We recently found that hMPV M2-2 protein elicits immune evasion by targeting mitochondrial antiviral-signaling protein (MAVS), an antiviral signaling molecule. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying such inhibition are not known. Our mutagenesis studies revealed that PDZ-binding motifs, 29-DEMI-32 and 39-KEALSDGI-46, located in an immune inhibitory region of M2-2, are responsible for M2-2-mediated immune evasion. We also found both motifs prevent TRAF5 and TRAF6, the MAVS downstream adaptors, to be recruited to MAVS, while the motif 39-KEALSDGI-46 also blocks TRAF3 migrating to MAVS. In parallel, these TRAFs are important in activating transcription factors NF-kB and/or IRF-3 by hMPV. Our findings collectively demonstrate that M2-2 uses its PDZ motifs to launch the hMPV immune evasion through blocking the interaction of MAVS and its downstream TRAFs. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Core signalling motif displaying multistability through multi-state enzymes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Feng, Song; Saez Cornellana, Meritxell; Wiuf, Carsten Henrik

2016-01-01

Bistability, and more generally multistability, is a key system dynamics feature enabling decision-making and memory in cells. Deciphering the molecular determinants of multistability is thus crucial for a better understanding of cellular pathways and their (re)engineering in synthetic biology....... Here, we show that a key motif found predominantly in eukaryotic signalling systems, namely a futile signalling cycle, can display bistability when featuring a two-state kinase. We provide necessary and sufficient mathematical conditions on the kinetic parameters of this motif that guarantee...... the existence of multiple steady states. These conditions foster the intuition that bistability arises as a consequence of competition between the two states of the kinase. Extending from this result, we find that increasing the number of kinase states linearly translates into an increase in the number...

Discovery and validation of information theory-based transcription factor and cofactor binding site motifs.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Ruipeng; Mucaki, Eliseos J; Rogan, Peter K

2017-03-17

Data from ChIP-seq experiments can derive the genome-wide binding specificities of transcription factors (TFs) and other regulatory proteins. We analyzed 765 ENCODE ChIP-seq peak datasets of 207 human TFs with a novel motif discovery pipeline based on recursive, thresholded entropy minimization. This approach, while obviating the need to compensate for skewed nucleotide composition, distinguishes true binding motifs from noise, quantifies the strengths of individual binding sites based on computed affinity and detects adjacent cofactor binding sites that coordinate with the targets of primary, immunoprecipitated TFs. We obtained contiguous and bipartite information theory-based position weight matrices (iPWMs) for 93 sequence-specific TFs, discovered 23 cofactor motifs for 127 TFs and revealed six high-confidence novel motifs. The reliability and accuracy of these iPWMs were determined via four independent validation methods, including the detection of experimentally proven binding sites, explanation of effects of characterized SNPs, comparison with previously published motifs and statistical analyses. We also predict previously unreported TF coregulatory interactions (e.g. TF complexes). These iPWMs constitute a powerful tool for predicting the effects of sequence variants in known binding sites, performing mutation analysis on regulatory SNPs and predicting previously unrecognized binding sites and target genes. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Do motifs reflect evolved function?--No convergent evolution of genetic regulatory network subgraph topologies.

Science.gov (United States)

Knabe, Johannes F; Nehaniv, Chrystopher L; Schilstra, Maria J

2008-01-01

Methods that analyse the topological structure of networks have recently become quite popular. Whether motifs (subgraph patterns that occur more often than in randomized networks) have specific functions as elementary computational circuits has been cause for debate. As the question is difficult to resolve with currently available biological data, we approach the issue using networks that abstractly model natural genetic regulatory networks (GRNs) which are evolved to show dynamical behaviors. Specifically one group of networks was evolved to be capable of exhibiting two different behaviors ("differentiation") in contrast to a group with a single target behavior. In both groups we find motif distribution differences within the groups to be larger than differences between them, indicating that evolutionary niches (target functions) do not necessarily mold network structure uniquely. These results show that variability operators can have a stronger influence on network topologies than selection pressures, especially when many topologies can create similar dynamics. Moreover, analysis of motif functional relevance by lesioning did not suggest that motifs were of greater importance to the functioning of the network than arbitrary subgraph patterns. Only when drastically restricting network size, so that one motif corresponds to a whole functionally evolved network, was preference for particular connection patterns found. This suggests that in non-restricted, bigger networks, entanglement with the rest of the network hinders topological subgraph analysis.

Identification of a Baeyer-Villiger monooxygenase sequence motif

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fraaije, MW; Kamerbeek, NM; van Berkel, WJH; Janssen, DB; Kamerbeek, Nanne M.; Berkel, Willem J.H. van

2002-01-01

Baeyer-Villiger monooxygenases (BVMOs) form a distinct class of flavoproteins that catalyze the insertion of an oxygen atom in a C-C bond using dioxygen and NAD(P)H. Using newly characterized BVMO sequences, we have uncovered a BVMO-identifying sequence motif: FXGXXXRXXXW(P/D). Studies with

Assessment of algorithms for inferring positional weight matrix motifs of transcription factor binding sites using protein binding microarray data.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yaron Orenstein

Full Text Available The new technology of protein binding microarrays (PBMs allows simultaneous measurement of the binding intensities of a transcription factor to tens of thousands of synthetic double-stranded DNA probes, covering all possible 10-mers. A key computational challenge is inferring the binding motif from these data. We present a systematic comparison of four methods developed specifically for reconstructing a binding site motif represented as a positional weight matrix from PBM data. The reconstructed motifs were evaluated in terms of three criteria: concordance with reference motifs from the literature and ability to predict in vivo and in vitro bindings. The evaluation encompassed over 200 transcription factors and some 300 assays. The results show a tradeoff between how the methods perform according to the different criteria, and a dichotomy of method types. Algorithms that construct motifs with low information content predict PBM probe ranking more faithfully, while methods that produce highly informative motifs match reference motifs better. Interestingly, in predicting high-affinity binding, all methods give far poorer results for in vivo assays compared to in vitro assays.

Factoring local sequence composition in motif significance analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Ng, Patrick; Keich, Uri

2008-01-01

We recently introduced a biologically realistic and reliable significance analysis of the output of a popular class of motif finders. In this paper we further improve our significance analysis by incorporating local base composition information. Relying on realistic biological data simulation, as well as on FDR analysis applied to real data, we show that our method is significantly better than the increasingly popular practice of using the normal approximation to estimate the significance of a finder's output. Finally we turn to leveraging our reliable significance analysis to improve the actual motif finding task. Specifically, endowing a variant of the Gibbs Sampler with our improved significance analysis we demonstrate that de novo finders can perform better than has been perceived. Significantly, our new variant outperforms all the finders reviewed in a recently published comprehensive analysis of the Harbison genome-wide binding location data. Interestingly, many of these finders incorporate additional information such as nucleosome positioning and the significance of binding data.

The Arabidopsis mediator complex subunits MED16, MED14, and MED2 regulate mediator and RNA polymerase II recruitment to CBF-responsive cold-regulated genes.

Science.gov (United States)

Hemsley, Piers A; Hurst, Charlotte H; Kaliyadasa, Ewon; Lamb, Rebecca; Knight, Marc R; De Cothi, Elizabeth A; Steele, John F; Knight, Heather

2014-01-01

The Mediator16 (MED16; formerly termed SENSITIVE TO FREEZING6 [SFR6]) subunit of the plant Mediator transcriptional coactivator complex regulates cold-responsive gene expression in Arabidopsis thaliana, acting downstream of the C-repeat binding factor (CBF) transcription factors to recruit the core Mediator complex to cold-regulated genes. Here, we use loss-of-function mutants to show that RNA polymerase II recruitment to CBF-responsive cold-regulated genes requires MED16, MED2, and MED14 subunits. Transcription of genes known to be regulated via CBFs binding to the C-repeat motif/drought-responsive element promoter motif requires all three Mediator subunits, as does cold acclimation-induced freezing tolerance. In addition, these three subunits are required for low temperature-induced expression of some other, but not all, cold-responsive genes, including genes that are not known targets of CBFs. Genes inducible by darkness also required MED16 but required a different combination of Mediator subunits for their expression than the genes induced by cold. Together, our data illustrate that plants control transcription of specific genes through the action of subsets of Mediator subunits; the specific combination defined by the nature of the stimulus but also by the identity of the gene induced.

The autoimmunity risk variant LYP-W620 cooperates with CSK in the regulation of TCR signaling.

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María Luisa de la Puerta

Full Text Available The protein tyrosine phosphatase LYP, a key regulator of TCR signaling, presents a single nucleotide polymorphism, C1858T, associated with several autoimmune diseases such as type I diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus. This polymorphism changes an R by a W in the P1 Pro rich motif of LYP, which binds to CSK SH3 domain, another negative regulator of TCR signaling. Based on the analysis of the mouse homologue, Pep, it was proposed that LYP and CSK bind constitutively to inhibit LCK and subsequently TCR signaling. The detailed study of LYP/CSK interaction, here presented, showed that LYP/CSK interaction was inducible upon TCR stimulation, and involved LYP P1 and P2 motifs, and CSK SH3 and SH2 domains. Abrogating LYP/CSK interaction did not preclude the regulation of TCR signaling by these proteins.

DNA regulatory motif selection based on support vector machine ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

... machine (SVM) and its application in microarray experiment of Kashin-Beck disease. ... speed and amount of the corresponding mRNA in gene replication process. ... and revealed that some motifs may be related to the immune reactions.

A novel fibronectin binding motif in MSCRAMMs targets F3 modules.

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Sabitha Prabhakaran

Full Text Available BBK32 is a surface expressed lipoprotein and fibronectin (Fn-binding microbial surface component recognizing adhesive matrix molecule (MSCRAMM of Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease. Previous studies from our group showed that BBK32 is a virulence factor in experimental Lyme disease and located the Fn-binding region to residues 21-205 of the lipoprotein.Studies aimed at identifying interacting sites between BBK32 and Fn revealed an interaction between the MSCRAMM and the Fn F3 modules. Further analysis of this interaction showed that BBK32 can cause the aggregation of human plasma Fn in a similar concentration-dependent manner to that of anastellin, the superfibronectin (sFn inducing agent. The resulting Fn aggregates are conformationally distinct from plasma Fn as indicated by a change in available thermolysin cleavage sites. Recombinant BBK32 and anastellin affect the structure of Fn matrices formed by cultured fibroblasts and inhibit endothelial cell proliferation similarly. Within BBK32, we have located the sFn-forming activity to a region between residues 160 and 175 which contains two sequence motifs that are also found in anastellin. Synthetic peptides mimicking these motifs induce Fn aggregation, whereas a peptide with a scrambled sequence motif was inactive, suggesting that these motifs represent the sFn-inducing sequence.We conclude that BBK32 induces the formation of Fn aggregates that are indistinguishable from those formed by anastellin. The results of this study provide evidence for how bacteria can target host proteins to manipulate host cell activities.

PDZ domain-binding motif of Tax sustains T-cell proliferation in HTLV-1-infected humanized mice

Science.gov (United States)

Artesi, Maria; Jalinot, Pierre

2018-01-01

Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is the etiological agent of adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL), an aggressive malignant proliferation of activated CD4+ T lymphocytes. The viral Tax oncoprotein is critically involved in both HTLV-1-replication and T-cell proliferation, a prerequisite to the development of ATLL. In this study, we investigated the in vivo contribution of the Tax PDZ domain-binding motif (PBM) to the lymphoproliferative process. To that aim, we examined T-cell proliferation in humanized mice (hu-mice) carrying a human hemato-lymphoid system infected with either a wild type (WT) or a Tax PBM-deleted (ΔPBM) provirus. We observed that the frequency of CD4+ activated T-cells in the peripheral blood and in the spleen was significantly higher in WT than in ΔPBM hu-mice. Likewise, human T-cells collected from WT hu-mice and cultivated in vitro in presence of interleukin-2 were proliferating at a higher level than those from ΔPBM animals. We next examined the association of Tax with the Scribble PDZ protein, a prominent regulator of T-cell polarity, in human T-cells analyzed either after ex vivo isolation or after in vitro culture. We confirmed the interaction of Tax with Scribble only in T-cells from the WT hu-mice. This association correlated with the presence of both proteins in aggregates at the leading edge of the cells and with the formation of long actin filopods. Finally, data from a comparative genome-wide transcriptomic analysis suggested that the PBM-PDZ association is implicated in the expression of genes regulating proliferation, apoptosis and cytoskeletal organization. Collectively, our findings suggest that the Tax PBM is an auxiliary motif that contributes to the sustained growth of HTLV-1 infected T-cells in vivo and in vitro and is essential to T-cell immortalization. PMID:29566098

PDZ domain-binding motif of Tax sustains T-cell proliferation in HTLV-1-infected humanized mice.

Science.gov (United States)

Pérès, Eléonore; Blin, Juliana; Ricci, Emiliano P; Artesi, Maria; Hahaut, Vincent; Van den Broeke, Anne; Corbin, Antoine; Gazzolo, Louis; Ratner, Lee; Jalinot, Pierre; Duc Dodon, Madeleine

2018-03-01

Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is the etiological agent of adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL), an aggressive malignant proliferation of activated CD4+ T lymphocytes. The viral Tax oncoprotein is critically involved in both HTLV-1-replication and T-cell proliferation, a prerequisite to the development of ATLL. In this study, we investigated the in vivo contribution of the Tax PDZ domain-binding motif (PBM) to the lymphoproliferative process. To that aim, we examined T-cell proliferation in humanized mice (hu-mice) carrying a human hemato-lymphoid system infected with either a wild type (WT) or a Tax PBM-deleted (ΔPBM) provirus. We observed that the frequency of CD4+ activated T-cells in the peripheral blood and in the spleen was significantly higher in WT than in ΔPBM hu-mice. Likewise, human T-cells collected from WT hu-mice and cultivated in vitro in presence of interleukin-2 were proliferating at a higher level than those from ΔPBM animals. We next examined the association of Tax with the Scribble PDZ protein, a prominent regulator of T-cell polarity, in human T-cells analyzed either after ex vivo isolation or after in vitro culture. We confirmed the interaction of Tax with Scribble only in T-cells from the WT hu-mice. This association correlated with the presence of both proteins in aggregates at the leading edge of the cells and with the formation of long actin filopods. Finally, data from a comparative genome-wide transcriptomic analysis suggested that the PBM-PDZ association is implicated in the expression of genes regulating proliferation, apoptosis and cytoskeletal organization. Collectively, our findings suggest that the Tax PBM is an auxiliary motif that contributes to the sustained growth of HTLV-1 infected T-cells in vivo and in vitro and is essential to T-cell immortalization.

Molecular dynamics simulations of electrostatics and hydration distributions around RNA and DNA motifs

Science.gov (United States)

Marlowe, Ashley E.; Singh, Abhishek; Semichaevsky, Andrey V.; Yingling, Yaroslava G.

2009-03-01

Nucleic acid nanoparticles can self-assembly through the formation of complementary loop-loop interactions or stem-stem interactions. Presence and concentration of ions can significantly affect the self-assembly process and the stability of the nanostructure. In this presentation we use explicit molecular dynamics simulations to examine the variations in cationic distributions and hydration environment around DNA and RNA helices and loop-loop interactions. Our simulations show that the potassium and sodium ionic distributions are different around RNA and DNA motifs which could be indicative of ion mediated relative stability of loop-loop complexes. Moreover in RNA loop-loop motifs ions are consistently present and exchanged through a distinct electronegative channel. We will also show how we used the specific RNA loop-loop motif to design a RNA hexagonal nanoparticle.

GNG Motifs Can Replace a GGG Stretch during G-Quadruplex Formation in a Context Dependent Manner.

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Kohal Das

Full Text Available G-quadruplexes are one of the most commonly studied non-B DNA structures. Generally, these structures are formed using a minimum of 4, three guanine tracts, with connecting loops ranging from one to seven. Recent studies have reported deviation from this general convention. One such deviation is the involvement of bulges in the guanine tracts. In this study, guanines along with bulges, also referred to as GNG motifs have been extensively studied using recently reported HOX11 breakpoint fragile region I as a model template. By strategic mutagenesis approach we show that the contribution from continuous G-tracts may be dispensible during G-quadruplex formation when such motifs are flanked by GNGs. Importantly, the positioning and number of GNG/GNGNG can also influence the formation of G-quadruplexes. Further, we assessed three genomic regions from HIF1 alpha, VEGF and SHOX gene for G-quadruplex formation using GNG motifs. We show that HIF1 alpha sequence harbouring GNG motifs can fold into intramolecular G-quadruplex. In contrast, GNG motifs in mutant VEGF sequence could not participate in structure formation, suggesting that the usage of GNG is context dependent. Importantly, we show that when two continuous stretches of guanines are flanked by two independent GNG motifs in a naturally occurring sequence (SHOX, it can fold into an intramolecular G-quadruplex. Finally, we show the specific binding of G-quadruplex binding protein, Nucleolin and G-quadruplex antibody, BG4 to SHOX G-quadruplex. Overall, our study provides novel insights into the role of GNG motifs in G-quadruplex structure formation which may have both physiological and pathological implications.

Clustering and Candidate Motif Detection in Exosomal miRNAs by Application of Machine Learning Algorithms.

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Gaur, Pallavi; Chaturvedi, Anoop

2017-07-22

The clustering pattern and motifs give immense information about any biological data. An application of machine learning algorithms for clustering and candidate motif detection in miRNAs derived from exosomes is depicted in this paper. Recent progress in the field of exosome research and more particularly regarding exosomal miRNAs has led much bioinformatic-based research to come into existence. The information on clustering pattern and candidate motifs in miRNAs of exosomal origin would help in analyzing existing, as well as newly discovered miRNAs within exosomes. Along with obtaining clustering pattern and candidate motifs in exosomal miRNAs, this work also elaborates the usefulness of the machine learning algorithms that can be efficiently used and executed on various programming languages/platforms. Data were clustered and sequence candidate motifs were detected successfully. The results were compared and validated with some available web tools such as 'BLASTN' and 'MEME suite'. The machine learning algorithms for aforementioned objectives were applied successfully. This work elaborated utility of machine learning algorithms and language platforms to achieve the tasks of clustering and candidate motif detection in exosomal miRNAs. With the information on mentioned objectives, deeper insight would be gained for analyses of newly discovered miRNAs in exosomes which are considered to be circulating biomarkers. In addition, the execution of machine learning algorithms on various language platforms gives more flexibility to users to try multiple iterations according to their requirements. This approach can be applied to other biological data-mining tasks as well.

Human telomeric DNA: G-quadruplex, i-motif and Watson–Crick double helix

Science.gov (United States)

Phan, Anh Tuân; Mergny, Jean-Louis

2002-01-01

Human telomeric DNA composed of (TTAGGG/CCCTAA)n repeats may form a classical Watson–Crick double helix. Each individual strand is also prone to quadruplex formation: the G-rich strand may adopt a G-quadruplex conformation involving G-quartets whereas the C-rich strand may fold into an i-motif based on intercalated C·C+ base pairs. Using an equimolar mixture of the telomeric oligonucleotides d[AGGG(TTAGGG)3] and d[(CCCTAA)3CCCT], we defined which structures existed and which would be the predominant species under a variety of experimental conditions. Under near-physiological conditions of pH, temperature and salt concentration, telomeric DNA was predominantly in a double-helix form. However, at lower pH values or higher temperatures, the G-quadruplex and/or the i-motif efficiently competed with the duplex. We also present kinetic and thermodynamic data for duplex association and for G-quadruplex/i-motif unfolding. PMID:12409451

Organofluorine chemistry: synthesis and conformation of vicinal fluoromethylene motifs.

Science.gov (United States)

O'Hagan, David

2012-04-20

The C-F bond is the most polar bond in organic chemistry, and thus the bond has a relatively large dipole moment with a significant -ve charge density on the fluorine atom and correspondingly a +ve charge density on carbon. The electrostatic nature of the bond renders it the strongest one in organic chemistry. However, the fluorine atom itself is nonpolarizable, and thus, despite the charge localization on fluorine, it is a poor hydrogen-bonding acceptor. These properties of the C-F bond make it attractive in the design of nonviscous but polar organic compounds, with a polarity limited to influencing the intramolecular nature of the molecule and less so intermolecular interactions with the immediate environment. In this Perspective, the synthesis of aliphatic chains carrying multivicinal fluoromethylene motifs is described. It emerges that the dipoles of adjacent C-F bonds orientate relative to each other, and thus, individual diastereoisomers display different backbone carbon chain conformations. These conformational preferences recognize the influence of the well-known gauche effect associated with 1,2-difluoroethane but extend to considering 1,3-fluorine-fluorine dipolar repulsions. The synthesis of carbon chains carrying two, three, four, five, and six vicinal fluoromethylene motifs is described, with an emphasis on our own research contributions. These motifs obey almost predictable conformational behavior, and they emerge as candidates for inclusion in the design of performance organic molecules. © 2012 American Chemical Society

Mechanism for activation of the growth factor-activated AGC kinases by turn motif phosphorylation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hauge, Camilla; Antal, Torben L; Hirschberg, Daniel

2007-01-01

investigated the role of the third, so-called turn motif phosphate, also located in the tail, in the AGC kinases PKB, S6K, RSK, MSK, PRK and PKC. We report cooperative action of the HM phosphate and the turn motif phosphate, because it binds a phosphoSer/Thr-binding site above the glycine-rich loop within...

The Q Motif Is Involved in DNA Binding but Not ATP Binding in ChlR1 Helicase.

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Hao Ding

Full Text Available Helicases are molecular motors that couple the energy of ATP hydrolysis to the unwinding of structured DNA or RNA and chromatin remodeling. The conversion of energy derived from ATP hydrolysis into unwinding and remodeling is coordinated by seven sequence motifs (I, Ia, II, III, IV, V, and VI. The Q motif, consisting of nine amino acids (GFXXPXPIQ with an invariant glutamine (Q residue, has been identified in some, but not all helicases. Compared to the seven well-recognized conserved helicase motifs, the role of the Q motif is less acknowledged. Mutations in the human ChlR1 (DDX11 gene are associated with a unique genetic disorder known as Warsaw Breakage Syndrome, which is characterized by cellular defects in genome maintenance. To examine the roles of the Q motif in ChlR1 helicase, we performed site directed mutagenesis of glutamine to alanine at residue 23 in the Q motif of ChlR1. ChlR1 recombinant protein was overexpressed and purified from HEK293T cells. ChlR1-Q23A mutant abolished the helicase activity of ChlR1 and displayed reduced DNA binding ability. The mutant showed impaired ATPase activity but normal ATP binding. A thermal shift assay revealed that ChlR1-Q23A has a melting point value similar to ChlR1-WT. Partial proteolysis mapping demonstrated that ChlR1-WT and Q23A have a similar globular structure, although some subtle conformational differences in these two proteins are evident. Finally, we found ChlR1 exists and functions as a monomer in solution, which is different from FANCJ, in which the Q motif is involved in protein dimerization. Taken together, our results suggest that the Q motif is involved in DNA binding but not ATP binding in ChlR1 helicase.

C-terminal motif prediction in eukaryotic proteomes using comparative genomics and statistical over-representation across protein families

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Cutler Sean R

2007-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The carboxy termini of proteins are a frequent site of activity for a variety of biologically important functions, ranging from post-translational modification to protein targeting. Several short peptide motifs involved in protein sorting roles and dependent upon their proximity to the C-terminus for proper function have already been characterized. As a limited number of such motifs have been identified, the potential exists for genome-wide statistical analysis and comparative genomics to reveal novel peptide signatures functioning in a C-terminal dependent manner. We have applied a novel methodology to the prediction of C-terminal-anchored peptide motifs involving a simple z-statistic and several techniques for improving the signal-to-noise ratio. Results We examined the statistical over-representation of position-specific C-terminal tripeptides in 7 eukaryotic proteomes. Sequence randomization models and simple-sequence masking were applied to the successful reduction of background noise. Similarly, as C-terminal homology among members of large protein families may artificially inflate tripeptide counts in an irrelevant and obfuscating manner, gene-family clustering was performed prior to the analysis in order to assess tripeptide over-representation across protein families as opposed to across all proteins. Finally, comparative genomics was used to identify tripeptides significantly occurring in multiple species. This approach has been able to predict, to our knowledge, all C-terminally anchored targeting motifs present in the literature. These include the PTS1 peroxisomal targeting signal (SKL*, the ER-retention signal (K/HDEL*, the ER-retrieval signal for membrane bound proteins (KKxx*, the prenylation signal (CC* and the CaaX box prenylation motif. In addition to a high statistical over-representation of these known motifs, a collection of significant tripeptides with a high propensity for biological function exists

Genome-wide identification of basic helix-loop-helix and NF-1 motifs underlying GR binding sites in male rat hippocampus

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pooley, John R.; Flynn, Ben P.; Grøntved, Lars

2017-01-01

linked to structural and organizational roles, an absence of major tethering partners for GRs, and little or no evidence for binding at negative glucocorticoid response elements. A basic helix-loop-helix motif closely resembling a NeuroD1 or Olig2 binding site was found underlying a subset of GR binding......Glucocorticoids regulate hippocampal function in part by modulating gene expression through the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). GR binding is highly cell type specific, directed to accessible chromatin regions established during tissue differentiation. Distinct classes of GR binding sites...

A five-amino-acid motif in the undefined region of the TLR8 ectodomain is required for species-specific ligand recognition.

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Liu, Jin; Xu, Congfeng; Hsu, Li-Chung; Luo, Yunping; Xiang, Rong; Chuang, Tsung-Hsien

2010-02-01

Toll-like receptors play important roles in regulating immunity against microbial infections. Toll-like receptor 8 (TLR8) belongs to a subfamily comprising TLR7, TLR8 and TLR9. Human TLR8 mediates anti-viral immunity by recognizing ssRNA viruses, and triggers potent anti-viral and antitumor immune responses upon ligation by synthetic small molecular weight ligands. Interestingly, distinct from human TLR8, mouse TLR8 was not responsive to ligand stimulation in the absence of polyT-oligodeoxynucleotides (polyT-ODN). The molecular basis for this distinct ligand recognition is still unclear. In the present study, we compared the activation of TLR8 from different species including mouse, rat, human, bovine, porcine, horse, sheep, and cat by ligand ligations. Only the TLR8s from the rodent species (i.e., mouse and rat TLR8s) failed to respond to ligand stimulation in the absence of polyT-ODN. Multiple sequence alignment analysis suggested that these two rodent TLR8s lack a five-amino-acid motif that is conserved in the non-rodent species with varied sequence. This small motif is located in an undefined region of the hTLR8 ectodomain, immediately following LRR-14. Deletion mutation analysis suggested that this motif is essential for the species-specific ligand recognition of hTLR8, whereas it is not required for self-dimerization and intracellular localization of this receptor. (c) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Triple basepair changes within and adjacent to the conserved YY1 motif upstream of the U3 enhancer repeats of SL3-3 murine leukemia virus cause a small but significant shortening of latency of T-lymphoma induction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ma Shiliang; Lovmand, Jette; Soerensen, Annette Balle; Luz, Arne; Schmidt, Joerg; Pedersen, Finn Skou

2003-01-01

A highly conserved sequence upstream of the transcriptional enhancer in the U3 of murine leukemia viruses (MLVs) was reported to mediate negative regulation of their expression. In transient expression studies, negative regulation was reported to be conferred by coexpression of the transcription factor YY1, which binds to a motif in the upstream conserved region (UCR). To address the function of the UCR and its YY1-motif in an in vivo model of MLV-host interactions we introduced six consecutive triple basepair mutations into this region of the potent T-lymphomagenic SL3-3 MLV. We report that all mutants have retained their replication competence and that they all, like the SL3-3 wild type (wt), induce T-cell lymphomas when injected into newborn mice of the SWR strain. However, all mutants induced disease with slightly shorter latency periods than the wt SL3-3, suggesting that the YY1 motif as well as its immediate context in the UCR have a negative effect on the pathogenicity of the virus. This result may have implications for the design of retroviral vectors

The position of the Gly-xxx-Gly motif in transmembrane segments modulates dimer affinity.

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Johnson, Rachel M; Rath, Arianna; Deber, Charles M

2006-12-01

Although the intrinsic low solubility of membrane proteins presents challenges to their high-resolution structure determination, insight into the amino acid sequence features and forces that stabilize their folds has been provided through study of sequence-dependent helix-helix interactions between single transmembrane (TM) helices. While the stability of helix-helix partnerships mediated by the Gly-xxx-Gly (GG4) motif is known to be generally modulated by distal interfacial residues, it has not been established whether the position of this motif, with respect to the ends of a given TM segment, affects dimer affinity. Here we examine the relationship between motif position and affinity in the homodimers of 2 single-spanning membrane protein TM sequences: glycophorin A (GpA) and bacteriophage M13 coat protein (MCP). Using the TOXCAT assay for dimer affinity on a series of GpA and MCP TM segments that have been modified with either 4 Leu residues at each end or with 8 Leu residues at the N-terminal end, we show that in each protein, centrally located GG4 motifs are capable of stronger helix-helix interactions than those proximal to TM helix ends, even when surrounding interfacial residues are maintained. The relative importance of GG4 motifs in stabilizing helix-helix interactions therefore must be considered not only in its specific residue context but also in terms of the location of the interactive surface relative to the N and C termini of alpha-helical TM segments.

Examples of the Motif of the Shrew in European Literature and Film

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Vasvári, Louise O.

2001-01-01

In her article "Examples of the Motif of the Shrew in European Literature and Film" Louise O. Vasvári presents the shrew-taming story as a masterplot of both Eastern and Western folklore and literature concerned with establishing the appropriate power dynamic between a married couple. Vasvári firts reviews the comparative groundwork of the story she has documented in her earlier studies of the topic. In addition to tracing the bundle of motifs that make up the shrew story from medieval Arabic...

Creation of Hybrid Nanorods From Sequences of Natural Trimeric Fibrous Proteins Using the Fibritin Trimerization Motif

Science.gov (United States)

Papanikolopoulou, Katerina; van Raaij, Mark J.; Mitraki, Anna

Stable, artificial fibrous proteins that can be functionalized open new avenues in fields such as bionanomaterials design and fiber engineering. An important source of inspiration for the creation of such proteins are natural fibrous proteins such as collagen, elastin, insect silks, and fibers from phages and viruses. The fibrous parts of this last class of proteins usually adopt trimeric, β-stranded structural folds and are appended to globular, receptor-binding domains. It has been recently shown that the globular domains are essential for correct folding and trimerization and can be successfully substituted by a very small (27-amino acid) trimerization motif from phage T4 fibritin. The hybrid proteins are correctly folded nanorods that can withstand extreme conditions. When the fibrous part derives from the adenovirus fiber shaft, different tissue-targeting specificities can be engineered into the hybrid proteins, which therefore can be used as gene therapy vectors. The integration of such stable nanorods in devices is also a big challenge in the field of biomechanical design. The fibritin foldon domain is a versatile trimerization motif and can be combined with a variety of fibrous motifs, such as coiled-coil, collagenous, and triple β-stranded motifs, provided the appropriate linkers are used. The combination of different motifs within the same fibrous molecule to create stable rods with multiple functions can even be envisioned. We provide a comprehensive overview of the experimental procedures used for designing, creating, and characterizing hybrid fibrous nanorods using the fibritin trimerization motif.

Comparative analysis of evolutionarily conserved motifs of epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) predicts novel potential therapeutic epitopes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Deng, Xiaohong; Zheng, Xuxu; Yang, Huanming

2014-01-01

druggable epitopes/targets. We employed the PROSITE Scan to detect structurally conserved motifs and PRINTS to search for linearly conserved motifs of ECD HER2. We found that the epitopes recognized by trastuzumab and pertuzumab are located in the predicted conserved motifs of ECD HER2, supporting our...

SREBP-1c regulates glucose-stimulated hepatic clusterin expression

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Kim, Gukhan [Department of Pharmacology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul 138-736 (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Geun Hyang; Oh, Gyun-Sik; Yoon, Jin [Department of Pharmacology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul 138-736 (Korea, Republic of); Bio-Medical Institute of Technology, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul 138-736 (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Hae Won [Department of Pharmacology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul 138-736 (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Min-Seon [Department of Internal Medicine, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul 138-736 (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Seung-Whan, E-mail: swkim7@amc.seoul.kr [Department of Pharmacology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul 138-736 (Korea, Republic of); Bio-Medical Institute of Technology, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul 138-736 (Korea, Republic of)

2011-05-20

Highlights: {yields} This is the first report to show nutrient-regulated clusterin expression. {yields} Clusterin expression in hepatocytes was increased by high glucose concentration. {yields} SREBP-1c is directly involved in the transcriptional activation of clusterin by glucose. {yields} This glucose-stimulated activation process is mediated through tandem E-box motifs. -- Abstract: Clusterin is a stress-response protein that is involved in diverse biological processes, including cell proliferation, apoptosis, tissue differentiation, inflammation, and lipid transport. Its expression is upregulated in a broad spectrum of diverse pathological states. Clusterin was recently reported to be associated with diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and their sequelae. However, the regulation of clusterin expression by metabolic signals was not addressed. In this study we evaluated the effects of glucose on hepatic clusterin expression. Interestingly, high glucose concentrations significantly increased clusterin expression in primary hepatocytes and hepatoma cell lines, but the conventional promoter region of the clusterin gene did not respond to glucose stimulation. In contrast, the first intronic region was transcriptionally activated by high glucose concentrations. We then defined a glucose response element (GlRE) of the clusterin gene, showing that it consists of two E-box motifs separated by five nucleotides and resembles carbohydrate response element (ChoRE). Unexpectedly, however, these E-box motifs were not activated by ChoRE binding protein (ChREBP), but were activated by sterol regulatory element binding protein-1c (SREBP-1c). Furthermore, we found that glucose induced recruitment of SREBP-1c to the E-box of the clusterin gene intronic region. Taken together, these results suggest that clusterin expression is increased by glucose stimulation, and SREBP-1c plays a crucial role in the metabolic regulation of clusterin.

A sialoreceptor binding motif in the Mycoplasma synoviae adhesin VlhA.

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Meghan May

Full Text Available Mycoplasma synoviae depends on its adhesin VlhA to mediate cytadherence to sialylated host cell receptors. Allelic variants of VlhA arise through recombination between an assemblage of promoterless vlhA pseudogenes and a single transcription promoter site, creating lineages of M. synoviae that each express a different vlhA allele. The predicted full-length VlhA sequences adjacent to the promoter of nine lineages of M. synoviae varying in avidity of cytadherence were aligned with that of the reference strain MS53 and with a 60-a.a. hemagglutinating VlhA C-terminal fragment from a Tunisian lineage of strain WVU1853(T. Seven different sequence variants of an imperfectly conserved, single-copy, 12-a.a. candidate cytadherence motif were evident amid the flanking variable residues of the 11 total sequences examined. The motif was predicted to adopt a short hairpin structure in a low-complexity region near the C-terminus of VlhA. Biotinylated synthetic oligopeptides representing four selected variants of the 12-a.a. motif, with the whole synthesized 60-a.a. fragment as a positive control, differed (P<0.01 in the extent they bound to chicken erythrocyte membranes. All bound to a greater extent (P<0.01 than scrambled or irrelevant VlhA domain negative control peptides did. Experimentally introduced branched-chain amino acid (BCAA substitutions Val3Ile and Leu7Ile did not significantly alter binding, whereas fold-destabilizing substitutions Thr4Gly and Ala9Gly tended to reduce it (P<0.05. Binding was also reduced to background levels (P<0.01 when the peptides were exposed to desialylated membranes, or were pre-saturated with free sialic acid before exposure to untreated membranes. From this evidence we conclude that the motif P-X-(BCAA-X-F-X-(BCAA-X-A-K-X-G binds sialic acid and likely mediates VlhA-dependent M. synoviae attachment to host cells. This conserved mechanism retains the potential for fine-scale rheostasis in binding avidity, which could be a

Stanniocalcin 1 binds hemin through a partially conserved heme regulatory motif

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Westberg, Johan A.; Jiang, Ji; Andersson, Leif C.

2011-01-01

Highlights: → Stanniocalcin 1 (STC1) binds heme through novel heme binding motif. → Central iron atom of heme and cysteine-114 of STC1 are essential for binding. → STC1 binds Fe 2+ and Fe 3+ heme. → STC1 peptide prevents oxidative decay of heme. -- Abstract: Hemin (iron protoporphyrin IX) is a necessary component of many proteins, functioning either as a cofactor or an intracellular messenger. Hemoproteins have diverse functions, such as transportation of gases, gas detection, chemical catalysis and electron transfer. Stanniocalcin 1 (STC1) is a protein involved in respiratory responses of the cell but whose mechanism of action is still undetermined. We examined the ability of STC1 to bind hemin in both its reduced and oxidized states and located Cys 114 as the axial ligand of the central iron atom of hemin. The amino acid sequence differs from the established (Cys-Pro) heme regulatory motif (HRM) and therefore presents a novel heme binding motif (Cys-Ser). A STC1 peptide containing the heme binding sequence was able to inhibit both spontaneous and H 2 O 2 induced decay of hemin. Binding of hemin does not affect the mitochondrial localization of STC1.

Rbfox-regulated alternative splicing is critical for zebrafish cardiac and skeletal muscle function

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Gallagher, Thomas L.; Arribere, Joshua A.; Geurts, Paul A.; Exner, Cameron R. T.; McDonald, Kent L.; Dill, Kariena K.; Marr, Henry L.; Adkar, Shaunak S.; Garnett, Aaron T.; Amacher, Sharon L.; Conboy, John G.

2012-01-01

Rbfox RNA binding proteins are implicated as regulators of phylogenetically-conserved alternative splicing events important for muscle function. To investigate the function of rbfox genes, we used morpholino-mediated knockdown of muscle-expressed rbfox1l and rbfox2 in zebrafish embryos. Single and double morphant embryos exhibited changes in splicing of overlapping sets of bioinformatically-predicted rbfox target exons, many of which exhibit a muscle-enriched splicing pattern that is conserved in vertebrates. Thus, conservation of intronic Rbfox binding motifs is a good predictor of Rbfox-regulated alternative splicing. Morphology and development of single morphant embryos was strikingly normal; however, muscle development in double morphants was severely disrupted. Defects in cardiac muscle were marked by reduced heart rate and in skeletal muscle by complete paralysis. The predominance of wavy myofibers and abnormal thick and thin filaments in skeletal muscle revealed that myofibril assembly is defective and disorganized in double morphants. Ultra-structural analysis revealed that although sarcomeres with electron dense M- and Z-bands are present in muscle fibers of rbfox1l/rbox2 morphants, they are substantially reduced in number and alignment. Importantly, splicing changes and morphological defects were rescued by expression of morpholino-resistant rbfox cDNA. Additionally, a target-blocking MO complementary to a single UGCAUG motif adjacent to an rbfox target exon of fxr1 inhibited inclusion in a similar manner to rbfox knockdown, providing evidence that Rbfox regulates the splicing of target exons via direct binding to intronic regulatory motifs. We conclude that Rbfox proteins regulate an alternative splicing program essential for vertebrate heart and skeletal muscle function. PMID:21925157

Rbfox-regulated alternative splicing is critical for zebrafish cardiac and skeletal muscle functions.

Science.gov (United States)

Gallagher, Thomas L; Arribere, Joshua A; Geurts, Paul A; Exner, Cameron R T; McDonald, Kent L; Dill, Kariena K; Marr, Henry L; Adkar, Shaunak S; Garnett, Aaron T; Amacher, Sharon L; Conboy, John G

2011-11-15

Rbfox RNA binding proteins are implicated as regulators of phylogenetically-conserved alternative splicing events important for muscle function. To investigate the function of rbfox genes, we used morpholino-mediated knockdown of muscle-expressed rbfox1l and rbfox2 in zebrafish embryos. Single and double morphant embryos exhibited changes in splicing of overlapping sets of bioinformatically-predicted rbfox target exons, many of which exhibit a muscle-enriched splicing pattern that is conserved in vertebrates. Thus, conservation of intronic Rbfox binding motifs is a good predictor of Rbfox-regulated alternative splicing. Morphology and development of single morphant embryos were strikingly normal; however, muscle development in double morphants was severely disrupted. Defects in cardiac muscle were marked by reduced heart rate and in skeletal muscle by complete paralysis. The predominance of wavy myofibers and abnormal thick and thin filaments in skeletal muscle revealed that myofibril assembly is defective and disorganized in double morphants. Ultra-structural analysis revealed that although sarcomeres with electron dense M- and Z-bands are present in muscle fibers of rbfox1l/rbox2 morphants, they are substantially reduced in number and alignment. Importantly, splicing changes and morphological defects were rescued by expression of morpholino-resistant rbfox cDNA. Additionally, a target-blocking MO complementary to a single UGCAUG motif adjacent to an rbfox target exon of fxr1 inhibited inclusion in a similar manner to rbfox knockdown, providing evidence that Rbfox regulates the splicing of target exons via direct binding to intronic regulatory motifs. We conclude that Rbfox proteins regulate an alternative splicing program essential for vertebrate heart and skeletal muscle functions. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Global MYCN transcription factor binding analysis in neuroblastoma reveals association with distinct E-box motifs and regions of DNA hypermethylation.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Murphy, Derek M

2009-01-01

BACKGROUND: Neuroblastoma, a cancer derived from precursor cells of the sympathetic nervous system, is a major cause of childhood cancer related deaths. The single most important prognostic indicator of poor clinical outcome in this disease is genomic amplification of MYCN, a member of a family of oncogenic transcription factors. METHODOLOGY: We applied MYCN chromatin immunoprecipitation to microarrays (ChIP-chip) using MYCN amplified\\/non-amplified cell lines as well as a conditional knockdown cell line to determine the distribution of MYCN binding sites within all annotated promoter regions. CONCLUSION: Assessment of E-box usage within consistently positive MYCN binding sites revealed a predominance for the CATGTG motif (p<0.0016), with significant enrichment of additional motifs CATTTG, CATCTG, CAACTG in the MYCN amplified state. For cell lines over-expressing MYCN, gene ontology analysis revealed enrichment for the binding of MYCN at promoter regions of numerous molecular functional groups including DNA helicases and mRNA transcriptional regulation. In order to evaluate MYCN binding with respect to other genomic features, we determined the methylation status of all annotated CpG islands and promoter sequences using methylated DNA immunoprecipitation (MeDIP). The integration of MYCN ChIP-chip and MeDIP data revealed a highly significant positive correlation between MYCN binding and DNA hypermethylation. This association was also detected in regions of hemizygous loss, indicating that the observed association occurs on the same homologue. In summary, these findings suggest that MYCN binding occurs more commonly at CATGTG as opposed to the classic CACGTG E-box motif, and that disease associated over expression of MYCN leads to aberrant binding to additional weaker affinity E-box motifs in neuroblastoma. The co-localization of MYCN binding and DNA hypermethylation further supports the dual role of MYCN, namely that of a classical transcription factor affecting the

Indonesian Traditional Toys and the Development of Batik Motifs

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Bagus Indrayana

2016-06-01

Full Text Available There is a wide array of traditional toys in Indonesia. In the past, traditional toys played an important role for skill and creativity development of children. Today, the position of traditional toys in the society is displaced by toys from large-scale manufacturers. Given the critical role of traditional toys for children’s motoric and social development, there is a need to develop media that can be used to promote these traditional products and strengthen their position in the public. We propose to use Batik as a way to effectively disseminate and promote traditional toys to the general public. Apart from this, using traditional toys to create new Batik motifs can have an economic value for the producers of Batik, promote Indonesian products and enrich the Indonesian Batik. This study aims to explore the variety of traditional toys, mainly from Klaten and Magelang, in the Central Java province of Indonesia, and use them as the basis for the development of Batik motif creation. This study used Trilogi Keseimbangan (or Harmony Trilogy aesthetic theory analytical approach that explains the creation of craft consists of the following phases: exploration, design, and materialization. The creation method in this study adopts Tiga Tahap Enam Langkah (Three Phases, Six Steps method offered in the theory. The finding in the field found that the traditional toys material used in Klaten and Magelang, mostly made from waste wood, plywood, and zinc. The manufacturing process is done manually by two or three craftsmen using a simple technology. The traditional toys are designed by the artisans mostly, although there may be designs from the clients. In addition, we also found that the traditional toys have never been used as a Batik motif. The traditional toys Batik motif presented in this work is researcher’s design. For the purposes of this study, we first research the variety of traditional toys available in the market today in Indonesia. We look

Sequence-based classification using discriminatory motif feature selection.

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Hao Xiong

Full Text Available Most existing methods for sequence-based classification use exhaustive feature generation, employing, for example, all k-mer patterns. The motivation behind such (enumerative approaches is to minimize the potential for overlooking important features. However, there are shortcomings to this strategy. First, practical constraints limit the scope of exhaustive feature generation to patterns of length ≤ k, such that potentially important, longer (> k predictors are not considered. Second, features so generated exhibit strong dependencies, which can complicate understanding of derived classification rules. Third, and most importantly, numerous irrelevant features are created. These concerns can compromise prediction and interpretation. While remedies have been proposed, they tend to be problem-specific and not broadly applicable. Here, we develop a generally applicable methodology, and an attendant software pipeline, that is predicated on discriminatory motif finding. In addition to the traditional training and validation partitions, our framework entails a third level of data partitioning, a discovery partition. A discriminatory motif finder is used on sequences and associated class labels in the discovery partition to yield a (small set of features. These features are then used as inputs to a classifier in the training partition. Finally, performance assessment occurs on the validation partition. Important attributes of our approach are its modularity (any discriminatory motif finder and any classifier can be deployed and its universality (all data, including sequences that are unaligned and/or of unequal length, can be accommodated. We illustrate our approach on two nucleosome occupancy datasets and a protein solubility dataset, previously analyzed using enumerative feature generation. Our method achieves excellent performance results, with and without optimization of classifier tuning parameters. A Python pipeline implementing the approach is

Cave acoustics in prehistory: Exploring the association of Palaeolithic visual motifs and acoustic response.

Science.gov (United States)

Fazenda, Bruno; Scarre, Chris; Till, Rupert; Pasalodos, Raquel Jiménez; Guerra, Manuel Rojo; Tejedor, Cristina; Peredo, Roberto Ontañón; Watson, Aaron; Wyatt, Simon; Benito, Carlos García; Drinkall, Helen; Foulds, Frederick

2017-09-01

During the 1980 s, acoustic studies of Upper Palaeolithic imagery in French caves-using the technology then available-suggested a relationship between acoustic response and the location of visual motifs. This paper presents an investigation, using modern acoustic measurement techniques, into such relationships within the caves of La Garma, Las Chimeneas, La Pasiega, El Castillo, and Tito Bustillo in Northern Spain. It addresses methodological issues concerning acoustic measurement at enclosed archaeological sites and outlines a general framework for extraction of acoustic features that may be used to support archaeological hypotheses. The analysis explores possible associations between the position of visual motifs (which may be up to 40 000 yrs old) and localized acoustic responses. Results suggest that motifs, in general, and lines and dots, in particular, are statistically more likely to be found in places where reverberation is moderate and where the low frequency acoustic response has evidence of resonant behavior. The work presented suggests that an association of the location of Palaeolithic motifs with acoustic features is a statistically weak but tenable hypothesis, and that an appreciation of sound could have influenced behavior among Palaeolithic societies of this region.

T cell receptor zeta allows stable expression of receptors containing the CD3gamma leucine-based receptor-sorting motif

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dietrich, J; Geisler, C

1998-01-01

The leucine-based motif in the T cell receptor (TCR) subunit CD3gamma constitutes a strong internalization signal. In fully assembled TCR this motif is inactive unless phosphorylated. In contrast, the motif is constitutively active in CD4/CD3gamma and Tac/CD3gamma chimeras independently of phosph......The leucine-based motif in the T cell receptor (TCR) subunit CD3gamma constitutes a strong internalization signal. In fully assembled TCR this motif is inactive unless phosphorylated. In contrast, the motif is constitutively active in CD4/CD3gamma and Tac/CD3gamma chimeras independently...... of phosphorylation and leads to rapid internalization and sorting of these chimeras to lysosomal degradation. Because the TCRzeta chain rescues incomplete TCR complexes from lysosomal degradation and allows stable surface expression of fully assembled TCR, we addressed the question whether TCRzeta has the potential...... to mask the CD3gamma leucine-based motif. By studying CD4/CD3gamma and CD16/CD3gamma chimeras, we found that CD16/CD3gamma chimeras associated with TCRzeta. The CD16/CD3gamma-TCRzeta complexes were stably expressed at the cell surface and had a low spontaneous internalization rate, indicating...

THE MOTIF OF THE PRODIGAL SON IN IVAN TURGENEV'S NOVELS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Valentina Ivanovna Gabdullina

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The author questions the perception of Ivan Turgenev as a “non- Christian writer” and studies the problem of the prodigal son motif functioning in a series of his novels. In his novels, Turgenev pictured different phases of the archetypal story, originating from the Gospel parable of the prodigal son. In the novel Rudin he depicted the phase of spiritual wanderings of the hero who had lost touch with his native land — Russia. In his next novels (Home of the Gentry, Fathers and Sons and Smoke, after leading his hero in circles and sending him back to his paternal home, Turgenev reconstructs the model of human behavior, represented in the parable, thereby recognizing the immutability of the idea formalized in the Gospel. The motif of the return to Russian land gets its completion in Turgenev's last novel Virgin Soil, in which the author paradoxically connects the Westernist idea with the Gospel imperative. Solomin, the son of a deacon, sent by his wise father out to Europe “to get education”, studies in England, masters the European knowledge and returns back “to his native land” to establish his own business in inland Russia. Thus, a series of Turgenev's novels, in which he portrayed different phases of social life, are interlinked with the motif of the prodigal son, who is represented by novels' main characters.

A Woman Voice in an Epic: Tracing Gendered Motifs in Anne Vabarna's Peko

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andreas Kalkun

2008-12-01

Full Text Available In the article the gendered motifs found in Anne Vabarna’s Seto epic Peko are analysed. Besides the narrative telling of the life of the male hero, the motives regarding eating, refusing to eat or offering food, and the aspect of the female body or its control deserve to be noticed. These scenes do not communicate the main plot, they are often related to minor characters of the epic and slow down the narrative, but at the same time they clearly carry artistic purpose and meaning. I consider these motifs, present in the liminal parts of the epic, to be the dominant symbols of the epic where the author’s feminine world is being exposed. Observing these motifs of Peko in the context of Seto religious worldview, the life of Anne Vabarna and the social position of Seto women, the symbols become eloquent and informative.

MicroRNA-15b regulates reversion-inducing cysteine-rich protein with Kazal motifs (RECK) expression in human uterine leiomyoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Guan, Yichun; Guo, Lankai; Zukerberg, Lawrence; Rueda, Bo R; Styer, Aaron K

2016-08-17

Human uterine leiomyoma (fibroids; LYO) are the most common benign neoplasms in reproductive-aged women. Dysregulated extracellular matrix and irregular LYO reversion-inducing cysteine-rich protein with Kazal motifs (RECK) expression are thought to be mediated by aberrant microRNA (miR) expression. The relationship of miR-15b and RECK expression in LYO has not been studied. The expression levels of miR-15b and RECK were determined by quantitative RT-PCR, Western blot, and immunohistochemistry in cultures derived from commercial primary leiomyoma (cpLYO) and myometrial (cpMYO) cell lines and leiomyoma (pLYO) and myometrium (pMYO) tissue from surgical samples respectively. The relationship between miR-15b and RECK expression in cpLYO and pLYO (compared to their respective myometrial controls) was evaluated following transfection of cell cultures with either miR-15b mimic or inhibitor. Elevated levels of miR-15b were observed in cpLYO (2.82-fold; p = 0.04) and pLYO cell (1.30-fold; p = 0.0001) cultures respectively compared to corresponding MYO cell controls. Following transfection with miR-15b mimic, cpLYO cells (0.62-fold; p < 0.0001) and pLYO cells (0.68-fold; p < 0.0001) demonstrated reduced RECK protein expression. Following transfection with miR-15b inhibitor, cpLYO cells (1.20-fold; p < 0.0001) and pLYO cells (1.31-fold; p = 0.0007) demonstrated elevated RECK protein expression. RECK protein expression was reduced in pLYO tissues (0.73-fold; p < 0.0001) and pLYO (0.47-fold; p = 0.047) cells when compared to the corresponding MYO tissue controls. Our findings suggest that miR-15b negatively regulates RECK expression in LYO, and increased miR-15b and decreased RECK expression may contribute to the pathobiology of LYO. The functional significance of miR-15b and RECK expression warrants further investigation as potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of human LYO.

Cancer-related marketing centrality motifs acting as pivot units in the human signaling network and mediating cross-talk between biological pathways.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Wan; Chen, Lina; Li, Xia; Jia, Xu; Feng, Chenchen; Zhang, Liangcai; He, Weiming; Lv, Junjie; He, Yuehan; Li, Weiguo; Qu, Xiaoli; Zhou, Yanyan; Shi, Yuchen

2013-12-01

Network motifs in central positions are considered to not only have more in-coming and out-going connections but are also localized in an area where more paths reach the networks. These central motifs have been extensively investigated to determine their consistent functions or associations with specific function categories. However, their functional potentials in the maintenance of cross-talk between different functional communities are unclear. In this paper, we constructed an integrated human signaling network from the Pathway Interaction Database. We identified 39 essential cancer-related motifs in central roles, which we called cancer-related marketing centrality motifs, using combined centrality indices on the system level. Our results demonstrated that these cancer-related marketing centrality motifs were pivotal units in the signaling network, and could mediate cross-talk between 61 biological pathways (25 could be mediated by one motif on average), most of which were cancer-related pathways. Further analysis showed that molecules of most marketing centrality motifs were in the same or adjacent subcellular localizations, such as the motif containing PI3K, PDK1 and AKT1 in the plasma membrane, to mediate signal transduction between 32 cancer-related pathways. Finally, we analyzed the pivotal roles of cancer genes in these marketing centrality motifs in the pathogenesis of cancers, and found that non-cancer genes were potential cancer-related genes.

Genetic interaction motif finding by expectation maximization – a novel statistical model for inferring gene modules from synthetic lethality

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ye Ping

2005-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Synthetic lethality experiments identify pairs of genes with complementary function. More direct functional associations (for example greater probability of membership in a single protein complex may be inferred between genes that share synthetic lethal interaction partners than genes that are directly synthetic lethal. Probabilistic algorithms that identify gene modules based on motif discovery are highly appropriate for the analysis of synthetic lethal genetic interaction data and have great potential in integrative analysis of heterogeneous datasets. Results We have developed Genetic Interaction Motif Finding (GIMF, an algorithm for unsupervised motif discovery from synthetic lethal interaction data. Interaction motifs are characterized by position weight matrices and optimized through expectation maximization. Given a seed gene, GIMF performs a nonlinear transform on the input genetic interaction data and automatically assigns genes to the motif or non-motif category. We demonstrate the capacity to extract known and novel pathways for Saccharomyces cerevisiae (budding yeast. Annotations suggested for several uncharacterized genes are supported by recent experimental evidence. GIMF is efficient in computation, requires no training and automatically down-weights promiscuous genes with high degrees. Conclusion GIMF effectively identifies pathways from synthetic lethality data with several unique features. It is mostly suitable for building gene modules around seed genes. Optimal choice of one single model parameter allows construction of gene networks with different levels of confidence. The impact of hub genes the generic probabilistic framework of GIMF may be used to group other types of biological entities such as proteins based on stochastic motifs. Analysis of the strongest motifs discovered by the algorithm indicates that synthetic lethal interactions are depleted between genes within a motif, suggesting that synthetic

The Arabidopsis Mediator Complex Subunits MED16, MED14, and MED2 Regulate Mediator and RNA Polymerase II Recruitment to CBF-Responsive Cold-Regulated Genes[C][W][OPEN

Science.gov (United States)

Hemsley, Piers A.; Hurst, Charlotte H.; Kaliyadasa, Ewon; Lamb, Rebecca; Knight, Marc R.; De Cothi, Elizabeth A.; Steele, John F.; Knight, Heather

2014-01-01

The Mediator16 (MED16; formerly termed SENSITIVE TO FREEZING6 [SFR6]) subunit of the plant Mediator transcriptional coactivator complex regulates cold-responsive gene expression in Arabidopsis thaliana, acting downstream of the C-repeat binding factor (CBF) transcription factors to recruit the core Mediator complex to cold-regulated genes. Here, we use loss-of-function mutants to show that RNA polymerase II recruitment to CBF-responsive cold-regulated genes requires MED16, MED2, and MED14 subunits. Transcription of genes known to be regulated via CBFs binding to the C-repeat motif/drought-responsive element promoter motif requires all three Mediator subunits, as does cold acclimation–induced freezing tolerance. In addition, these three subunits are required for low temperature–induced expression of some other, but not all, cold-responsive genes, including genes that are not known targets of CBFs. Genes inducible by darkness also required MED16 but required a different combination of Mediator subunits for their expression than the genes induced by cold. Together, our data illustrate that plants control transcription of specific genes through the action of subsets of Mediator subunits; the specific combination defined by the nature of the stimulus but also by the identity of the gene induced. PMID:24415770

A Conserved Metal Binding Motif in the Bacillus subtilis Competence Protein ComFA Enhances Transformation.

Science.gov (United States)

Chilton, Scott S; Falbel, Tanya G; Hromada, Susan; Burton, Briana M

2017-08-01

Genetic competence is a process in which cells are able to take up DNA from their environment, resulting in horizontal gene transfer, a major mechanism for generating diversity in bacteria. Many bacteria carry homologs of the central DNA uptake machinery that has been well characterized in Bacillus subtilis It has been postulated that the B. subtilis competence helicase ComFA belongs to the DEAD box family of helicases/translocases. Here, we made a series of mutants to analyze conserved amino acid motifs in several regions of B. subtilis ComFA. First, we confirmed that ComFA activity requires amino acid residues conserved among the DEAD box helicases, and second, we show that a zinc finger-like motif consisting of four cysteines is required for efficient transformation. Each cysteine in the motif is important, and mutation of at least two of the cysteines dramatically reduces transformation efficiency. Further, combining multiple cysteine mutations with the helicase mutations shows an additive phenotype. Our results suggest that the helicase and metal binding functions are two distinct activities important for ComFA function during transformation. IMPORTANCE ComFA is a highly conserved protein that has a role in DNA uptake during natural competence, a mechanism for horizontal gene transfer observed in many bacteria. Investigation of the details of the DNA uptake mechanism is important for understanding the ways in which bacteria gain new traits from their environment, such as drug resistance. To dissect the role of ComFA in the DNA uptake machinery, we introduced point mutations into several motifs in the protein sequence. We demonstrate that several amino acid motifs conserved among ComFA proteins are important for efficient transformation. This report is the first to demonstrate the functional requirement of an amino-terminal cysteine motif in ComFA. Copyright © 2017 American Society for Microbiology.

Interaction of MYC with host cell factor-1 is mediated by the evolutionarily conserved Myc box IV motif.

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas, L R; Foshage, A M; Weissmiller, A M; Popay, T M; Grieb, B C; Qualls, S J; Ng, V; Carboneau, B; Lorey, S; Eischen, C M; Tansey, W P

2016-07-07

The MYC family of oncogenes encodes a set of three related transcription factors that are overexpressed in many human tumors and contribute to the cancer-related deaths of more than 70,000 Americans every year. MYC proteins drive tumorigenesis by interacting with co-factors that enable them to regulate the expression of thousands of genes linked to cell growth, proliferation, metabolism and genome stability. One effective way to identify critical co-factors required for MYC function has been to focus on sequence motifs within MYC that are conserved throughout evolution, on the assumption that their conservation is driven by protein-protein interactions that are vital for MYC activity. In addition to their DNA-binding domains, MYC proteins carry five regions of high sequence conservation known as Myc boxes (Mb). To date, four of the Mb motifs (MbI, MbII, MbIIIa and MbIIIb) have had a molecular function assigned to them, but the precise role of the remaining Mb, MbIV, and the reason for its preservation in vertebrate Myc proteins, is unknown. Here, we show that MbIV is required for the association of MYC with the abundant transcriptional coregulator host cell factor-1 (HCF-1). We show that the invariant core of MbIV resembles the tetrapeptide HCF-binding motif (HBM) found in many HCF-interaction partners, and demonstrate that MYC interacts with HCF-1 in a manner indistinguishable from the prototypical HBM-containing protein VP16. Finally, we show that rationalized point mutations in MYC that disrupt interaction with HCF-1 attenuate the ability of MYC to drive tumorigenesis in mice. Together, these data expose a molecular function for MbIV and indicate that HCF-1 is an important co-factor for MYC.

The special neuraminidase stalk-motif responsible for increased virulence and pathogenesis of H5N1 influenza A virus.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hongbo Zhou

Full Text Available The variation of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus results in gradually increased virulence in poultry, and human cases continue to accumulate. The neuraminidase (NA stalk region of influenza virus varies considerably and may associate with its virulence. The NA stalk region of all N1 subtype influenza A viruses can be divided into six different stalk-motifs, H5N1/2004-like (NA-wt, WSN-like, H5N1/97-like, PR/8-like, H7N1/99-like and H5N1/96-like. The NA-wt is a special NA stalk-motif which was first observed in H5N1 influenza virus in 2000, with a 20-amino acid deletion in the 49(th to 68(th positions of the stalk region. Here we show that there is a gradual increase of the special NA stalk-motif in H5N1 isolates from 2000 to 2007, and notably, the special stalk-motif is observed in all 173 H5N1 human isolates from 2004 to 2007. The recombinant H5N1 virus with the special stalk-motif possesses the highest virulence and pathogenicity in chicken and mice, while the recombinant viruses with the other stalk-motifs display attenuated phenotype. This indicates that the special stalk-motif has contributed to the high virulence and pathogenicity of H5N1 isolates since 2000. The gradually increasing emergence of the special NA stalk-motif in H5N1 isolates, especially in human isolates, deserves attention by all.

Novel and deviant Walker A ATP-binding motifs in bacteriophage large terminase-DNA packaging proteins

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mitchell, Michael S.; Rao, Venigalla B.

2004-01-01

Bacteriophage terminases constitute a very interesting class of viral-coded multifunctional ATPase 'motors' that apparently drive directional translocation of DNA into an empty viral capsid. A common Walker A motif and other conserved signatures of a critical ATPase catalytic center are identified in the N-terminal half of numerous large terminase proteins. However, several terminases, including the well-characterized λ and SPP1 terminases, seem to lack the classic Walker A in the N-terminus. Using sequence alignment approaches, we discovered the presence of deviant Walker A motifs in these and many other phage terminases. One deviation, the presence of a lysine at the beginning of P-loop, may represent a 3D equivalent of the universally conserved lysine in the Walker A GKT/S signature. This and other novel putative Walker A motifs that first came to light through this study help define the ATPase centers of phage and viral terminases as well as elicit important insights into the molecular functioning of this fundamental motif in biological systems

The ubiquitin ligase tripartite-motif-protein 32 is induced in Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Science.gov (United States)

Assereto, Stefania; Piccirillo, Rosanna; Baratto, Serena; Scudieri, Paolo; Fiorillo, Chiara; Massacesi, Manuela; Traverso, Monica; Galietta, Luis J; Bruno, Claudio; Minetti, Carlo; Zara, Federico; Gazzerro, Elisabetta

2016-08-01

Activation of the proteasome pathway is one of the secondary processes of cell damage, which ultimately lead to muscle degeneration and necrosis in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). In mdx mice, the proteasome inhibitor bortezomib up-regulates the membrane expression of members of the dystrophin complex and reduces the inflammatory reaction. However, chronic inhibition of the 26S proteasome may be toxic, as indicated by the systemic side-effects caused by this drug. Therefore, we sought to determine the components of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway that are specifically activated in human dystrophin-deficient muscles. The analysis of a cohort of patients with genetically determined DMD or Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD) unveiled a selective up-regulation of the ubiquitin ligase tripartite motif-containing protein 32 (TRIM32). The induction of TRIM32 was due to a transcriptional effect and it correlated with disease severity in BMD patients. In contrast, atrogin1 and muscle RING-finger protein-1 (MuRF-1), which are strongly increased in distinct types of muscular atrophy, were not affected by the DMD dystrophic process. Knock-out models showed that TRIM32 is involved in ubiquitination of muscle cytoskeletal proteins as well as of protein inhibitor of activated STAT protein gamma (Piasγ) and N-myc downstream-regulated gene, two inhibitors of satellite cell proliferation and differentiation. Accordingly, we showed that in DMD/BMD muscle tissue, TRIM32 induction was more pronounced in regenerating myofibers rather than in necrotic muscle cells, thus pointing out a role of this protein in the regulation of human myoblast cell fate. This finding highlights TRIM32 as a possible therapeutic target to favor skeletal muscle regeneration in DMD patients.

Dietary fish protein hydrolysates containing bioactive motifs affect serum and adipose tissue fatty acid compositions, serum lipids, postprandial glucose regulation and growth in obese Zucker fa/fa rats.

Science.gov (United States)

Drotningsvik, Aslaug; Mjøs, Svein A; Pampanin, Daniela M; Slizyte, Rasa; Carvajal, Ana; Remman, Tore; Høgøy, Ingmar; Gudbrandsen, Oddrun A

2016-10-01

The world's fisheries and aquaculture industries produce vast amounts of protein-containing by-products that can be enzymatically hydrolysed to smaller peptides and possibly be used as additives to functional foods and nutraceuticals targeted for patients with obesity-related metabolic disorders. To investigate the effects of fish protein hydrolysates on markers of metabolic disorders, obese Zucker fa/fa rats consumed diets with 75 % of protein from casein/whey (CAS) and 25 % from herring (HER) or salmon (SAL) protein hydrolysate from rest raw material, or 100 % protein from CAS for 4 weeks. The fatty acid compositions were similar in the experimental diets, and none of them contained any long-chain n-3 PUFA. Ratios of lysine:arginine and methionine:glycine were lower in HER and SAL diets when compared with CAS, and taurine was detected only in fish protein hydrolysate diets. Motifs with reported hypocholesterolemic or antidiabetic activities were identified in both fish protein hydrolysates. Rats fed HER diet had lower serum HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol, and higher serum TAG, MUFA and n-3:n-6 PUFA ratio compared with CAS-fed rats. SAL rats gained more weight and had better postprandial glucose regulation compared with CAS rats. Serum lipids and fatty acids were only marginally affected by SAL, but adipose tissue contained less total SFA and more total n-3 PUFA when compared with CAS. To conclude, diets containing hydrolysed rest raw material from herring or salmon proteins may affect growth, lipid metabolism, postprandial glucose regulation and fatty acid composition in serum and adipose tissue in obese Zucker rats.

The LSD1-Type Zinc Finger Motifs of Pisum sativa LSD1 Are a Novel Nuclear Localization Signal and Interact with Importin Alpha

OpenAIRE

He, Shanping; Huang, Kuowei; Zhang, Xu; Yu, Xiangchun; Huang, Ping; An, Chengcai

2011-01-01

BACKGROUND: Genetic studies of the Arabidopsis mutant lsd1 highlight the important role of LSD1 in the negative regulation of plant programmed cell death (PCD). Arabidopsis thaliana LSD1 (AtLSD1) contains three LSD1-type zinc finger motifs, which are involved in the protein-protein interaction. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To further understand the function of LSD1, we have analyzed cellular localization and functional localization domains of Pisum sativa LSD1 (PsLSD1), which is a homolog ...

SiteBinder: an improved approach for comparing multiple protein structural motifs.

Science.gov (United States)

Sehnal, David; Vařeková, Radka Svobodová; Huber, Heinrich J; Geidl, Stanislav; Ionescu, Crina-Maria; Wimmerová, Michaela; Koča, Jaroslav

2012-02-27

There is a paramount need to develop new techniques and tools that will extract as much information as possible from the ever growing repository of protein 3D structures. We report here on the development of a software tool for the multiple superimposition of large sets of protein structural motifs. Our superimposition methodology performs a systematic search for the atom pairing that provides the best fit. During this search, the RMSD values for all chemically relevant pairings are calculated by quaternion algebra. The number of evaluated pairings is markedly decreased by using PDB annotations for atoms. This approach guarantees that the best fit will be found and can be applied even when sequence similarity is low or does not exist at all. We have implemented this methodology in the Web application SiteBinder, which is able to process up to thousands of protein structural motifs in a very short time, and which provides an intuitive and user-friendly interface. Our benchmarking analysis has shown the robustness, efficiency, and versatility of our methodology and its implementation by the successful superimposition of 1000 experimentally determined structures for each of 32 eukaryotic linear motifs. We also demonstrate the applicability of SiteBinder using three case studies. We first compared the structures of 61 PA-IIL sugar binding sites containing nine different sugars, and we found that the sugar binding sites of PA-IIL and its mutants have a conserved structure despite their binding different sugars. We then superimposed over 300 zinc finger central motifs and revealed that the molecular structure in the vicinity of the Zn atom is highly conserved. Finally, we superimposed 12 BH3 domains from pro-apoptotic proteins. Our findings come to support the hypothesis that there is a structural basis for the functional segregation of BH3-only proteins into activators and enablers.

Baculovirus p35 gene is oppositely regulated by P53 and AP-1 like factors in Spodoptera frugiperda

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mohareer, Krishnaveni; Sahdev, Sudhir; Hasnain, Seyed E.

2011-01-01

Highlights: ► Baculovirus p35 is regulated by both viral and host factors. ► Baculovirus p35 is negatively regulated by SfP53-like factor. ► Baculovirus p35 is positively regulated by SfAP-1-like factor. -- Abstract: Baculovirus p35 belongs to the early class of genes of AcMNPV and requires viral factors like Immediate Early protein-1 for its transcription. To investigate the role of host factors in regulating p35 gene expression, the putative transcription factor binding sites were examined in silico and the role of these factors in influencing the transcription of p35 gene was assessed. We focused our studies on AP-1 and P53-like factors, which are activated under oxidative stress conditions. The AP-1 motif is located at −1401 while P53 motif is at −1912 relative to p35 translation start site. The predicted AP-1 and P53 elements formed specific complexes with Spodoptera frugiperda nuclear extracts. Both AP-1 and P53 motif binding proteins were down regulated as a function of AcMNPV infection in Spodoptera cells. To address the question whether during an oxidative outburst, the p35 transcription is enhanced; we investigated the role of these oxidative stress induced host transcription factors in influencing p35 gene transcription. Reporter assays revealed that AP-1 element enhances the transcription of p35 by a factor of two. Interestingly, P53 element appears to repress the transcription of p35 gene.

Baculovirus p35 gene is oppositely regulated by P53 and AP-1 like factors in Spodoptera frugiperda

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mohareer, Krishnaveni [Laboratory of Molecular and Cell Biology, Center for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad 500001 (India); Institute of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad Campus, Prof. C.R. Rao Road, Gachibowli, Hyderabad 500046 (India); Sahdev, Sudhir [Laboratory of Molecular and Cell Biology, Center for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad 500001 (India); Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals, Gurgaon, New Delhi (India); Hasnain, Seyed E., E-mail: seh@bioschool.iitd.ac.in [Institute of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad Campus, Prof. C.R. Rao Road, Gachibowli, Hyderabad 500046 (India); Kusuma School of Biological Sciences, IIT Delhi, New Delhi 110016 (India); ILBS, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi (India); King Saud University, Riyadh, KSA (Saudi Arabia)

2011-11-04

Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Baculovirus p35 is regulated by both viral and host factors. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Baculovirus p35 is negatively regulated by SfP53-like factor. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Baculovirus p35 is positively regulated by SfAP-1-like factor. -- Abstract: Baculovirus p35 belongs to the early class of genes of AcMNPV and requires viral factors like Immediate Early protein-1 for its transcription. To investigate the role of host factors in regulating p35 gene expression, the putative transcription factor binding sites were examined in silico and the role of these factors in influencing the transcription of p35 gene was assessed. We focused our studies on AP-1 and P53-like factors, which are activated under oxidative stress conditions. The AP-1 motif is located at -1401 while P53 motif is at -1912 relative to p35 translation start site. The predicted AP-1 and P53 elements formed specific complexes with Spodoptera frugiperda nuclear extracts. Both AP-1 and P53 motif binding proteins were down regulated as a function of AcMNPV infection in Spodoptera cells. To address the question whether during an oxidative outburst, the p35 transcription is enhanced; we investigated the role of these oxidative stress induced host transcription factors in influencing p35 gene transcription. Reporter assays revealed that AP-1 element enhances the transcription of p35 by a factor of two. Interestingly, P53 element appears to repress the transcription of p35 gene.

RNA Binding of T-cell Intracellular Antigen-1 (TIA-1) C-terminal RNA Recognition Motif Is Modified by pH Conditions*

Science.gov (United States)

Cruz-Gallardo, Isabel; Aroca, Ángeles; Persson, Cecilia; Karlsson, B. Göran; Díaz-Moreno, Irene

2013-01-01

T-cell intracellular antigen-1 (TIA-1) is a DNA/RNA-binding protein that regulates critical events in cell physiology by the regulation of pre-mRNA splicing and mRNA translation. TIA-1 is composed of three RNA recognition motifs (RRMs) and a glutamine-rich domain and binds to uridine-rich RNA sequences through its C-terminal RRM2 and RRM3 domains. Here, we show that RNA binding mediated by either isolated RRM3 or the RRM23 construct is controlled by slight environmental pH changes due to the protonation/deprotonation of TIA-1 RRM3 histidine residues. The auxiliary role of the C-terminal RRM3 domain in TIA-1 RNA recognition is poorly understood, and this work provides insight into its binding mechanisms. PMID:23902765

Motif distributions in phase-space networks for characterizing experimental two-phase flow patterns with chaotic features.

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Zhong-Ke; Jin, Ning-De; Wang, Wen-Xu; Lai, Ying-Cheng

2010-07-01

The dynamics of two-phase flows have been a challenging problem in nonlinear dynamics and fluid mechanics. We propose a method to characterize and distinguish patterns from inclined water-oil flow experiments based on the concept of network motifs that have found great usage in network science and systems biology. In particular, we construct from measured time series phase-space complex networks and then calculate the distribution of a set of distinct network motifs. To gain insight, we first test the approach using time series from classical chaotic systems and find a universal feature: motif distributions from different chaotic systems are generally highly heterogeneous. Our main finding is that the distributions from experimental two-phase flows tend to be heterogeneous as well, suggesting the underlying chaotic nature of the flow patterns. Calculation of the maximal Lyapunov exponent provides further support for this. Motif distributions can thus be a feasible tool to understand the dynamics of realistic two-phase flow patterns.

Stanniocalcin 1 binds hemin through a partially conserved heme regulatory motif

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Westberg, Johan A., E-mail: johan.westberg@helsinki.fi [Department of Pathology, Haartman Institute, University of Helsinki and HUSLAB, P.O. Box 21, Haartmaninkatu 3, FI-00014 Helsinki (Finland); Jiang, Ji, E-mail: ji.jiang@helsinki.fi [Department of Pathology, Haartman Institute, University of Helsinki and HUSLAB, P.O. Box 21, Haartmaninkatu 3, FI-00014 Helsinki (Finland); Andersson, Leif C., E-mail: leif.andersson@helsinki.fi [Department of Pathology, Haartman Institute, University of Helsinki and HUSLAB, P.O. Box 21, Haartmaninkatu 3, FI-00014 Helsinki (Finland)

2011-06-03

Highlights: {yields} Stanniocalcin 1 (STC1) binds heme through novel heme binding motif. {yields} Central iron atom of heme and cysteine-114 of STC1 are essential for binding. {yields} STC1 binds Fe{sup 2+} and Fe{sup 3+} heme. {yields} STC1 peptide prevents oxidative decay of heme. -- Abstract: Hemin (iron protoporphyrin IX) is a necessary component of many proteins, functioning either as a cofactor or an intracellular messenger. Hemoproteins have diverse functions, such as transportation of gases, gas detection, chemical catalysis and electron transfer. Stanniocalcin 1 (STC1) is a protein involved in respiratory responses of the cell but whose mechanism of action is still undetermined. We examined the ability of STC1 to bind hemin in both its reduced and oxidized states and located Cys{sup 114} as the axial ligand of the central iron atom of hemin. The amino acid sequence differs from the established (Cys-Pro) heme regulatory motif (HRM) and therefore presents a novel heme binding motif (Cys-Ser). A STC1 peptide containing the heme binding sequence was able to inhibit both spontaneous and H{sub 2}O{sub 2} induced decay of hemin. Binding of hemin does not affect the mitochondrial localization of STC1.

A Comparison Study for DNA Motif Modeling on Protein Binding Microarray

KAUST Repository

Wong, Ka-Chun; Li, Yue; Peng, Chengbin; Wong, Hau-San

2015-01-01

Transcription Factor Binding Sites (TFBSs) are relatively short (5-15 bp) and degenerate. Identifying them is a computationally challenging task. In particular, Protein Binding Microarray (PBM) is a high-throughput platform that can measure the DNA binding preference of a protein in a comprehensive and unbiased manner; for instance, a typical PBM experiment can measure binding signal intensities of a protein to all possible DNA k-mers (k=810). Since proteins can often bind to DNA with different binding intensities, one of the major challenges is to build motif models which can fully capture the quantitative binding affinity data. To learn DNA motif models from the non-convex objective function landscape, several optimization methods are compared and applied to the PBM motif model building problem. In particular, representative methods from different optimization paradigms have been chosen for modeling performance comparison on hundreds of PBM datasets. The results suggest that the multimodal optimization methods are very effective for capturing the binding preference information from PBM data. In particular, we observe a general performance improvement using di-nucleotide modeling over mono-nucleotide modeling. In addition, the models learned by the best-performing method are applied to two independent applications: PBM probe rotation testing and ChIP-Seq peak sequence prediction, demonstrating its biological applicability.

A Comparison Study for DNA Motif Modeling on Protein Binding Microarray

KAUST Repository

Wong, Ka-Chun

2015-06-11

Transcription Factor Binding Sites (TFBSs) are relatively short (5-15 bp) and degenerate. Identifying them is a computationally challenging task. In particular, Protein Binding Microarray (PBM) is a high-throughput platform that can measure the DNA binding preference of a protein in a comprehensive and unbiased manner; for instance, a typical PBM experiment can measure binding signal intensities of a protein to all possible DNA k-mers (k=810). Since proteins can often bind to DNA with different binding intensities, one of the major challenges is to build motif models which can fully capture the quantitative binding affinity data. To learn DNA motif models from the non-convex objective function landscape, several optimization methods are compared and applied to the PBM motif model building problem. In particular, representative methods from different optimization paradigms have been chosen for modeling performance comparison on hundreds of PBM datasets. The results suggest that the multimodal optimization methods are very effective for capturing the binding preference information from PBM data. In particular, we observe a general performance improvement using di-nucleotide modeling over mono-nucleotide modeling. In addition, the models learned by the best-performing method are applied to two independent applications: PBM probe rotation testing and ChIP-Seq peak sequence prediction, demonstrating its biological applicability.

Mitochondrial and Y chromosome haplotype motifs as diagnostic markers of Jewish ancestry: a reconsideration.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sergio eTofanelli

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Several authors have proposed haplotype motifs based on site variants at the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA and the non-recombining portion of the Y chromosome (NRY to trace the genealogies of Jewish people. Here, we analyzed their main approaches and test the feasibility of adopting motifs as ancestry markers through construction of a large database of mtDNA and NRY haplotypes from public genetic genealogical repositories. We verified the reliability of Jewish ancestry prediction based on the Cohen and Levite Modal Haplotypes in their classical 6 STR marker format or in the extended 12 STR format, as well as four founder mtDNA lineages (HVS-I segments accounting for about 40% of the current population of Ashkenazi Jews. For this purpose we compared haplotype composition in individuals of self-reported Jewish ancestry with the rest of European, African or Middle Eastern samples, to test for non-random association of ethno-geographic groups and haplotypes. Overall, NRY and mtDNA based motifs, previously reported to differentiate between groups, were found to be more represented in Jewish compared to non-Jewish groups. However, this seems to stem from common ancestors of Jewish lineages being rather recent respect to ancestors of non-Jewish lineages with the same haplotype signatures. Moreover, the polyphyly of haplotypes which contain the proposed motifs and the misuse of constant mutation rates heavily affected previous attempts to correctly dating the origin of common ancestries. Accordingly, our results stress the limitations of using the above haplotype motifs as reliable Jewish ancestry predictors and show its inadequacy for forensic or genealogical purposes.

Mutational analysis of the RecJ exonuclease of Escherichia coli: identification of phosphoesterase motifs.

Science.gov (United States)

Sutera, V A; Han, E S; Rajman, L A; Lovett, S T

1999-10-01

The recJ gene, identified in Escherichia coli, encodes a Mg(+2)-dependent 5'-to-3' exonuclease with high specificity for single-strand DNA. Genetic and biochemical experiments implicate RecJ exonuclease in homologous recombination, base excision, and methyl-directed mismatch repair. Genes encoding proteins with strong similarities to RecJ have been found in every eubacterial genome sequenced to date, with the exception of Mycoplasma and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Multiple genes encoding proteins similar to RecJ are found in some eubacteria, including Bacillus and Helicobacter, and in the archaea. Among this divergent set of sequences, seven conserved motifs emerge. We demonstrate here that amino acids within six of these motifs are essential for both the biochemical and genetic functions of E. coli RecJ. These motifs may define interactions with Mg(2+) ions or substrate DNA. A large family of proteins more distantly related to RecJ is present in archaea, eubacteria, and eukaryotes, including a hypothetical protein in the MgPa adhesin operon of Mycoplasma, a domain of putative polyA polymerases in Synechocystis and Aquifex, PRUNE of Drosophila, and an exopolyphosphatase (PPX1) of Saccharomyces cereviseae. Because these six RecJ motifs are shared between exonucleases and exopolyphosphatases, they may constitute an ancient phosphoesterase domain now found in all kingdoms of life.

Design of Fashion Accessories Using Akwa-Ocha Motifs and Symbols

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Nneka Umera-Okeke

Nkpopu: holes. 16. Osikapa na ... accessories anchors in both social semiotics and archetypal theories. Social semiotics theory as ... the two earrings incorporate the Onwa (moon) motif in spherical shape and in black colour. They are held ...

Functional structural motifs for protein-ligand, protein-protein, and protein-nucleic acid interactions and their connection to supersecondary structures.

Science.gov (United States)

Kinjo, Akira R; Nakamura, Haruki

2013-01-01

Protein functions are mediated by interactions between proteins and other molecules. One useful approach to analyze protein functions is to compare and classify the structures of interaction interfaces of proteins. Here, we describe the procedures for compiling a database of interface structures and efficiently comparing the interface structures. To do so requires a good understanding of the data structures of the Protein Data Bank (PDB). Therefore, we also provide a detailed account of the PDB exchange dictionary necessary for extracting data that are relevant for analyzing interaction interfaces and secondary structures. We identify recurring structural motifs by classifying similar interface structures, and we define a coarse-grained representation of supersecondary structures (SSS) which represents a sequence of two or three secondary structure elements including their relative orientations as a string of four to seven letters. By examining the correspondence between structural motifs and SSS strings, we show that no SSS string has particularly high propensity to be found interaction interfaces in general, indicating any SSS can be used as a binding interface. When individual structural motifs are examined, there are some SSS strings that have high propensity for particular groups of structural motifs. In addition, it is shown that while the SSS strings found in particular structural motifs for nonpolymer and protein interfaces are as abundant as in other structural motifs that belong to the same subunit, structural motifs for nucleic acid interfaces exhibit somewhat stronger preference for SSS strings. In regard to protein folds, many motif-specific SSS strings were found across many folds, suggesting that SSS may be a useful description to investigate the universality of ligand binding modes.

Motif trie: An efficient text index for pattern discovery with don't cares

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grossi, Roberto; Menconi, Giulia; Pisanti, Nadia

2017-01-01

We introduce the motif trie data structure, which has applications in pattern matching and discovery in genomic analysis, plagiarism detection, data mining, intrusion detection, spam fighting and time series analysis, to name a few. Here the extraction of recurring patterns in sequential and text......We introduce the motif trie data structure, which has applications in pattern matching and discovery in genomic analysis, plagiarism detection, data mining, intrusion detection, spam fighting and time series analysis, to name a few. Here the extraction of recurring patterns in sequential...

ApiAP2 Factors as Candidate Regulators of Stochastic Commitment to Merozoite Production in Theileria annulata.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marta Pieszko

Full Text Available Differentiation of one life-cycle stage to the next is critical for survival and transmission of apicomplexan parasites. A number of studies have shown that stage differentiation is a stochastic process and is associated with a point that commits the cell to a change over in the pattern of gene expression. Studies on differentiation to merozoite production (merogony in T. annulata postulated that commitment involves a concentration threshold of DNA binding proteins and an auto-regulatory loop.In this study ApiAP2 DNA binding proteins that show changes in expression level during merogony of T. annulata have been identified. DNA motifs bound by orthologous domains in Plasmodium were found to be enriched in upstream regions of stage-regulated T. annulata genes and validated as targets for the T. annulata AP2 domains by electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA. Two findings were of particular note: the gene in T. annulata encoding the orthologue of the ApiAP2 domain in the AP2-G factor that commits Plasmodium to gametocyte production, has an expression profile indicating involvement in transmission of T. annulata to the tick vector; genes encoding related domains that bind, or are predicted to bind, sequence motifs of the type 5'-(ACACAC(A are implicated in differential regulation of gene expression, with one gene (TA11145 likely to be preferentially up-regulated via auto-regulation as the cell progresses to merogony.We postulate that the Theileria factor possessing the AP2 domain orthologous to that of Plasmodium AP2-G may regulate gametocytogenesis in a similar manner to AP2-G. In addition, paralogous ApiAP2 factors that recognise 5'-(ACACAC(A type motifs could operate in a competitive manner to promote reversible progression towards the point that commits the cell to undergo merogony. Factors possessing AP2 domains that bind (or are predicted to bind this motif are present in the vector-borne genera Theileria, Babesia and Plasmodium, and other

Regulation of Adult CNS Axonal Regeneration by the Post-transcriptional Regulator Cpeb1

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wilson Pak-Kin Lou

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Adult mammalian central nervous system (CNS neurons are unable to regenerate following axonal injury, leading to permanent functional impairments. Yet, the reasons underlying this regeneration failure are not fully understood. Here, we studied the transcriptome and translatome shortly after spinal cord injury. Profiling of the total and ribosome-bound RNA in injured and naïve spinal cords identified a substantial post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. In particular, transcripts associated with nervous system development were down-regulated in the total RNA fraction while remaining stably loaded onto ribosomes. Interestingly, motif association analysis of post-transcriptionally regulated transcripts identified the cytoplasmic polyadenylation element (CPE as enriched in a subset of these transcripts that was more resistant to injury-induced reduction at the transcriptome level. Modulation of these transcripts by overexpression of the CPE binding protein, Cpeb1, in mouse and Drosophila CNS neurons promoted axonal regeneration following injury. Our study uncovered a global evolutionarily conserved post-transcriptional mechanism enhancing regeneration of injured CNS axons.

Meis1 regulates Foxn4 expression during retinal progenitor cell differentiation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammed M. Islam

2013-09-01

The transcription factor forkhead box N4 (Foxn4 is a key regulator in a variety of biological processes during development. In particular, Foxn4 plays an essential role in the genesis of horizontal and amacrine neurons from neural progenitors in the vertebrate retina. Although the functions of Foxn4 have been well established, the transcriptional regulation of Foxn4 expression during progenitor cell differentiation remains unclear. Here, we report that an evolutionarily conserved 129 bp noncoding DNA fragment (Foxn4CR4.2 or CR4.2, located ∼26 kb upstream of Foxn4 transcription start site, functions as a cis-element for Foxn4 regulation. CR4.2 directs gene expression in Foxn4-positive cells, primarily in progenitors, differentiating horizontal and amacrine cells. We further determined that the gene regulatory activity of CR4.2 is modulated by Meis1 binding motif, which is bound and activated by Meis1 transcription factor. Deletion of the Meis1 binding motif or knockdown of Meis1 expression abolishes the gene regulatory activity of CR4.2. In addition, knockdown of Meis1 expression diminishes the endogenous Foxn4 expression and affects cell lineage development. Together, we demonstrate that CR4.2 and its interacting Meis1 transcription factor play important roles in regulating Foxn4 expression during early retinogenesis. These findings provide new insights into molecular mechanisms that govern gene regulation in retinal progenitors and specific cell lineage development.

TBX3 regulates splicing in vivo: a novel molecular mechanism for Ulnar-mammary syndrome.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pavan Kumar P

2014-03-01

Full Text Available TBX3 is a member of the T-box family of transcription factors with critical roles in development, oncogenesis, cell fate, and tissue homeostasis. TBX3 mutations in humans cause complex congenital malformations and Ulnar-mammary syndrome. Previous investigations into TBX3 function focused on its activity as a transcriptional repressor. We used an unbiased proteomic approach to identify TBX3 interacting proteins in vivo and discovered that TBX3 interacts with multiple mRNA splicing factors and RNA metabolic proteins. We discovered that TBX3 regulates alternative splicing in vivo and can promote or inhibit splicing depending on context and transcript. TBX3 associates with alternatively spliced mRNAs and binds RNA directly. TBX3 binds RNAs containing TBX binding motifs, and these motifs are required for regulation of splicing. Our study reveals that TBX3 mutations seen in humans with UMS disrupt its splicing regulatory function. The pleiotropic effects of TBX3 mutations in humans and mice likely result from disrupting at least two molecular functions of this protein: transcriptional regulation and pre-mRNA splicing.

TBX3 regulates splicing in vivo: a novel molecular mechanism for Ulnar-mammary syndrome.

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar P, Pavan; Franklin, Sarah; Emechebe, Uchenna; Hu, Hao; Moore, Barry; Lehman, Chris; Yandell, Mark; Moon, Anne M

2014-03-01

TBX3 is a member of the T-box family of transcription factors with critical roles in development, oncogenesis, cell fate, and tissue homeostasis. TBX3 mutations in humans cause complex congenital malformations and Ulnar-mammary syndrome. Previous investigations into TBX3 function focused on its activity as a transcriptional repressor. We used an unbiased proteomic approach to identify TBX3 interacting proteins in vivo and discovered that TBX3 interacts with multiple mRNA splicing factors and RNA metabolic proteins. We discovered that TBX3 regulates alternative splicing in vivo and can promote or inhibit splicing depending on context and transcript. TBX3 associates with alternatively spliced mRNAs and binds RNA directly. TBX3 binds RNAs containing TBX binding motifs, and these motifs are required for regulation of splicing. Our study reveals that TBX3 mutations seen in humans with UMS disrupt its splicing regulatory function. The pleiotropic effects of TBX3 mutations in humans and mice likely result from disrupting at least two molecular functions of this protein: transcriptional regulation and pre-mRNA splicing.

Sequential multisite phospho-regulation of KNL1-BUB3 interfaces at mitotic kinetochores

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vleugel, Mathijs; Omerzu, Manja; Groenewold, Vincent; Hadders, Michael A; Lens, Susanne M A; Kops, Geert J P L

2015-01-01

Regulated recruitment of the kinase-adaptor complex BUB1/BUB3 to kinetochores is crucial for correcting faulty chromosome-spindle attachments and for spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) signaling. BUB1/BUB3 localizes to kinetochores by binding phosphorylated MELT motifs (MELpT) in the kinetochore

Systematic analysis of phosphotyrosine antibodies recognizing single phosphorylated EPIYA-motifs in CagA of Western-type Helicobacter pylori strains.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Judith Lind

Full Text Available The clinical outcome of Helicobacter pylori infections is determined by multiple host-pathogen interactions that may develop to chronic gastritis, and sometimes peptic ulcers or gastric cancer. Highly virulent strains encode a type IV secretion system (T4SS that delivers the effector protein CagA into gastric epithelial cells. Translocated CagA undergoes tyrosine phosphorylation at EPIYA-sequence motifs, called A, B and C in Western-type strains, by members of the oncogenic Src and Abl host kinases. Phosphorylated EPIYA-motifs mediate interactions of CagA with host signaling factors--in particular various SH2-domain containing human proteins--thereby hijacking multiple downstream signaling cascades. Observations of tyrosine-phosphorylated CagA are mainly based on the use of commercial phosphotyrosine antibodies, which originally were selected to detect phosphotyrosines in mammalian proteins. Systematic studies of phosphorylated EPIYA-motif detection by the different antibodies would be very useful, but are not yet available. To address this issue, we synthesized phospho- and non-phosphopeptides representing each predominant Western CagA EPIYA-motif, and determined the recognition patterns of seven different phosphotyrosine antibodies in Western blots, and also performed infection studies with diverse representative Western H. pylori strains. Our results show that a total of 9-11 amino acids containing the phosphorylated EPIYA-motifs are necessary and sufficient for specific detection by these antibodies, but revealed great variability in sequence recognition. Three of the antibodies recognized phosphorylated EPIYA-motifs A, B and C similarly well; whereas preferential binding to phosphorylated motif A and motifs A and C was found with two and one antibodies, respectively, and the seventh anti-phosphotyrosine antibody did not recognize any phosphorylated EPIYA-motif. Controls showed that none of the antibodies recognized the corresponding non

TCR down-regulation controls virus-specific CD8+ T cell responses

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bonefeld, Charlotte Menné; Haks, Mariëlle; Nielsen, Bodil

2008-01-01

in mice with a mutated CD3gamma di-leucine-based motif. The CD3gamma mutation did not impair early TCR signaling, nor did it compromise recruitment or proliferation of virus-specific T cells, but it increased the apoptosis rate of the activated T cells by increasing down-regulation of the antiapoptotic...

Fine tuning of RFX/DAF-19-regulated target gene expression through binding to multiple sites in Caenorhabditis elegans

OpenAIRE

Chu, Jeffery S. C.; Tarailo-Graovac, Maja; Zhang, Di; Wang, Jun; Uyar, Bora; Tu, Domena; Trinh, Joanne; Baillie, David L.; Chen, Nansheng

2011-01-01

In humans, mutations of a growing list of regulatory factor X (RFX) target genes have been associated with devastating genetics disease conditions including ciliopathies. However, mechanisms underlying RFX transcription factors (TFs)-mediated gene expression regulation, especially differential gene expression regulation, are largely unknown. In this study, we explore the functional significance of the co-existence of multiple X-box motifs in regulating differential gene expression in Caenorha...

Exploiting publicly available biological and biochemical information for the discovery of novel short linear motifs.

KAUST Repository

Sayadi, Ahmed

2011-07-20

The function of proteins is often mediated by short linear segments of their amino acid sequence, called Short Linear Motifs or SLiMs, the identification of which can provide important information about a protein function. However, the short length of the motifs and their variable degree of conservation makes their identification hard since it is difficult to correctly estimate the statistical significance of their occurrence. Consequently, only a small fraction of them have been discovered so far. We describe here an approach for the discovery of SLiMs based on their occurrence in evolutionarily unrelated proteins belonging to the same biological, signalling or metabolic pathway and give specific examples of its effectiveness in both rediscovering known motifs and in discovering novel ones. An automatic implementation of the procedure, available for download, allows significant motifs to be identified, automatically annotated with functional, evolutionary and structural information and organized in a database that can be inspected and queried. An instance of the database populated with pre-computed data on seven organisms is accessible through a publicly available server and we believe it constitutes by itself a useful resource for the life sciences (http://www.biocomputing.it/modipath).

Native characterization of nucleic acid motif thermodynamics via non-covalent catalysis

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Chunyan; Bae, Jin H.; Zhang, David Yu

2016-01-01

DNA hybridization thermodynamics is critical for accurate design of oligonucleotides for biotechnology and nanotechnology applications, but parameters currently in use are inaccurately extrapolated based on limited quantitative understanding of thermal behaviours. Here, we present a method to measure the ΔG° of DNA motifs at temperatures and buffer conditions of interest, with significantly better accuracy (6- to 14-fold lower s.e.) than prior methods. The equilibrium constant of a reaction with thermodynamics closely approximating that of a desired motif is numerically calculated from directly observed reactant and product equilibrium concentrations; a DNA catalyst is designed to accelerate equilibration. We measured the ΔG° of terminal fluorophores, single-nucleotide dangles and multinucleotide dangles, in temperatures ranging from 10 to 45 °C. PMID:26782977