WorldWideScience

Sample records for protein patterns obtained

  1. Different protein-protein interface patterns predicted by different machine learning methods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Wei; Yang, Yongxiao; Yin, Jianxin; Gong, Xinqi

    2017-11-22

    Different types of protein-protein interactions make different protein-protein interface patterns. Different machine learning methods are suitable to deal with different types of data. Then, is it the same situation that different interface patterns are preferred for prediction by different machine learning methods? Here, four different machine learning methods were employed to predict protein-protein interface residue pairs on different interface patterns. The performances of the methods for different types of proteins are different, which suggest that different machine learning methods tend to predict different protein-protein interface patterns. We made use of ANOVA and variable selection to prove our result. Our proposed methods taking advantages of different single methods also got a good prediction result compared to single methods. In addition to the prediction of protein-protein interactions, this idea can be extended to other research areas such as protein structure prediction and design.

  2. Protein patterns of yeast during sporulation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Litske Petersen, J.G.; Kielland-Brandt, M.C.; Nilsson-Tillgren, T.

    1979-01-01

    High resolution two-dimensional gel electrophoresis was used to study protein synthesis during synchronous meiosis and ascospore formation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The stained protein patterns of samples harvested at any stage between meiotic prophase and the four-spore stage in two sporulating strains showed the same approximately 250 polypeptides. Of these only a few seemed to increase or decrease in concentration during sporulation. The characteristic pattern of sporulating yeast was identical to the pattern of glucose-grown staitonary yeast cells adapted to respiration. The latter type of cells readily initiates meiosis when transferred to sporulation medium. This pattern differed from the protein patterns of exponentially growing cells in glucose or acetate presporulation medium. Five major proteins in stationary and sporulating yeast cells were not detected in either type of exponential culture. Two-dimensional autoradiograms of [ 35 S]methionine-labelled yeast proteins revealed that some proteins were preferentially labelled during sporulation, while other proteins were labelled at later stages. These patterns differed from the auroradiograms of exponentially growing yeast cells in glucose presporulation medium in a number of spots. No differences were observed when stained gels or autoradiograms of sporulating cultures and non-sporulating strains in sporulation medium were compared. (author)

  3. Canine serum protein patterns using high-resolution electrophoresis (HRE).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abate, O; Zanatta, R; Malisano, T; Dotta, U

    2000-03-01

    Serum protein values were determined in 26 healthy dogs using agarose gel electrophoresis (SPE), splitting the electrophoretic separation into six regions: albumin, alpha(1), alpha(2), beta(1), beta(2)and gamma globulins. High-resolution electrophoresis (HRE) was used to separate single proteins. Serum proteins from dogs (26 healthy and 20 affected by various diseases) were then characterized by electrophoretic immunofixation (IFE) and Sudan black staining on HRE film. Haemoglobin and normal canine plasma and serum were used to identify haptoglobin and fibrinogen, respectively. In the standard pattern, determined by HRE, the following proteins were identified: albumin, alpha(1)-lipoprotein (alpha(1)-region), haptoglobin and alpha(2)-macroglobulin (alpha(2)-region), beta -lipoprotein and C3 (beta(1)-region), transferrin and IgM (beta(2)-region), IgG (mostly in gamma -region and partly in beta(2)-region). The HRE pattern shown by healthy dogs could be compared with those of dogs affected by various diseases to obtain clinical information. Copyright 2000 Harcourt Publishers Ltd.

  4. Chromosome driven spatial patterning of proteins in bacteria.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Saeed Saberi

    Full Text Available The spatial patterning of proteins in bacteria plays an important role in many processes, from cell division to chemotaxis. In the asymmetrically dividing bacteria Caulobacter crescentus, a scaffolding protein, PopZ, localizes to both poles and aids the differential patterning of proteins between mother and daughter cells during division. Polar patterning of misfolded proteins in Escherichia coli has also been shown, and likely plays an important role in cellular ageing. Recent experiments on both of the above systems suggest that the presence of chromosome free regions along with protein multimerization may be a mechanism for driving the polar localization of proteins. We have developed a simple physical model for protein localization using only these two driving mechanisms. Our model reproduces all the observed patterns of PopZ and misfolded protein localization--from diffuse, unipolar, and bipolar patterns and can also account for the observed patterns in a variety of mutants. The model also suggests new experiments to further test the role of the chromosome in driving protein patterning, and whether such a mechanism is responsible for helping to drive the differentiation of the cell poles.

  5. Network based approaches reveal clustering in protein point patterns

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parker, Joshua; Barr, Valarie; Aldridge, Joshua; Samelson, Lawrence E.; Losert, Wolfgang

    2014-03-01

    Recent advances in super-resolution imaging have allowed for the sub-diffraction measurement of the spatial location of proteins on the surfaces of T-cells. The challenge is to connect these complex point patterns to the internal processes and interactions, both protein-protein and protein-membrane. We begin analyzing these patterns by forming a geometric network amongst the proteins and looking at network measures, such the degree distribution. This allows us to compare experimentally observed patterns to models. Specifically, we find that the experimental patterns differ from heterogeneous Poisson processes, highlighting an internal clustering structure. Further work will be to compare our results to simulated protein-protein interactions to determine clustering mechanisms.

  6. Compare local pocket and global protein structure models by small structure patterns

    KAUST Repository

    Cui, Xuefeng

    2015-09-09

    Researchers proposed several criteria to assess the quality of predicted protein structures because it is one of the essential tasks in the Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction (CASP) competitions. Popular criteria include root mean squared deviation (RMSD), MaxSub score, TM-score, GDT-TS and GDT-HA scores. All these criteria require calculation of rigid transformations to superimpose the the predicted protein structure to the native protein structure. Yet, how to obtain the rigid transformations is unknown or with high time complexity, and, hence, heuristic algorithms were proposed. In this work, we carefully design various small structure patterns, including the ones specifically tuned for local pockets. Such structure patterns are biologically meaningful, and address the issue of relying on a sufficient number of backbone residue fragments for existing methods. We sample the rigid transformations from these small structure patterns; and the optimal superpositions yield by these small structures are refined and reported. As a result, among 11; 669 pairs of predicted and native local protein pocket models from the CASP10 dataset, the GDT-TS scores calculated by our method are significantly higher than those calculated by LGA. Moreover, our program is computationally much more efficient. Source codes and executables are publicly available at http://www.cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/prosta/

  7. Effect of resistance training and protein intake pattern on myofibrillar protein synthesis and proteome kinetics in older men in energy restriction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murphy, Caoileann H; Shankaran, Mahalakshmi; Churchward-Venne, Tyler A; Mitchell, Cameron J; Kolar, Nathan M; Burke, Louise M; Hawley, John A; Kassis, Amira; Karagounis, Leonidas G; Li, Kelvin; King, Chelsea; Hellerstein, Marc; Phillips, Stuart M

    2018-06-01

    Strategies to enhance the loss of fat while preserving muscle mass during energy restriction are of great importance to prevent sarcopenia in overweight older adults. We show for the first time that the integrated rate of synthesis of numerous individual contractile, cytosolic and mitochondrial skeletal muscle proteins was increased by resistance training (RT) and unaffected by dietary protein intake pattern during energy restriction in free-living, obese older men. We observed a correlation between the synthetic rates of skeletal muscle-derived proteins obtained in serum (creatine kinase M-type, carbonic anhydrase 3) and the synthetic rates of proteins obtained via muscle sampling; and that the synthesis rates of these proteins in serum revealed the stimulatory effects of RT. These results have ramifications for understanding the influence of RT on skeletal muscle and are consistent with the role of RT in maintaining muscle protein synthesis and potentially supporting muscle mass preservation during weight loss. We determined how the pattern of protein intake and resistance training (RT) influenced longer-term (2 weeks) integrated myofibrillar protein synthesis (MyoPS) during energy restriction (ER). MyoPS and proteome kinetics were measured during 2 weeks of ER alone and 2 weeks of ER plus RT (ER + RT) in overweight/obese older men. Participants were randomized to consume dietary protein in a balanced (BAL: 25% daily protein per meal × 4 meals) or skewed (SKEW: 7:17:72:4% daily protein per meal) pattern (n = 10 per group). Participants ingested deuterated water during the consecutive 2-week periods, and skeletal muscle biopsies and serum were obtained at the beginning and conclusion of ER and ER + RT. Bulk MyoPS (i.e. synthesis of the myofibrillar protein sub-fraction) and the synthetic rates of numerous individual skeletal muscle proteins were quantified. Bulk MyoPS was not affected by protein distribution during ER or ER + RT (ER: BAL = 1.24

  8. Multiplex protein pattern unmixing using a non-linear variable-weighted support vector machine as optimized by a particle swarm optimization algorithm.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Qin; Zou, Hong-Yan; Zhang, Yan; Tang, Li-Juan; Shen, Guo-Li; Jiang, Jian-Hui; Yu, Ru-Qin

    2016-01-15

    Most of the proteins locate more than one organelle in a cell. Unmixing the localization patterns of proteins is critical for understanding the protein functions and other vital cellular processes. Herein, non-linear machine learning technique is proposed for the first time upon protein pattern unmixing. Variable-weighted support vector machine (VW-SVM) is a demonstrated robust modeling technique with flexible and rational variable selection. As optimized by a global stochastic optimization technique, particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, it makes VW-SVM to be an adaptive parameter-free method for automated unmixing of protein subcellular patterns. Results obtained by pattern unmixing of a set of fluorescence microscope images of cells indicate VW-SVM as optimized by PSO is able to extract useful pattern features by optimally rescaling each variable for non-linear SVM modeling, consequently leading to improved performances in multiplex protein pattern unmixing compared with conventional SVM and other exiting pattern unmixing methods. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. Characterization of seed storage protein patterns of Heliotropium digynum.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alwhibi, Mona Soliman

    2017-09-01

    Heliotropium digynum , is a shrub that has ecological importance. The height of the plant differs from one population to another and the difference in length of the inflorescence can be attributed to environmental factors, such as rainfall or type of soil and temperature. To date, no study has shed light on estimation in seed samples of H. digynum in Saudi Arabia. So, the aim is to evaluate and characterize the protein patterns of seed storage proteins of H. digynum to be used as fingerprint of this plant in Saudi Arabia. It is collected from different locations in the central region of Saudi Arabia and total protein extraction from plant was compared in SDS-PAGE. The genetic relationships among all cultivars were analyzed using UPGMA and NJ using Total Lab TL and in the same way using Jaccard Similarity Coefficient dendrogram using STATISTICA (ver.8) software. Results, our data show that amounts of protein are different, although they are of the same type or from the same geographical region. Amounts ranged between 22 and 1.5 mg/g of dry weight. Less amount of protein was obtained from the group of samples collected from Dir'iyah area, and the highest amount of protein was from the group of samples collected from Dyrab area in general.

  10. Selective memory generalization by spatial patterning of protein synthesis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Donnell, Cian; Sejnowski, Terrence J

    2014-04-16

    Protein synthesis is crucial for both persistent synaptic plasticity and long-term memory. De novo protein expression can be restricted to specific neurons within a population, and to specific dendrites within a single neuron. Despite its ubiquity, the functional benefits of spatial protein regulation for learning are unknown. We used computational modeling to study this problem. We found that spatially patterned protein synthesis can enable selective consolidation of some memories but forgetting of others, even for simultaneous events that are represented by the same neural population. Key factors regulating selectivity include the functional clustering of synapses on dendrites, and the sparsity and overlap of neural activity patterns at the circuit level. Based on these findings, we proposed a two-step model for selective memory generalization during REM and slow-wave sleep. The pattern-matching framework we propose may be broadly applicable to spatial protein signaling throughout cortex and hippocampus. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  11. Characterization of seed storage protein patterns of Heliotropium digynum

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mona Soliman Alwhibi

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Heliotropium digynum, is a shrub that has ecological importance. The height of the plant differs from one population to another and the difference in length of the inflorescence can be attributed to environmental factors, such as rainfall or type of soil and temperature. To date, no study has shed light on estimation in seed samples of H. digynum in Saudi Arabia. So, the aim is to evaluate and characterize the protein patterns of seed storage proteins of H. digynum to be used as fingerprint of this plant in Saudi Arabia. It is collected from different locations in the central region of Saudi Arabia and total protein extraction from plant was compared in SDS-PAGE. The genetic relationships among all cultivars were analyzed using UPGMA and NJ using Total Lab TL and in the same way using Jaccard Similarity Coefficient dendrogram using STATISTICA (ver.8 software. Results, our data show that amounts of protein are different, although they are of the same type or from the same geographical region. Amounts ranged between 22 and 1.5 mg/g of dry weight. Less amount of protein was obtained from the group of samples collected from Dir’iyah area, and the highest amount of protein was from the group of samples collected from Dyrab area in general.

  12. Covalent microcontact printing of proteins fro cell patterning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Rozkiewicz, D.I.; Kraan, Yvonne M.; Werten, Marc W.T.; de Wolf, Frits A.; Subramaniam, Vinod; Ravoo, B.J.; Reinhoudt, David

    2006-01-01

    We describe a straightforward approach to the covalent immobilization of cytophilic proteins by microcontact printing, which can be used to pattern cells on substrates. Cytophilic proteins are printed in micropatterns on reactive self-assembled monolayers by using imine chemistry. An

  13. An efficient, versatile and scalable pattern growth approach to mine frequent patterns in unaligned protein sequences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ye, Kai; Kosters, Walter A; Ijzerman, Adriaan P

    2007-03-15

    Pattern discovery in protein sequences is often based on multiple sequence alignments (MSA). The procedure can be computationally intensive and often requires manual adjustment, which may be particularly difficult for a set of deviating sequences. In contrast, two algorithms, PRATT2 (http//www.ebi.ac.uk/pratt/) and TEIRESIAS (http://cbcsrv.watson.ibm.com/) are used to directly identify frequent patterns from unaligned biological sequences without an attempt to align them. Here we propose a new algorithm with more efficiency and more functionality than both PRATT2 and TEIRESIAS, and discuss some of its applications to G protein-coupled receptors, a protein family of important drug targets. In this study, we designed and implemented six algorithms to mine three different pattern types from either one or two datasets using a pattern growth approach. We compared our approach to PRATT2 and TEIRESIAS in efficiency, completeness and the diversity of pattern types. Compared to PRATT2, our approach is faster, capable of processing large datasets and able to identify the so-called type III patterns. Our approach is comparable to TEIRESIAS in the discovery of the so-called type I patterns but has additional functionality such as mining the so-called type II and type III patterns and finding discriminating patterns between two datasets. The source code for pattern growth algorithms and their pseudo-code are available at http://www.liacs.nl/home/kosters/pg/.

  14. Protein profiles of Taenia solium cysts obtained from skeletal muscles and the central nervous system of pigs: Search for tissue-specific proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Navarrete-Perea, José; Moguel, Bárbara; Bobes, Raúl José; Villalobos, Nelly; Carrero, Julio César; Sciutto, Edda; Soberón, Xavier; Laclette, Juan Pedro

    2017-01-01

    Taeniasis/cysticercosis caused by the tapeworm Taenia solium is a parasite disease transmitted among humans and pigs, the main intermediate host. The larvae/cysts can lodge in several tissues of the pig, i.e. skeletal muscles and different locations of the central nervous system. The molecular mechanisms associated to tissue preferences of the cysts remain poorly understood. The major public health concern about this zoonosis is due to the human infections by the larval form in the central nervous system, causing a highly pleomorphic and debilitating disease known as neurocysticercosis. This study was aimed to explore the 2DE protein maps of T. solium cysts obtained from skeletal muscles and central nervous system of naturally infected pigs. The gel images were analyzed through a combination of PDQuest™ and multivariate analysis. Results showed that differences in the protein patterns of cysts obtained from both tissues were remarkably discrete. Only 7 protein spots were found specifically associated to the skeletal muscle localization of the cysts; none was found significantly associated to the central nervous system. The use of distinct protein fractions of cysts allowed preliminary identification of several tissue-specific antigenic bands. The implications of these findings are discussed, as well as several strategies directed to achieve the complete characterization of this parasite's proteome, in order to extend our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying tissue localization of the cysts and to open avenues for the development of immunological tissue-specific diagnosis of the disease. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Patterned growth of carbon nanotubes obtained by high density plasma chemical vapor deposition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mousinho, A. P.; Mansano, R. D.

    2015-03-01

    Patterned growth of carbon nanotubes by chemical vapor deposition represents an assembly approach to place and orient nanotubes at a stage as early as when they are synthesized. In this work, the carbon nanotubes were obtained at room temperature by High Density Plasmas Chemical Vapor Deposition (HDPCVD) system. This CVD system uses a new concept of plasma generation, where a planar coil coupled to an RF system for plasma generation was used with an electrostatic shield for plasma densification. In this mode, high density plasmas are obtained. We also report the patterned growth of carbon nanotubes on full 4-in Si wafers, using pure methane plasmas and iron as precursor material (seed). Photolithography processes were used to pattern the regions on the silicon wafers. The carbon nanotubes were characterized by micro-Raman spectroscopy, the spectra showed very single-walled carbon nanotubes axial vibration modes around 1590 cm-1 and radial breathing modes (RBM) around 120-400 cm-1, confirming that high quality of the carbon nanotubes obtained in this work. The carbon nanotubes were analyzed by atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy too. The results showed that is possible obtain high-aligned carbon nanotubes with patterned growth on a silicon wafer with high reproducibility and control.

  16. Patterning protein complexes on DNA nanostructures using a GFP nanobody.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sommese, R F; Hariadi, R F; Kim, K; Liu, M; Tyska, M J; Sivaramakrishnan, S

    2016-11-01

    DNA nanostructures have become an important and powerful tool for studying protein function over the last 5 years. One of the challenges, though, has been the development of universal methods for patterning protein complexes on DNA nanostructures. Herein, we present a new approach for labeling DNA nanostructures by functionalizing them with a GFP nanobody. We demonstrate the ability to precisely control protein attachment via our nanobody linker using two enzymatic model systems, namely adenylyl cyclase activity and myosin motility. Finally, we test the power of this attachment method by patterning unpurified, endogenously expressed Arp2/3 protein complex from cell lysate. By bridging DNA nanostructures with a fluorescent protein ubiquitous throughout cell and developmental biology and protein biochemistry, this approach significantly streamlines the application of DNA nanostructures as a programmable scaffold in biological studies. © 2016 The Protein Society.

  17. Peptide Pattern Recognition for high-throughput protein sequence analysis and clustering

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Busk, Peter Kamp

    2017-01-01

    Large collections of protein sequences with divergent sequences are tedious to analyze for understanding their phylogenetic or structure-function relation. Peptide Pattern Recognition is an algorithm that was developed to facilitate this task but the previous version does only allow a limited...... number of sequences as input. I implemented Peptide Pattern Recognition as a multithread software designed to handle large numbers of sequences and perform analysis in a reasonable time frame. Benchmarking showed that the new implementation of Peptide Pattern Recognition is twenty times faster than...... the previous implementation on a small protein collection with 673 MAP kinase sequences. In addition, the new implementation could analyze a large protein collection with 48,570 Glycosyl Transferase family 20 sequences without reaching its upper limit on a desktop computer. Peptide Pattern Recognition...

  18. Protein patterns of black fungi under simulated Mars-like conditions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zakharova, Kristina; Marzban, Gorji; de Vera, Jean-Pierre; Lorek, Andreas; Sterflinger, Katja

    2014-05-29

    Two species of microcolonial fungi - Cryomyces antarcticus and Knufia perforans - and a species of black yeasts-Exophiala jeanselmei - were exposed to thermo-physical Mars-like conditions in the simulation chamber of the German Aerospace Center. In this study the alterations at the protein expression level from various fungi species under Mars-like conditions were analyzed for the first time using 2D gel electrophoresis. Despite of the expectations, the fungi did not express any additional proteins under Mars simulation that could be interpreted as stress induced HSPs. However, up-regulation of some proteins and significant decreasing of protein number were detected within the first 24 hours of the treatment. After 4 and 7 days of the experiment protein spot number was increased again and the protein patterns resemble the protein patterns of biomass from normal conditions. It indicates the recovery of the metabolic activity under Martian environmental conditions after one week of exposure.

  19. Nanoscale observation of local bound charges of patterned protein arrays by scanning force microscopy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Oh, Y J; Jo, W; Kim, S; Park, S; Kim, Y S

    2008-01-01

    A protein patterned surface using micro-contact printing methods has been investigated by scanning force microscopy. Electrostatic force microscopy (EFM) was utilized for imaging the topography and detecting the electrical properties such as the local bound charge distribution of the patterned proteins. It was found that the patterned IgG proteins are arranged down to 1 μm, and the 90 deg. rotation of patterned anti-IgG proteins was successfully undertaken. Through the estimation of the effective areas, it was possible to determine the local bound charges of patterned proteins which have opposite electrostatic force behaviors. Moreover, we studied the binding probability between IgG and anti-IgG in a 1 μm 2 MIMIC system by topographic and electrostatic signals for applicable label-free detections. We showed that the patterned proteins can be used for immunoassay of proteins on the functional substrate, and that they can also be used for bioelectronics device application, indicating distinct advantages with regard to accuracy and a label-free detection

  20. Geomfinder: a multi-feature identifier of similar three-dimensional protein patterns: a ligand-independent approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Núñez-Vivanco, Gabriel; Valdés-Jiménez, Alejandro; Besoaín, Felipe; Reyes-Parada, Miguel

    2016-01-01

    Since the structure of proteins is more conserved than the sequence, the identification of conserved three-dimensional (3D) patterns among a set of proteins, can be important for protein function prediction, protein clustering, drug discovery and the establishment of evolutionary relationships. Thus, several computational applications to identify, describe and compare 3D patterns (or motifs) have been developed. Often, these tools consider a 3D pattern as that described by the residues surrounding co-crystallized/docked ligands available from X-ray crystal structures or homology models. Nevertheless, many of the protein structures stored in public databases do not provide information about the location and characteristics of ligand binding sites and/or other important 3D patterns such as allosteric sites, enzyme-cofactor interaction motifs, etc. This makes necessary the development of new ligand-independent methods to search and compare 3D patterns in all available protein structures. Here we introduce Geomfinder, an intuitive, flexible, alignment-free and ligand-independent web server for detailed estimation of similarities between all pairs of 3D patterns detected in any two given protein structures. We used around 1100 protein structures to form pairs of proteins which were assessed with Geomfinder. In these analyses each protein was considered in only one pair (e.g. in a subset of 100 different proteins, 50 pairs of proteins can be defined). Thus: (a) Geomfinder detected identical pairs of 3D patterns in a series of monoamine oxidase-B structures, which corresponded to the effectively similar ligand binding sites at these proteins; (b) we identified structural similarities among pairs of protein structures which are targets of compounds such as acarbose, benzamidine, adenosine triphosphate and pyridoxal phosphate; these similar 3D patterns are not detected using sequence-based methods; (c) the detailed evaluation of three specific cases showed the versatility

  1. Authentication of Whey Protein Powders by Portable Mid-Infrared Spectrometers Combined with Pattern Recognition Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Ting; Tan, Siow Ying; Mutilangi, William; Aykas, Didem P; Rodriguez-Saona, Luis E

    2015-10-01

    The objective of this study was to develop a simple and rapid method to differentiate whey protein types (WPC, WPI, and WPH) used for beverage manufacturing by combining the spectral signature collected from portable mid-infrared spectrometers and pattern recognition analysis. Whey protein powders from different suppliers are produced using a large number of processing and compositional variables, resulting in variation in composition, concentration, protein structure, and thus functionality. Whey protein powders including whey protein isolates, whey protein concentrates and whey protein hydrolysates were obtained from different suppliers and their spectra collected using portable mid-infrared spectrometers (single and triple reflection) by pressing the powder onto an Attenuated Total Reflectance (ATR) diamond crystal with a pressure clamp. Spectra were analyzed by soft independent modeling of class analogy (SIMCA) generating a classification model showing the ability to differentiate whey protein types by forming tight clusters with interclass distance values of >3, considered to be significantly different from each other. The major bands centered at 1640 and 1580 cm(-1) were responsible for separation and were associated with differences in amide I and amide II vibrations of proteins, respectively. Another important band in whey protein clustering was associated with carboxylate vibrations of acidic amino acids (∼1570 cm(-1)). The use of a portable mid-IR spectrometer combined with pattern recognition analysis showed potential for discriminating whey protein ingredients that can help to streamline the analytical procedure so that it is more applicable for field-based screening of ingredients. A rapid, simple and accurate method was developed to authenticate commercial whey protein products by using portable mid-infrared spectrometers combined with chemometrics, which could help ensure the functionality of whey protein ingredients in food applications. © 2015

  2. Comparison of serum protein electrophoretic pattern in cows and small ruminants

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oskar Nagy

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Determination of the physiological electrophoretic patterns in animals is very useful for clinicians in diagnosing healthy and sick animals. The objective of this study was to investigate the serum protein electrophoretic pattern in cows, sheep, and goats in order to evaluate the differences in the size and number of protein fractions between the evaluated ruminant species. Ten adult multiparous high-yielding dairy cows, 10 adult female sheep and 10 adult female goats were included in this study. All the evaluated animals were clinically healthy. Serum was analyzed for total serum protein concentrations, and for the relative and absolute values of protein fractions with calculation of albumin/globulin ratios. Serum protein fractions were separated by zone electrophoresis on buffered agarose gel. Serum protein electrophoresis identified 6 distinct bands, comprising albumin, alpha1- (α1, alpha2- (α2, beta1- (β1, beta2- (β2, and gamma- (γ globulins in cows. In sheep, serum proteins exhibited 6 fractions: albumin, α1-, α2-, β-, γ1- and γ2-globulins. In goats, serum proteins were separated into 5 fractions: albumin, α1-, α2-, β- and γ-globulins. Significant differences in the relative as well as absolute means were found for the albumin/globulin ratio and most of the protein fractions, except γ-globulins. No significant differences were found in the concentration of total proteins. These results describe the marked species differences in most of serum protein fractions between the evaluated groups of animals, and contribute to the current knowledge about the physiological electrophoretic pattern of serum proteins in ruminants, which can be used for diagnostic purposes.

  3. The use of protein patterns in genetic diversity analysis in some Brassica napus cultivars

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roya Razavizadeh

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available In this study, protein variations of seeds and five-day old cotyledonal leaves of four selected Brassica napus cultivars including Elite, Ocapy, Tasilo and Zarfam were analyzed by SDS-PAGE to identify protein markers. The amount of total soluble protein of seed storage proteins did not show significant differences in all cultivars whereas it was different in cotyledonal leaves. Protein patterns of seeds and cotyledonal leaves showed significant differences using SDS-PAGE and consequence analysis of bands by ImageJ program. Relative expression of six protein bands in seeds and five-day old cotyledonal leaves were significantly different. Three protein markers were identified by protein patterns of seed and cotyledonal leaves. The results of relationship analysis based on presence and absence of the specific protein bands in protein pattern of seed storage proteins showed that Tasilo and Elite cultivars had the highest similarities.

  4. Pattern of occurrence and occupancy of carbonylation sites in proteins

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rao, R Shyama Prasad; Møller, Ian Max

    2011-01-01

    sites. Comparison of metal-catalyzed oxidation of two closely related proteins indicates that this type of carbonylation might not be very specific in proteins. Interestingly, carbonylated sites show a very strong tendency to cluster together in the protein primary sequence hinting at some sort......Proteins are targets for modification by reactive oxygen species, and carbonylation is an important irreversible modification that increases during oxidative stress. While information on protein carbonylation is accumulating, its pattern is not yet understood. We have made a meta...

  5. Computational mining for hypothetical patterns of amino acid side chains in protein data bank (PDB)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ghani, Nur Syatila Ab; Firdaus-Raih, Mohd

    2018-04-01

    The three-dimensional structure of a protein can provide insights regarding its function. Functional relationship between proteins can be inferred from fold and sequence similarities. In certain cases, sequence or fold comparison fails to conclude homology between proteins with similar mechanism. Since the structure is more conserved than the sequence, a constellation of functional residues can be similarly arranged among proteins of similar mechanism. Local structural similarity searches are able to detect such constellation of amino acids among distinct proteins, which can be useful to annotate proteins of unknown function. Detection of such patterns of amino acids on a large scale can increase the repertoire of important 3D motifs since available known 3D motifs currently, could not compensate the ever-increasing numbers of uncharacterized proteins to be annotated. Here, a computational platform for an automated detection of 3D motifs is described. A fuzzy-pattern searching algorithm derived from IMagine an Amino Acid 3D Arrangement search EnGINE (IMAAAGINE) was implemented to develop an automated method for searching of hypothetical patterns of amino acid side chains in Protein Data Bank (PDB), without the need for prior knowledge on related sequence or structure of pattern of interest. We present an example of the searches, which is the detection of a hypothetical pattern derived from known structural motif of C2H2 structural pattern from zinc fingers. The conservation of particular patterns of amino acid side chains in unrelated proteins is highlighted. This approach can act as a complementary method for available structure- and sequence-based platforms and may contribute in improving functional association between proteins.

  6. Protein functional features are reflected in the patterns of mRNA translation speed.

    Science.gov (United States)

    López, Daniel; Pazos, Florencio

    2015-07-09

    The degeneracy of the genetic code makes it possible for the same amino acid string to be coded by different messenger RNA (mRNA) sequences. These "synonymous mRNAs" may differ largely in a number of aspects related to their overall translational efficiency, such as secondary structure content and availability of the encoded transfer RNAs (tRNAs). Consequently, they may render different yields of the translated polypeptides. These mRNA features related to translation efficiency are also playing a role locally, resulting in a non-uniform translation speed along the mRNA, which has been previously related to some protein structural features and also used to explain some dramatic effects of "silent" single-nucleotide-polymorphisms (SNPs). In this work we perform the first large scale analysis of the relationship between three experimental proxies of mRNA local translation efficiency and the local features of the corresponding encoded proteins. We found that a number of protein functional and structural features are reflected in the patterns of ribosome occupancy, secondary structure and tRNA availability along the mRNA. One or more of these proxies of translation speed have distinctive patterns around the mRNA regions coding for certain protein local features. In some cases the three patterns follow a similar trend. We also show specific examples where these patterns of translation speed point to the protein's important structural and functional features. This support the idea that the genome not only codes the protein functional features as sequences of amino acids, but also as subtle patterns of mRNA properties which, probably through local effects on the translation speed, have some consequence on the final polypeptide. These results open the possibility of predicting a protein's functional regions based on a single genomic sequence, and have implications for heterologous protein expression and fine-tuning protein function.

  7. A Versatile Method of Patterning Proteins and Cells.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shrirao, Anil B; Kung, Frank H; Yip, Derek; Firestein, Bonnie L; Cho, Cheul H; Townes-Anderson, Ellen

    2017-02-26

    Substrate and cell patterning techniques are widely used in cell biology to study cell-to-cell and cell-to-substrate interactions. Conventional patterning techniques work well only with simple shapes, small areas and selected bio-materials. This article describes a method to distribute cell suspensions as well as substrate solutions into complex, long, closed (dead-end) polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchannels using negative pressure. This method enables researchers to pattern multiple substrates including fibronectin, collagen, antibodies (Sal-1), poly-D-lysine (PDL), and laminin. Patterning of substrates allows one to indirectly pattern a variety of cells. We have tested C2C12 myoblasts, the PC12 neuronal cell line, embryonic rat cortical neurons, and amphibian retinal neurons. In addition, we demonstrate that this technique can directly pattern fibroblasts in microfluidic channels via brief application of a low vacuum on cell suspensions. The low vacuum does not significantly decrease cell viability as shown by cell viability assays. Modifications are discussed for application of the method to different cell and substrate types. This technique allows researchers to pattern cells and proteins in specific patterns without the need for exotic materials or equipment and can be done in any laboratory with a vacuum.

  8. Statistical Estimation of the Protein-Ligand Binding Free Energy Based On Direct Protein-Ligand Interaction Obtained by Molecular Dynamics Simulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Haruki Nakamura

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available We have developed a method for estimating protein-ligand binding free energy (DG based on the direct protein-ligand interaction obtained by a molecular dynamics simulation. Using this method, we estimated the DG value statistically by the average values of the van der Waals and electrostatic interactions between each amino acid of the target protein and the ligand molecule. In addition, we introduced fluctuations in the accessible surface area (ASA and dihedral angles of the protein-ligand complex system as the entropy terms of the DG estimation. The present method included the fluctuation term of structural change of the protein and the effective dielectric constant. We applied this method to 34 protein-ligand complex structures. As a result, the correlation coefficient between the experimental and calculated DG values was 0.81, and the average error of DG was 1.2 kcal/mol with the use of the fixed parameters. These results were obtained from a 2 nsec molecular dynamics simulation.

  9. Regular Nanoscale Protein Patterns via Directed Adsorption through Self-Assembled DNA Origami Masks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramakrishnan, Saminathan; Subramaniam, Sivaraman; Stewart, A Francis; Grundmeier, Guido; Keller, Adrian

    2016-11-16

    DNA origami has become a widely used method for synthesizing well-defined nanostructures with promising applications in various areas of nanotechnology, biophysics, and medicine. Recently, the possibility to transfer the shape of single DNA origami nanostructures into different materials via molecular lithography approaches has received growing interest due to the great structural control provided by the DNA origami technique. Here, we use ordered monolayers of DNA origami nanostructures with internal cavities on mica surfaces as molecular lithography masks for the fabrication of regular protein patterns over large surface areas. Exposure of the masked sample surface to negatively charged proteins results in the directed adsorption of the proteins onto the exposed surface areas in the holes of the mask. By controlling the buffer and adsorption conditions, the protein coverage of the exposed areas can be varied from single proteins to densely packed monolayers. To demonstrate the versatility of this approach, regular nanopatterns of four different proteins are fabricated: the single-strand annealing proteins Redβ and Sak, the iron-storage protein ferritin, and the blood protein bovine serum albumin (BSA). We furthermore demonstrate the desorption of the DNA origami mask after directed protein adsorption, which may enable the fabrication of hierarchical patterns composed of different protein species. Because selectivity in adsorption is achieved by electrostatic interactions between the proteins and the exposed surface areas, this approach may enable also the large-scale patterning of other charged molecular species or even nanoparticles.

  10. PASA - A Program for Automated Protein NMR Backbone Signal Assignment by Pattern-Filtering Approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Xu Yizhuang; Wang Xiaoxia; Yang Jun; Vaynberg, Julia; Qin Jun

    2006-01-01

    We present a new program, PASA (Program for Automated Sequential Assignment), for assigning protein backbone resonances based on multidimensional heteronuclear NMR data. Distinct from existing programs, PASA emphasizes a per-residue-based pattern-filtering approach during the initial stage of the automated 13 C α and/or 13 C β chemical shift matching. The pattern filter employs one or multiple constraints such as 13 C α /C β chemical shift ranges for different amino acid types and side-chain spin systems, which helps to rule out, in a stepwise fashion, improbable assignments as resulted from resonance degeneracy or missing signals. Such stepwise filtering approach substantially minimizes early false linkage problems that often propagate, amplify, and ultimately cause complication or combinatorial explosion of the automation process. Our program (http://www.lerner.ccf.org/moleccard/qin/) was tested on four representative small-large sized proteins with various degrees of resonance degeneracy and missing signals, and we show that PASA achieved the assignments efficiently and rapidly that are fully consistent with those obtained by laborious manual protocols. The results demonstrate that PASA may be a valuable tool for NMR-based structural analyses, genomics, and proteomics

  11. PatternQuery: web application for fast detection of biomacromolecular structural patterns in the entire Protein Data Bank.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sehnal, David; Pravda, Lukáš; Svobodová Vařeková, Radka; Ionescu, Crina-Maria; Koča, Jaroslav

    2015-07-01

    Well defined biomacromolecular patterns such as binding sites, catalytic sites, specific protein or nucleic acid sequences, etc. precisely modulate many important biological phenomena. We introduce PatternQuery, a web-based application designed for detection and fast extraction of such patterns. The application uses a unique query language with Python-like syntax to define the patterns that will be extracted from datasets provided by the user, or from the entire Protein Data Bank (PDB). Moreover, the database-wide search can be restricted using a variety of criteria, such as PDB ID, resolution, and organism of origin, to provide only relevant data. The extraction generally takes a few seconds for several hundreds of entries, up to approximately one hour for the whole PDB. The detected patterns are made available for download to enable further processing, as well as presented in a clear tabular and graphical form directly in the browser. The unique design of the language and the provided service could pave the way towards novel PDB-wide analyses, which were either difficult or unfeasible in the past. The application is available free of charge at http://ncbr.muni.cz/PatternQuery. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

  12. HIV and serum protein electrophoresis patterns in KwaZulu-Natal: a ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Objective. To describe the effect of HIV serostatus on serum proteins, serum protein electrophoresis (SPEP) patterns and monoclonal bands. Setting. Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital, Durban. Design. Retrospective, anonymous analysis of routine laboratory results. Results. Monoclonal bands were not increased in ...

  13. Patterns of Protein Food Intake Are Associated with Nutrient Adequacy in the General French Adult Population.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gavelle, Erwan de; Huneau, Jean-François; Mariotti, François

    2018-02-17

    Protein food intake appears to partially structure dietary patterns, as most current emergent diets (e.g., vegetarian and flexitarian) can be described according to their levels of specific protein sources. However, few data are available on dietary protein patterns in the general population and their association with nutrient adequacy. Based on protein food intake data concerning 1678 adults from a representative French national dietary survey, and non-negative-matrix factorization followed by cluster analysis, we were able to identify distinctive dietary protein patterns and compare their nutrient adequacy (using PANDiet probabilistic scoring). The findings revealed eight patterns that clearly discriminate protein intakes and were characterized by the intakes of one or more specific protein foods: 'Processed meat', 'Poultry', 'Pork', 'Traditional', 'Milk', 'Take-away', 'Beef' and 'Fish'. 'Fish eaters' and 'Milk drinkers' had the highest overall nutrient adequacy, whereas that of 'Pork' and 'Take-away eaters' was the lowest. Nutrient adequacy could often be accounted for by the characteristics of the food contributing to protein intake: 'Meat eaters' had high probability of adequacy for iron and zinc, for example. We concluded that protein patterns constitute strong elements in the background structure of the dietary intake and are associated with the nutrient profile that they convey.

  14. Changes in protein patterns and in vivo protein synthesis during senescence of hibiscus petals

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Woodson, W.R.; Handa, A.K.

    1986-01-01

    Changes in proteins associated with senescence of the flowers of Hibiscus rosa-sinensis was studied using SDS-PAGE. Total extractable protein from petals decreased with senescence. Changes were noted in patterns of proteins from aging petals. Flower opening and senescence was associated with appearance and disappearance of several polypeptides. One new polypeptide with an apparent mw of 41 kd was first seen the day of flower opening and increased to over 9% of the total protein content of senescent petal tissue. Protein synthesis during aging was investigated by following uptake and incorporation of 3 H-leucine into TCA-insoluble fraction of petal discs. Protein synthesis, as evidenced by the percent of label incorporated into the TCA-insoluble fraction, was greatest (32%) the day before flower opening. Senescent petal tissue incorporated 4% of label taken up into protein. Proteins were separated by SDS-PAGE and labelled polypeptides identified by fluorography. In presenescent petal tissue, radioactivity was distributed among several major polypeptides. In senescent tissue, much of the radioactivity was concentrated in the 41 kd polypeptide

  15. DETECTION OF TOPOLOGICAL PATTERNS IN PROTEIN NETWORKS.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    MASLOV,S.SNEPPEN,K.

    2003-11-17

    interesting property of many biological networks that was recently brought to attention of the scientific community [3, 4, 5] is an extremely broad distribution of node connectivities defined as the number of immediate neighbors of a given node in the network. While the majority of nodes have just a few edges connecting them to other nodes in the network, there exist some nodes, that we will refer to as ''hubs'', with an unusually large number of neighbors. The connectivity of the most connected hub in such a network is typically several orders of magnitude larger than the average connectivity in the network. Often the distribution of connectivities of individual nodes can be approximated by a scale-free power law form [3] in which case the network is referred to as scale-free. Among biological networks distributions of node connectivities in metabolic [4], protein interaction [5], and brain functional [6] networks can be reasonably approximated by a power law extending for several orders of magnitude. The set of connectivities of individual nodes is an example of a low-level (single-node) topological property of a network. While it answers the question about how many neighbors a given node has, it gives no information about the identity of those neighbors. It is clear that most functional properties of networks are defined at a higher topological level in the exact pattern of connections of nodes to each other. However, such multi-node connectivity patterns are rather difficult to quantify and compare between networks. In this work we concentrate on multi-node topological properties of protein networks. These networks (as any other biological networks) lack the top-down design. Instead, selective forces of biological evolution shape them from raw material provided by random events such as mutations within individual genes, and gene duplications. As a result their connections are characterized by a large degree of randomness. One may wonder which

  16. Characterization of white grub (Melolonthidae; Coleoptera in salak plantation based on morphology and protein banding pattern

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    SUGIYARTO

    2009-07-01

    Full Text Available Maryati KT, Sugiyarto. 2010. Characterization of white grub (Melolonthidae; Coleoptera in salak plantation based on morphology and protein banding pattern. Nusantara Bioscience 1: 72-77. This research aims to find out the white grub (Melolonthidae; Coleoptera variability based on the morphological characteristic and protein banding pattern found in ”salak pondoh” farm in Regencies of Sleman, Yogyakarta and Magelang, Central Java. Each area has five sampling points. Morphological analysis on white grub was conducted using descriptive method and analysis on protein banding pattern was conducted using qualitative analysis based on the presence or absent of band pattern on the gel, and qualitatively based on the relative mobility value (Rf of protein. The result indicated that the white grub in Sleman and Magelang, based on morphology characteristic is only one species, namely Holothricia sp. Based on the protein banding pattern, the white grub sample have differences of protein band number and protein molecular weight. Key words: Salacca zalacca, white grub, morphology, protein banding pattern.Abstrak. Maryati KT, Sugiyarto. 2010. Karakterisasi lundi putih (Melolonthidae: Coleoptera pada pertanaman salak berdasarkan ciri morfologi dan pola pita protein. Nusantara Bioscience 1: 72-77. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui keanekaragaman lundi putih (Melolonthidae; Coleoptera berdasarkan ciri morfologi dan pola pita protein yang ditemukan di lahan pertanaman salak pondoh di Kabupaten Sleman, Yogyakarta dan Kabupaten Magelang, Jawa Tengah. Pada masing-masing wilayah diambil lima titik sampling. Analisis morfologi lundi putih digunakan metode deskriptif, dan analisis pola pita protein digunakan analisis kualitatif berdasarkan muncul tidaknya pola pita pada gel, dan secara kuantitatif berdasarkan nilai mobilitas relatif protein (RF. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa sampel lundi putih di Kabupaten Sleman dan Magelang, berdasar karakter

  17. Variation of morphology, karyotype and protein band pattern of adenium (Adenium obesum varieties

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    PRABANG SETYONO

    2009-07-01

    Full Text Available Hastuti D, Suranto, Setyono P. 2009. Variation of morphology, karyotype and protein band pattern of adenium (Adenium obesum varieties. Nusantara Bioscience 1: 78-83. The aim of this research to find out the Adenium obesum variation from six varieties, namely: obesum, cery, red lucas, red fanta , white bigben and harry potter based on morphology, karyotype, as well as protein banding pattern. The chromosome preparation was made using semi-permanent squash method from the tip of root plant; while protein banding pattern was made using SDS-PAGE method. Qualitative data included shape and color of the leave and flower described from each variety. Data were presented in morphometry and analyzed using ANOVA and then followed by DMRT with 5% of confidence levels, indicated significance difference. Protein banding pattern, the root, stem, leave and all organs were analyzed using Hierarchical Cluster Analysis method with Average Linkage (between Groups using SPSS 10.0. The result of research shows that the six A. obesum varieties have morphological character with no variation of light green to dark green leave, not hairy, smooth leave bone, meanwhile for light red to dark red flower crown color although some of them are white and the same funnel color, yellow. All varieties of A. obesum have same number of chromosome, 2n = 22 and shows the difference ranging from 2.56 to 5.13 um. In the banding pattern formed qualitatively, there is variation among the six varieties.

  18. Protein recognition by a pattern-generating fluorescent molecular probe

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pode, Zohar; Peri-Naor, Ronny; Georgeson, Joseph M.; Ilani, Tal; Kiss, Vladimir; Unger, Tamar; Markus, Barak; Barr, Haim M.; Motiei, Leila; Margulies, David

    2017-12-01

    Fluorescent molecular probes have become valuable tools in protein research; however, the current methods for using these probes are less suitable for analysing specific populations of proteins in their native environment. In this study, we address this gap by developing a unimolecular fluorescent probe that combines the properties of small-molecule-based probes and cross-reactive sensor arrays (the so-called chemical 'noses/tongues'). On the one hand, the probe can detect different proteins by generating unique identification (ID) patterns, akin to cross-reactive arrays. On the other hand, its unimolecular scaffold and selective binding enable this ID-generating probe to identify combinations of specific protein families within complex mixtures and to discriminate among isoforms in living cells, where macroscopic arrays cannot access. The ability to recycle the molecular device and use it to track several binding interactions simultaneously further demonstrates how this approach could expand the fluorescent toolbox currently used to detect and image proteins.

  19. Inheritance patterns of enzymes and serum proteins of mallard-black duck hybrids

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morgan, R.P.; Meritt, D.W.; Block, S.B.; Cole, M.A.; Sulkin, S.T.; Lee, F.B.; Henny, C.J.

    1984-01-01

    From 1974 to 1976, a breeding program was used to produce hybrids of black ducks and mallards for the evaluation of inheritance patterns of serum proteins and serum, liver and muscle enzymes. In addition to the crosses designed to produce hybrids, a series of matings in 1975 and 1976 were designed to evaluate inheritance patterns of a hybrid with either a black duck or mallard. At the F1 level, hybrids were easily distinguished using serum proteins. However, once a hybrid was crossed back to either a mallard or black duck, only 12?23% of the progeny were distinguishable from black ducks or mallards using serum proteins and 23?39% using esterases. Muscle, serum and liver enzymes were similar between the two species.

  20. Dietary pattern, serum magnesium, ferritin, C-reactive protein and anaemia among older people.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Xiaoyue; Hall, John; Byles, Julie; Shi, Zumin

    2017-04-01

    Epidemiological data of dietary patterns and anaemia among older Chinese remains extremely scarce. We examined the association between dietary patterns and anaemia in older Chinese, and to assess whether biomarkers of serum magnesium, C-reactive protein (CRP) and serum ferritin can mediate these associations. We analysed the 2009 China Health and Nutrition Survey data (2401 individuals aged ≥60 years for whom both dietary and biomarker data are available). Dietary data was obtained using 24 h-recall over three consecutive days. Fasting blood samples and anthropometry measurement were also collected. Factor analysis was used to identify dietary patterns. Factor scores representing dietary patterns were used in Poisson regression models to explore the association between each dietary pattern and anaemia. Of the 2401 participants, 18.9% had anaemia, 1.9% had anaemia related to inflammation (AI), and 1.3% had iron-deficiency anaemia (IDA). A traditional dietary pattern (high intake of rice, pork and vegetables) was positively associated with anaemia; a modern dietary pattern (high intake of fruit and fast food) was inversely associated with anaemia. Progressively lower magnesium and BMI levels were associated with increasing traditional dietary quartiles; while a progressively higher magnesium and BMI levels were associated with increasing modern dietary quartiles (p  0.05) in CRP and serum ferritin across quartiles for either dietary pattern. In the fully adjusted model, the prevalence ratio (PR) of anaemia, comparing the fourth quartile to the first quartile, was 1.75 (95% CI: 1.33; 2.29) for a traditional dietary pattern, and 0.89 (95% CI: 0.68; 1.16) for a modern dietary pattern. The association between dietary patterns and anaemia is mediated by serum magnesium. Traditional dietary pattern is associated with a higher prevalence of anaemia among older Chinese. Future studies need to examine whether correcting micronutrient deficiency (e.g. magnesium) by

  1. Expression Pattern of Fatty Acid Binding Proteins in Celiac Disease Enteropathy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Natalia M. Bottasso Arias

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Celiac disease (CD is an immune-mediated enteropathy that develops in genetically susceptible individuals following exposure to dietary gluten. Severe changes at the intestinal mucosa observed in untreated CD patients are linked to changes in the level and in the pattern of expression of different genes. Fully differentiated epithelial cells express two isoforms of fatty acid binding proteins (FABPs: intestinal and liver, IFABP and LFABP, respectively. These proteins bind and transport long chain fatty acids and also have other important biological roles in signaling pathways, particularly those related to PPARγ and inflammatory processes. Herein, we analyze the serum levels of IFABP and characterize the expression of both FABPs at protein and mRNA level in small intestinal mucosa in severe enteropathy and normal tissue. As a result, we observed higher levels of circulating IFABP in untreated CD patients compared with controls and patients on gluten-free diet. In duodenal mucosa a differential FABPs expression pattern was observed with a reduction in mRNA levels compared to controls explained by the epithelium loss in severe enteropathy. In conclusion, we report changes in FABPs’ expression pattern in severe enteropathy. Consequently, there might be alterations in lipid metabolism and the inflammatory process in the small intestinal mucosa.

  2. The amino-terminal structure of human fragile X mental retardation protein obtained using precipitant-immobilized imprinted polymers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Yufeng; Chen, Zhenhang; Fu, Yanjun; He, Qingzhong; Jiang, Lun; Zheng, Jiangge; Gao, Yina; Mei, Pinchao; Chen, Zhongzhou; Ren, Xueqin

    2015-03-01

    Flexibility is an intrinsic property of proteins and essential for their biological functions. However, because of structural flexibility, obtaining high-quality crystals of proteins with heterogeneous conformations remain challenging. Here, we show a novel approach to immobilize traditional precipitants onto molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) to facilitate protein crystallization, especially for flexible proteins. By applying this method, high-quality crystals of the flexible N-terminus of human fragile X mental retardation protein are obtained, whose absence causes the most common inherited mental retardation. A novel KH domain and an intermolecular disulfide bond are discovered, and several types of dimers are found in solution, thus providing insights into the function of this protein. Furthermore, the precipitant-immobilized MIPs (piMIPs) successfully facilitate flexible protein crystal formation for five model proteins with increased diffraction resolution. This highlights the potential of piMIPs for the crystallization of flexible proteins.

  3. Multivariate analysis of 2-DE protein patterns - Practical approaches

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jacobsen, Charlotte; Jacobsen, Susanne; Grove, H.

    2007-01-01

    Practical approaches to the use of multivariate data analysis of 2-DE protein patterns are demonstrated by three independent strategies for the image analysis and the multivariate analysis on the same set of 2-DE data. Four wheat varieties were selected on the basis of their baking quality. Two...... of the varieties were of strong baking quality and hard wheat kernel and two were of weak baking quality and soft kernel. Gliadins at different stages of grain development were analyzed by the application of multivariate data analysis on images of 2-DEs. Patterns related to the wheat varieties, harvest times...

  4. Chromosome-wise Protein Interaction Patterns and Their Impact on Functional Implications of Large-Scale Genomic Aberrations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kirk, Isa Kristina; Weinhold, Nils; Belling, Kirstine González-Izarzugaza

    2017-01-01

    Gene copy-number changes influence phenotypes through gene-dosage alteration and subsequent changes of protein complex stoichiometry. Human trisomies where gene copy numbers are increased uniformly over entire chromosomes provide generic cases for studying these relationships. In most trisomies......, gene and protein level alterations have fatal consequences. We used genome-wide protein-protein interaction data to identify chromosome-specific patterns of protein interactions. We found that some chromosomes encode proteins that interact infrequently with each other, chromosome 21 in particular. We...... combined the protein interaction data with transcriptome data from human brain tissue to investigate how this pattern of global interactions may affect cellular function. We identified highly connected proteins that also had coordinated gene expression. These proteins were associated with important...

  5. Evolutionary Pattern of N-Glycosylation Sequon Numbers  in Eukaryotic ABC Protein Superfamilies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    R. Shyama Prasad Rao

    2010-02-01

    Full Text Available Many proteins contain a large number of NXS/T sequences (where X is any amino acid except proline which are the potential sites of asparagine (N linked glycosylation. However, the patterns of occurrence of these N-glycosylation sequons in related proteins or groups of proteins and their underlying causes have largely been unexplored. We computed the actual and probabilistic occurrence of NXS/T sequons in ABC protein superfamilies from eight diverse eukaryotic organisms. The ABC proteins contained significantly higher NXS/T sequon numbers compared to respective genome-wide average, but the sequon density was significantly lower owing to the increase in protein size and decrease in sequon specific amino acids. However, mammalian ABC proteins have significantly higher sequon density, and both serine and threonine containing sequons (NXS and NXT have been positively selected—against the recent findings of only threonine specific Darwinian selection of sequons in proteins. The occurrence of sequons was positively correlated with the frequency of sequon specific amino acids and negatively correlated with proline and the NPS/T sequences. Further, the NPS/T sequences were significantly higher than expected in plant ABC proteins which have the lowest number of NXS/T sequons. Accord- ingly, compared to overall proteins, N-glycosylation sequons in ABC protein superfamilies have a distinct pattern of occurrence, and the results are discussed in an evolutionary perspective.

  6. In-house characterization of protein powder

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hartmann, Christian Grundahl; Nielsen, Ole Faurskov; Ståhl, Kenny

    2010-01-01

    X-ray powder diffraction patterns of lysozyme and insulin were recorded on a standard in-house powder diffractometer. The experimental powder diffraction patterns were compared with patterns calculated from Protein Data Bank coordinate data. Good agreement was obtained by including straightforward...... to include calculated H-atom positions did not improve the overall fit and was abandoned. The method devised was shown to be a quick and convenient tool for distinguishing precipitates and polymorphs of proteins....

  7. Case study on human α1-antitrypsin: Recombinant protein titers obtained by commercial ELISA kits are inaccurate

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Henning Gram; Kildegaard, Helene Faustrup; Min Lee, Gyun

    2016-01-01

    Accurate titer determination of recombinant proteins is crucial for evaluating protein production cell lines and processes. Even though enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is the most widely used assay for determining protein titer, little is known about the accuracy of commercially available...... ELISA kits. We observed that estimations of recombinant human ø1-antitrypsin (rø1AT) titer by Coomassie-stained SDS-PAGE gels did not correspond to previously obtained titers obtained by a commercially available ELISA kit. This prompted us to develop two independent quantification assays based...... on biolayer interferometry and reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. We compared the rø1AT titer obtained by these assays with three different off-the-shelf ELISA kits and found that the ELISA kits led to inconsistent results. The data presented here show that recombinant protein titers...

  8. A SELDI mass spectrometry study of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis: sample preparation, reproducibility, and differential protein expression patterns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Azzam, Sausan; Broadwater, Laurie; Li, Shuo; Freeman, Ernest J; McDonough, Jennifer; Gregory, Roger B

    2013-05-01

    Da) levels were lower in EAE samples with advanced disease relative to controls, while an MBP fragment (12. 4kDa), likely due to calpain digestion, was increased in EAE relative to controls. The appearance of MBP in mitochondrially enriched fractions is due to tissue freezing and storage, as MBP was not found associated with mitochondria obtained from fresh tissue. SELDI mass spectrometry can be employed to explore the proteome of a complex tissue (brain) and obtain protein profiles of differentially expressed proteins from protein fractions. Appropriate homogenization protocols and protein fractionation using anion exchange beads can be employed to reduce sample complexity without introducing significant additional variation into the SELDI mass spectra beyond that inherent in the SELDI- MS method itself. SELDI-MS coupled with principal component analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis provides protein patterns that can clearly distinguish the disease state from controls. However, identification of individual differentially expressed proteins requires a separate purification of the proteins of interest by polyacrylamide electrophoresis prior to trypsin digestion and peptide mass fingerprint analysis, and unambiguous identification of differentially expressed proteins can be difficult if protein bands consist of several proteins with similar molecular weights.

  9. Electrophoretic pattern of blood serum proteins of some of the vertebrates of Pakistan

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shakoori, Abdul Rauf; Zaheer, Saleem Akhtar; Ahmad, Muhammad Salih.

    1976-01-01

    The electrophoretic pattern of blood serum proteins of some of the common fishes e.g. Catla catla, Cirrhina mrigala, Channa punctatus, Channa marulius, Wallago attu, Heterop-neustes fossilis; amphibia e.g., Rana tigrina, Rana cyanophlyctis, Bufo melanostictus; reptiles e.g. Varanus bengalensis, Uromastix hardwickii; birds e.g. Columba livia, Gallus domesticus, Passer domestica, Anas platyrhynchos; and mammals e.g. Homo sapiens, Mus musculus, Lepus cuniculus have been described. The mobility of proteins of blood sera has been studied over cellulose acetate paper and then a comparative pattern analysed

  10. Influence of protein source on amino acid uptake patterns and protein utilization in rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rolland, Marine; Holm, Jørgen; Dalsgaard, Anne Johanne Tang

    induces reduced growth performances that remain partly unexplained. The aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of exchanging the protein source on protein utilization. Marine (fish meal) and vegetable (pea protein) sources were used with or without supplementation of crystalline amino......Matrixes of different protein sources (fish and plant products) combined with the use of crystalline amino acids allow for formulation of diets that meet fish requirements with little or no effect on protein digestibility and/or feed intake. Despite this, a total or partial replacement of fish meal...... acids to the fishmeal diet level (see Table 1). Amino acid uptake patterns were assessed by the appearance of amino acids in the blood stream following the ingestion of a meal, while dietary protein utilization was evaluated by examining the metabolic response to digestion and ammonium and urea...

  11. Automated classification of immunostaining patterns in breast tissue from the human protein atlas.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Swamidoss, Issac Niwas; Kårsnäs, Andreas; Uhlmann, Virginie; Ponnusamy, Palanisamy; Kampf, Caroline; Simonsson, Martin; Wählby, Carolina; Strand, Robin

    2013-01-01

    The Human Protein Atlas (HPA) is an effort to map the location of all human proteins (http://www.proteinatlas.org/). It contains a large number of histological images of sections from human tissue. Tissue micro arrays (TMA) are imaged by a slide scanning microscope, and each image represents a thin slice of a tissue core with a dark brown antibody specific stain and a blue counter stain. When generating antibodies for protein profiling of the human proteome, an important step in the quality control is to compare staining patterns of different antibodies directed towards the same protein. This comparison is an ultimate control that the antibody recognizes the right protein. In this paper, we propose and evaluate different approaches for classifying sub-cellular antibody staining patterns in breast tissue samples. The proposed methods include the computation of various features including gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) features, complex wavelet co-occurrence matrix (CWCM) features, and weighted neighbor distance using compound hierarchy of algorithms representing morphology (WND-CHARM)-inspired features. The extracted features are used into two different multivariate classifiers (support vector machine (SVM) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) classifier). Before extracting features, we use color deconvolution to separate different tissue components, such as the brownly stained positive regions and the blue cellular regions, in the immuno-stained TMA images of breast tissue. We present classification results based on combinations of feature measurements. The proposed complex wavelet features and the WND-CHARM features have accuracy similar to that of a human expert. Both human experts and the proposed automated methods have difficulties discriminating between nuclear and cytoplasmic staining patterns. This is to a large extent due to mixed staining of nucleus and cytoplasm. Methods for quantification of staining patterns in histopathology have many

  12. Automated classification of immunostaining patterns in breast tissue from the human protein Atlas

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Issac Niwas Swamidoss

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: The Human Protein Atlas (HPA is an effort to map the location of all human proteins (http://www.proteinatlas.org/. It contains a large number of histological images of sections from human tissue. Tissue micro arrays (TMA are imaged by a slide scanning microscope, and each image represents a thin slice of a tissue core with a dark brown antibody specific stain and a blue counter stain. When generating antibodies for protein profiling of the human proteome, an important step in the quality control is to compare staining patterns of different antibodies directed towards the same protein. This comparison is an ultimate control that the antibody recognizes the right protein. In this paper, we propose and evaluate different approaches for classifying sub-cellular antibody staining patterns in breast tissue samples. Materials and Methods: The proposed methods include the computation of various features including gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM features, complex wavelet co-occurrence matrix (CWCM features, and weighted neighbor distance using compound hierarchy of algorithms representing morphology (WND-CHARM-inspired features. The extracted features are used into two different multivariate classifiers (support vector machine (SVM and linear discriminant analysis (LDA classifier. Before extracting features, we use color deconvolution to separate different tissue components, such as the brownly stained positive regions and the blue cellular regions, in the immuno-stained TMA images of breast tissue. Results: We present classification results based on combinations of feature measurements. The proposed complex wavelet features and the WND-CHARM features have accuracy similar to that of a human expert. Conclusions: Both human experts and the proposed automated methods have difficulties discriminating between nuclear and cytoplasmic staining patterns. This is to a large extent due to mixed staining of nucleus and cytoplasm. Methods for

  13. Obtaining classical swine fever virus E2 recombinant protein and DNA-vaccine on the basis of one subunit

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Deryabin, O.; Deryabina, O.; Verbitskiy, P.; Kordyum, V.

    2005-01-01

    Three forms of E2 recombinant protein were expressed in E. coli. Swine sera obtained against different forms of the recombinant protein were cross-studied with indirect ELISA. Using individual proteins as an antigen, only 15% of sera against other forms of protein reacted positively, while 100% of heterologous sera showed positive reaction with fused protein. Challenge experiments showed the existence of protective action only from the individual protein. Specificity and activity of sera obtained from the animals after control challenge was confirmed in a blocking variant of ELISA. Genetic construction used a eukaryotic vector that contained the E2 protein gene. Immunization of mice with the resulting DNA induced synthesis of specific antibodies, the titre of which increased considerably after additional single immunization with the E2 recombinant protein, expressed in E. coli. This demonstrated the effectiveness of animal priming by DNA vaccine, and the possibility of using the E2 recombinant protein in E. coli for booster vaccination. (author)

  14. Protein immobilization on Ni(II) ion patterns prepared by microcontact printing and dip-pen nanolithography

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wu, Chien-Ching; Reinhoudt, David N; Otto, Cees; Velders, Aldrik H; Subramaniam, Vinod

    2010-01-01

    An indirect method of protein patterning by using Ni(II) ion templates for immobilization via a specific metal-protein interaction is described. A nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA)-terminated self-assembled monolayer (SAM) allows oriented binding of histidine-tagged proteins via complexation with late

  15. Protein patterning on polycrystalline silicon-germanium via standard UV lithography for bioMEMS applications

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lenci, S., E-mail: silvia.lenci@gmail.com [Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell' Informazione, University of Pisa, Via G. Caruso 16, I-56122 Pisa (Italy); imec, Kapeldreef 75, Leuven B-3001 (Belgium); Tedeschi, L.; Domenici, C.; Lande, C. [Istituto di Fisiologia Clinica, CNR, via G. Moruzzi 1, Pisa I-56124 (Italy); Nannini, A.; Pennelli, G.; Pieri, F. [Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell' Informazione, University of Pisa, Via G. Caruso 16, I-56122 Pisa (Italy); Severi, S. [imec, Kapeldreef 75, Leuven B-3001 (Belgium)

    2010-10-12

    Polycrystalline silicon-germanium (poly-SiGe) is a promising structural material for the post-processing of micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) on top of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) substrates. Combining MEMS and CMOS allows for the development of high-performance devices. We present for the first time selective protein immobilization on top of poly-SiGe surfaces, an enabling technique for the development of novel poly-SiGe based MEMS biosensors. Active regions made of 3-aminopropyl-triethoxysilane (APTES) were defined using silane deposition onto photoresist patterns followed by lift-off in organic solvents. Subsequently, proteins were covalently bound on the created APTES patterns. Fluorescein-labeled human serum albumin (HSA) was used to verify the immobilization procedure while the binding capability of the protein layer was tested by an antigen-labeled antibody pair. Inspection by fluorescence microscopy showed protein immobilization inside the desired bioactive areas and low non-specific adsorption outside the APTES pattern. Furthermore, the quality of the silane patches was investigated by treatment with 30 nm-diameter gold nanoparticles and scanning electron microscope observation. The developed technique is therefore a promising first step towards the realization of poly-SiGe based biosensors.

  16. Patterned layers of adsorbed extracellular matrix proteins: influence on mammalian cell adhesion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dupont-Gillain, C C; Alaerts, J A; Dewez, J L; Rouxhet, P G

    2004-01-01

    Three patterned systems aiming at the control of mammalian cell behavior are presented. The determinant feature common to these systems is the spatial distribution of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins (mainly collagen) on polymer substrates. This distribution differs from one system to another with respect to the scale at which it is affected, from the supracellular to the supramolecular scale, and with respect to the way it is produced. In the first system, the surface of polystyrene was oxidized selectively to form micrometer-scale patterns, using photolithography. Adsorption of ECM proteins in presence of a competitor was enhanced on the oxidized domains, allowing selective cell adhesion to be achieved. In the second system, electron beam lithography was used to engrave grooves (depth and width approximately 1 microm) on a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) substratum. No modification of the surface chemistry associated to the created topography could be detected. Cell orientation along the grooves was only observed when collagen was preadsorbed on the substratum. In the third system, collagen adsorbed on PMMA was dried in conditions ensuring the formation of a nanometer-scale pattern. Cell adhesion was enhanced on such patterned collagen layers compared to smooth collagen layers.

  17. Functional patterns obtained by nanoimprinting lithography and subsequent growth of polymer brushes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Genua, A; AlduncIn, J A; Pomposo, J A; Grande, H; Kehagias, N; Reboud, V; Sotomayor, C; Mondragon, I; Mecerreyes, D

    2007-01-01

    In this work the growth of polymer brushes was combined with nanoimprint lithography (NIL) in order to obtain new functional nanopatterns. First, a functional thermoplastic methacrylic copolymer poly(methyl methacrylate-co-2-bromoisobutyryl-oxy-ethyl methacrylate) was synthesized. This copolymer was successfully patterned by NIL using a silicon stamp at 160 deg. C and 60 bar. Next, hydrophilic polymer brushes based on poly(3-sulfopropylmethacrylate) and hydrophobic polymer brushes based on a poly(fluorinated methacrylate) were grown on the imprinted surfaces. The surface properties of the patterned polymer were accordingly modified and, as a consequence, the water contact angle was modified from 80.3 deg. to 32.5 deg. in the case of the hydrophilic brushes and to 118.1 deg. in the case of the hydrophobic brushes. As an application we demonstrated the use of hydrophobic polymer brushes in order to modify the surface of polymeric stamps for NIL with self-demoulding properties

  18. Obtaining a citric tristeza virus p65 protein antibody and preliminary results of p65 in vivo expression

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yanneth Torres

    2003-07-01

    Full Text Available The citric tristeza virus (CTV belongs to the Closteroviridae family which indudes the only vegetal viruses possessing genes homologous to HSP70 thermal cellular shock proteins in their genome. Such is the case of the gene encoding for the CTV p65 protein which presents high homology with the HSP70 protein family. It has been shown recently that HSP70h viral proteins (such as CTV p65 are involved both in viral assembly, as a microtubule binding protein, and in cell-cell movement. Since CTV is the most deleterious citrus pathogen, understanding this protein's role in the pathogenesis process is important. Rabbits were immunised with four synthetic peptides (corresponding to CTV p65 thermal shock protein's carboxyl-terminal region to obtain polyclonal antibodies. All the peptides used were immunogenic, even though two of them showed greater response. Whilst none of the antibodies obtained reacted to non-infected plant extract, the p65 proteins was detected in extracts taken from citric plants infected with CTV Based on the antibody's reaction to two Colombian isolates having different serological characteristics, the p65 antibody's immunological behaviour appeared to be independent of the symptomatic severity of the CTV isolates. It was shown that the ORF encoded for the HSP70 homologue in CTV was expressed in vivo, even though the p65 antibody was only detected in concentrated protein extracts taken from infected plants, supporting reports from other studies that the concentration of this protein in plants infected with CTV is low. This is the first time that a polyclonal CTV antibody has been obtained in Colombia against p65 (a protein intervening in viral assembly and movement. Adapting a technique for obtaining p65 antibodies by using synthetic peptides as immunogens could be useful in the future for detecting or diagnosing p65 proteins present in different Colombian CTV isolates, especially in developing studies contributing towards greater

  19. Ultrastructure and electrophoretic protein pattern of a nuclear fraction enriched in interchromatin granule conglomerations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Krzyzowska-Gruca, S.; Zborek, A.; Gruca, S.

    1986-01-01

    Rats were injected with a cytostatic 1-nitro-9/3'-dimethylpropyloamine/acridine.2HCl to induce aggregation of interchromatin granules (IG). The conglomerations of IG were well preserved in isolated liver nuclei and in nuclear structures deprived of chromatin. This feature enabled obtaining a nuclear fraction enriched in IG. The method consisted in extraction of isolated nuclei with a non-ionic detergent and digestion with DNase I in a high ionic strength. Each step of isolation was ultrastructurally monitored using both the routine electron microscopy as well as a preferential staining of IG with bismuth. Presence of spots of tightly packed granules within IG conglomerations in the final fraction like in the nuclei in situ was a good ultrastructural marker of IG. The resulting fraction consisted predominantly of IG conglomerations. Their preferential staining with bismuth was well preserved. Minute amounts of fibrillar material originating from nuclear matrix and residual nuclei could be observed. Protein composition of the fraction enriched in IG was studied by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. After electrotransfer, nitrocellulose filters were fixed with glutaraldehyde and stained with bismuth method in order to identify IG proteins. The results of ultrastructural and cytochemical studies in comparison to electrophoretic protein pattern are discussed.

  20. Alteration of protein expression pattern of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) from soluble to cell-associated isoform during tumourigenesis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cressey, Ratchada; Wattananupong, Onusa; Lertprasertsuke, Nirush; Vinitketkumnuen, Usanee

    2005-01-01

    Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a potent mitogen for endothelial cells, and its expression has been correlated with increased tumour angiogenesis. Although numerous publications dealing with the measurement of circulating VEGF for diagnostic and therapeutic monitoring have been published, the relationship between the production of tissue VEGF and its concentration in blood is still unclear. The aims of this study were to determine: 1) The expression pattern of VEGF isoforms at the protein level in colorectal and lung adenocarcinoma in comparison to the pattern in corresponding adjacent normal tissues 2) The relationship between the expression pattern of VEGF and total level of circulating VEGF in the blood to clarify whether the results of measuring circulating VEGF can be used to predict VEGF expression in tumour tissues. Ninety-four tissue samples were obtained from patients, 76 colorectal tumour tissues and 18 lung tumour tissues. VEGF protein expression pattern and total circulating VEGF were examined using western blot and capture ELISA, respectively. Three major protein bands were predominately detected in tumour samples with an apparent molecular mass under reducing conditions of 18, 23 and 26 kDa. The 18 kDa VEGF protein was expressed equally in both normal and colorectal tumour tissues and predominately expressed in normal tissues of lung, whereas the 23 and 26 kDa protein was only detected at higher levels in tumour tissues. The 18, 23 and 26 kDa proteins are believed to represent the VEGF 121 , the VEGF 165 and the VEGF 189 , respectively. There was a significant correlation of the expression of VEGF 165 with a smaller tumour size maximum diameter <5 cm (p < 0.05), and there was a significant correlation of VEGF 189 with advanced clinical stage of colorectal tumours. The measurement of total circulating VEGF in serum revealed that cancer patients significantly (p < 0.001) possessed a higher level of circulating VEGF (1081 ± 652 pg/ml in

  1. Automated Learning of Subcellular Variation among Punctate Protein Patterns and a Generative Model of Their Relation to Microtubules.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gregory R Johnson

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Characterizing the spatial distribution of proteins directly from microscopy images is a difficult problem with numerous applications in cell biology (e.g. identifying motor-related proteins and clinical research (e.g. identification of cancer biomarkers. Here we describe the design of a system that provides automated analysis of punctate protein patterns in microscope images, including quantification of their relationships to microtubules. We constructed the system using confocal immunofluorescence microscopy images from the Human Protein Atlas project for 11 punctate proteins in three cultured cell lines. These proteins have previously been characterized as being primarily located in punctate structures, but their images had all been annotated by visual examination as being simply "vesicular". We were able to show that these patterns could be distinguished from each other with high accuracy, and we were able to assign to one of these subclasses hundreds of proteins whose subcellular localization had not previously been well defined. In addition to providing these novel annotations, we built a generative approach to modeling of punctate distributions that captures the essential characteristics of the distinct patterns. Such models are expected to be valuable for representing and summarizing each pattern and for constructing systems biology simulations of cell behaviors.

  2. Predicting the binding patterns of hub proteins: a study using yeast protein interaction networks.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carson M Andorf

    Full Text Available Protein-protein interactions are critical to elucidating the role played by individual proteins in important biological pathways. Of particular interest are hub proteins that can interact with large numbers of partners and often play essential roles in cellular control. Depending on the number of binding sites, protein hubs can be classified at a structural level as singlish-interface hubs (SIH with one or two binding sites, or multiple-interface hubs (MIH with three or more binding sites. In terms of kinetics, hub proteins can be classified as date hubs (i.e., interact with different partners at different times or locations or party hubs (i.e., simultaneously interact with multiple partners.Our approach works in 3 phases: Phase I classifies if a protein is likely to bind with another protein. Phase II determines if a protein-binding (PB protein is a hub. Phase III classifies PB proteins as singlish-interface versus multiple-interface hubs and date versus party hubs. At each stage, we use sequence-based predictors trained using several standard machine learning techniques.Our method is able to predict whether a protein is a protein-binding protein with an accuracy of 94% and a correlation coefficient of 0.87; identify hubs from non-hubs with 100% accuracy for 30% of the data; distinguish date hubs/party hubs with 69% accuracy and area under ROC curve of 0.68; and SIH/MIH with 89% accuracy and area under ROC curve of 0.84. Because our method is based on sequence information alone, it can be used even in settings where reliable protein-protein interaction data or structures of protein-protein complexes are unavailable to obtain useful insights into the functional and evolutionary characteristics of proteins and their interactions.We provide a web server for our three-phase approach: http://hybsvm.gdcb.iastate.edu.

  3. Protein Adsorption Patterns and Analysis on IV Nanoemulsions-The Key Factor Determining the Organ Distribution.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keck, Cornelia M; Jansch, Mirko; Müller, Rainer H

    2012-12-21

    Intravenous nanoemulsions have been on the market for parenteral nutrition since the 1950s; meanwhile, they have also been used successfully for IV drug delivery. To be well tolerable, the emulsions should avoid uptake by the MPS cells of the body; for drug delivery, they should be target-specific. The organ distribution is determined by the proteins adsorbing them after injection from the blood (protein adsorption pattern), typically analyzed by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, 2-D PAGE. The article reviews the 2-D PAGE method, the analytical problems to be faced and the knowledge available on how the composition of emulsions affects the protein adsorption patterns, e.g., the composition of the oil phase, stabilizer layer and drug incorporation into the interface or oil core. Data were re-evaluated and compared, and the implications for the in vivo distribution are discussed. Major results are that the interfacial composition of the stabilizer layer is the main determining factor and that this composition can be modulated by simple processes. Drug incorporation affects the pattern depending on the localization of the drug (oil core versus interface). The data situation regarding in vivo effects is very limited; mainly, it has to be referred to in the in vivo data of polymeric nanoparticles. As a conclusion, determination of the protein adsorption patterns can accelerate IV nanoemulsion formulation development regarding optimized organ distribution and related pharmacokinetics.

  4. Dietary protein is associated with musculoskeletal health independently of dietary pattern: the Framingham Third Generation Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mangano, Kelsey M; Sahni, Shivani; Kiel, Douglas P; Tucker, Katherine L; Dufour, Alyssa B; Hannan, Marian T

    2017-03-01

    Background: Above-average dietary protein, as a single nutrient, improves musculoskeletal health. Evaluating the link between dietary protein and musculoskeletal health from a whole-diet perspective is important, as dietary guidelines focus on dietary patterns. Objective: We examined the prospective association of novel dietary protein food clusters (derived from established dietary pattern techniques) with appendicular lean mass (ALM), quadriceps strength (QS), and bone mineral density (BMD) in 2986 men and women, aged 19-72 y, from the Framingham Third Generation Study. Design: Total protein intake was estimated by food-frequency questionnaire in 2002-2005. A cluster analysis was used to classify participants into mutually exclusive groups, which were determined by using the percentage of contribution of food intake to overall protein intake. General linear modeling was used to 1 ) estimate the association between protein intake (grams per day) and BMD, ALM, appendicular lean mass normalized for height (ALM/ht 2 ), and QS (2008-2011) and to 2 ) calculate adjusted least-squares mean outcomes across quartiles of protein (grams per day) and protein food clusters. Results: The mean ± SD age of subjects was 40 ± 9 y; 82% of participants met the Recommended Daily Allowance (0.8 g · kg body weight -1 · d -1 ). The following 6 dietary protein food clusters were identified: fast food and full-fat dairy, fish, red meat, chicken, low-fat milk, and legumes. BMD was not different across quartiles of protein intake ( P -trend range = 0.32-0.82); but significant positive trends were observed for ALM, ALM/ht 2 ( P dietary protein is associated with ALM and QS but not with BMD. In this study, dietary protein food patterns do not provide further insight into beneficial protein effects on muscle outcomes. © 2017 American Society for Nutrition.

  5. Inter- and intra-examiner reliability of footprint pattern analysis obtained from diabetics using the Harris mat.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cisneros, Lígia de Loiola; Fonseca, Tiago H S; Abreu, Vivianni C

    2010-01-01

    High plantar pressure is a proven risk factor for ulceration among individuals with diabetes mellitus. The Harris and Beath footprinting mat is one of the tools used in screening for foot ulceration risk among these subjects. There are no reports in the literature on the reliability of footprint analysis using print pattern criteria. The aim of this study was to evaluate the inter- and intra-examiner reliability of the analysis of footprint patterns obtained using the Harris and Beath footprinting mat. Footprints were taken from 41 subjects using the footprinting mat. The images were subjected to analysis by three independent examiners. To investigate the intra-examiner reliability, the analysis was repeated by one of the examiners one week later. The weighted kappa coefficient was excellent (K(w) > 0.80) for the inter- and intra-examiner analyses for most of the points studied on both feet. The criteria for analyzing footprint patterns obtained using the Harris and Beath footprinting mat presented good reliability and high to excellent inter- and intra-examiner agreement. This method is reliable for analyses involving one or more examiners. Article registered in the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) under the number ACTRN12609000693224.

  6. Binding activity of patterned concanavalin A studied by atomic force microscopy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lebed, Kateryna; Pyka-Fosciak, Grazyna; Raczkowska, Joanna; Lekka, Malgorzata; Styczen, Jan

    2005-01-01

    The mode of protein immobilization plays a crucial role in the preparation of protein microarrays used for a wide spectrum of applications in analytical biochemistry. The microcontact printing technique was used to form a protein pattern using concanavalin A (Con A) since Con A belongs to a group of proteins widely used in analytical assays due to their selectivity as regards different kinds of carbohydrates. Atomic force microscopy was used to image surface topography, delivering information about the quality of the protein pattern. The force spectroscopy mode was used to verify the functional activity of deposited proteins via determination of the forces of interaction between Con A and carboxypeptidase Y bearing carbohydrate structure recognized by Con A. The calculated binding force between Con A and CaY was 105 ± 2 pN and it was compared with that measured for Con A deposited directly from the protein solution. The similarity of the value obtained for the interaction force was independent of the mode of protein deposition, thereby verifying that the microcontact printing technique did not influence the carbohydrate binding activity of Con A. The correlation between the surface topography of patterned samples and adhesion maps obtained showed the possible use of AFM for studying the chemical properties of different regions of the micropatterns produced

  7. Plasma proteins of Barbus holubi and Clarias gariepinus

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The plasma proteins of the teleosts, Barbus holubl and ClariDs gariepllUl3 were investigated by means of cel1u1ose-acetate and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Characteristic patterns were obtained with both methods for each species. It was found that the application of human nomenclature to the patterns obtained in ...

  8. A Hybrid Dry and Aqueous Fractionation Method to Obtain Protein-Rich Fractions from Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd)

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Avila Ruiz, Geraldine; Arts, Anke; Minor, Marcel; Schutyser, Maarten

    2016-01-01

    Combination of dry and aqueous fractionation is investigated to obtain protein-rich fractions from quinoa in a milder and more sustainable way compared to conventional wet fractionation. Dry fractionation of quinoa involved milling and subsequent air classification, generating a protein-enriched

  9. Effect of Gamma Radiation and Electron Beam on Microbiological Quality and Protein Patterns of 4 Selected Beans

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chookaew, S.; Eamsir, J.; Pewlong, W.; Sajjabut, S.

    2014-01-01

    The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of gamma ray and electron beam on microbiological quality and protein pattern of four selected beans: mung beans, soy beans, peanuts and black beans. All beans samples were exposed to irradiation at doses of 0, 0.5, 1, and 2 kGy before evaluated for their microbiological quality using AOAC method and protein analysis by gel electrophoresis. Results showed that the amount of bacteria, yeast and mold of irradiated mung beans and peanuts were reduced, whereas these microbiological quality values remained relatively the same for irradiated soy beans and black beans compared to non-irradiated samples. In terms of protein analysis, the protein patterns of the irradiated beans were of the same quality as the non-irradiated samples. To further tested the effect of irradiation on the bean's protein at higher doses, all four selected beans were exposed to gamma ray at 10, 50, 100, 150 and 200 kGy. We found that the protein patterns of mung beans, peanuts and black beans were altered at doses above 50 kGy.

  10. Protein Adsorption Patterns and Analysis on IV Nanoemulsions—The Key Factor Determining the Organ Distribution

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mirko Jansch

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Intravenous nanoemulsions have been on the market for parenteral nutrition since the 1950s; meanwhile, they have also been used successfully for IV drug delivery. To be well tolerable, the emulsions should avoid uptake by the MPS cells of the body; for drug delivery, they should be target-specific. The organ distribution is determined by the proteins adsorbing them after injection from the blood (protein adsorption pattern, typically analyzed by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, 2-D PAGE. The article reviews the 2-D PAGE method, the analytical problems to be faced and the knowledge available on how the composition of emulsions affects the protein adsorption patterns, e.g., the composition of the oil phase, stabilizer layer and drug incorporation into the interface or oil core. Data were re-evaluated and compared, and the implications for the in vivo distribution are discussed. Major results are that the interfacial composition of the stabilizer layer is the main determining factor and that this composition can be modulated by simple processes. Drug incorporation affects the pattern depending on the localization of the drug (oil core versus interface. The data situation regarding in vivo effects is very limited; mainly, it has to be referred to in the in vivo data of polymeric nanoparticles. As a conclusion, determination of the protein adsorption patterns can accelerate IV nanoemulsion formulation development regarding optimized organ distribution and related pharmacokinetics.

  11. Unique Pattern of Protein-Bound Maillard Reaction Products in Manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) Honey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hellwig, Michael; Rückriemen, Jana; Sandner, Daniel; Henle, Thomas

    2017-05-03

    As a unique feature, honey from the New Zealand manuka tree (Leptospermum scoparium) contains substantial amounts of dihydroxyacetone (DHA) and methylglyoxal (MGO). Although MGO is a reactive intermediate in the Maillard reaction, very little is known about reactions of MGO with honey proteins. We hypothesized that the abundance of MGO should result in a particular pattern of protein-bound Maillard reaction products (MRPs) in manuka honey. A protein-rich high-molecular-weight fraction was isolated from 12 manuka and 8 non-manuka honeys and hydrolyzed enzymatically. By HPLC-MS/MS, 8 MRPs, namely, N-ε-fructosyllysine, N-ε-maltulosyllysine, carboxymethyllysine, carboxyethyllysine (CEL), pyrraline, formyline, maltosine, and methylglyoxal-derived hydroimidazolone 1 (MG-H1), were quantitated. Compared to non-manuka honeys, the manuka honeys were characterized by high concentrations of CEL and MG-H1, whereas the formation of N-ε-fructosyllysine was suppressed, indicating concurrence reactions of glucose and MGO at the ε-amino group of protein-bound lysine. Up to 31% of the lysine and 8% of the arginine residues, respectively, in the manuka honey protein can be modified to CEL and MG-H1, respectively. CEL and MG-H1 concentrations correlated strongly with the MGO concentration of the honeys. Manuka honey possesses a special pattern of protein-bound MRPs, which might be used to prove the reliability of labeled MGO levels in honeys and possibly enable the detection of fraudulent MGO or DHA addition to honey.

  12. Recognition of higher order patterns in proteins: immunologic kernels.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Robert D Bremel

    Full Text Available By applying analysis of the principal components of amino acid physical properties we predicted cathepsin cleavage sites, MHC binding affinity, and probability of B-cell epitope binding of peptides in tetanus toxin and in ten diverse additional proteins. Cross-correlation of these metrics, for peptides of all possible amino acid index positions, each evaluated in the context of a ±25 amino acid flanking region, indicated that there is a strongly repetitive pattern of short peptides of approximately thirty amino acids each bounded by cathepsin cleavage sites and each comprising B-cell linear epitopes, MHC-I and MHC-II binding peptides. Such "immunologic kernel" peptides comprise all signals necessary for adaptive immunologic cognition, response and recall. The patterns described indicate a higher order spatial integration that forms a symbolic logic coordinating the adaptive immune system.

  13. MAMP (microbe-associated molecular pattern)-induced changes in plasma membrane-associated proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uhlíková, Hana; Solanský, Martin; Hrdinová, Vendula; Šedo, Ondrej; Kašparovský, Tomáš; Hejátko, Jan; Lochman, Jan

    2017-03-01

    Plant plasma membrane associated proteins play significant roles in Microbe-Associated Molecular Pattern (MAMP) mediated defence responses including signal transduction, membrane transport or energetic metabolism. To elucidate the dynamics of proteins associated with plasma membrane in response to cryptogein, a well-known MAMP of defence reaction secreted by the oomycete Phytophthora cryptogea, 2D-Blue Native/SDS gel electrophoresis of plasma membrane fractions was employed. This approach revealed 21 up- or down-regulated protein spots of which 15 were successfully identified as proteins related to transport through plasma membrane, vesicle trafficking, and metabolic enzymes including cytosolic NADP-malic enzyme and glutamine synthetase. Observed changes in proteins were also confirmed on transcriptional level by qRT-PCR analysis. In addition, a significantly decreased accumulation of transcripts observed after employment of a mutant variant of cryptogein Leu41Phe, exhibiting a conspicuous defect in induction of resistance, sustains the contribution of identified proteins in cryptogein-triggered cellular responses. Our data provide further evidence for dynamic MAMP-induced changes in plasma membrane associated proteins. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

  14. Changes in the serum protein electrophoretic pattern in lambs during the first month of life

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oskar Nagy

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Studies of the changes in serum protein pattern in the neonatal period in animals are still limited. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the changes in the concentrations of serum protein fractions in 7 clinically healthy merino lambs (4 males, 3 females during their first month of life. The first blood sampling was performed before the colostrum intake and then at 1, 2, 7, 14 and 30 days of age. Blood serum was analysed for total serum protein concentrations and for the relative and absolute values of serum protein fractions - albumin, alpha1- (α1, alpha2- (α2, beta- (β, and gamma- (γ globulins. The results showed a significant effect of age on the serum total protein concentrations and for all the protein fractions. The concentrations of total proteins and γ-globulins increased significantly 1 day after the colostrum intake (P P 1-globulins significantly decreased during the first month of life (P 2- and β-globulins increased significantly from birth till the end of the monitored period (P < 0.001. Our results suggest that the serum protein electrophoretic pattern in growing lambs is significantly influenced by the age of the evaluated animal, and this should be taken into consideration when interpreting the serum protein profile. Our findings extend existing knowledge about significant changes in the protein profile associated with the physiological adaptation process in the neonatal period in young animals.

  15. Antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of lecithin free egg yolk protein preparation hydrolysates obtained with digestive enzymes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aleksandra Zambrowicz

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available ABSTRACT:Several biological activities have now been associated with egg protein- derived peptides, including antihypertensive, antimicrobial, immunomodulatory, anticancer and antioxidantactivities, highlighting the importance of these biopeptides in human health, and disease prevention and treatment. Special attention has been given to peptides with antioxidant and antimicrobial activities as a new source of natural preservatives in food industry. In this study, the antioxidant properties of the egg-yolk protein by-product (YP hydrolysates were evaluated based on their radical scavenging capacity (DPPH, Fe2+chelating effect and ferric reducing power (FRAP. Furthermore, antimicrobial properties of obtained hydrolysates against Bacillus species were studied. The degrees (DHs of hydrolysis for 4h hydrolysates were: 19.1%, 13.5% and 13.0%, for pepsin, chymotrypsin and trypsin, respectively. Pepsin was the most effective in producing the free amino groups (1410.3 μmolGly/g. The RP-HPLC profiles of the protein hydrolysates showed differences in the hydrophobicity of the generated peptides.Trypsin hydrolysate obtained after 4h reaction demonstrated the strongest DPPH free radical scavenging activity (0.85 µmol Troloxeq/mg. Trypsin and chymotrypsin hydrolysates obtained after 4h reaction exhibited 4 times higher ferric reducing capacity than those treated bypepsin. The hydrolysis products obtained from YP exhibited significant chelating activity. The 4h trypsin hydrolysate exhibited weak antimicrobial activity against B. subtilis B3; B. cereus B512; B. cereus B 3p and B. laterosporum B6.

  16. Radiation induced formation of giant cells in Saccharomyces uvarum. Pt. 4. Macromolecular synthesis and protein patterns

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rink, H; Baumstark-Khan, C; Partke, H J

    1986-08-01

    X-irradiated (1.0 kGy) yeast cells (Saccharomyces uvarum, ATCC 9080), grown in liquid medium stop their mitotic activities and form giant cells by development of several buds which do not separate from mother cells. Depending on the time in culture, wet and dry weights per cell, protein- RNA- and DNA- contents per cell as well as incorporation rates of /sup 14/C-leucine per cell and per hour and patterns (isoelectric focusing) of water soluble proteins were studied. Weights per cell, RNA and protein contents per cell and /sup 14/C-leucine incorporation rates increase markedly in giant cells, whereas DNA content per cell is only duplicated. Protein patterns in isoelectric focusing show one interesting difference. In samples from giant cells one protein band (IP=6.63) decreases after 8 h in culture and later on disappears completely. This finding is not due to primary damage in X-irradiated DNA but seems to be related to the control of cell cycle events.

  17. UV lithography-based protein patterning on silicon: Towards the integration of bioactive surfaces and CMOS electronics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lenci, S., E-mail: silvia.lenci@iet.unipi.it [Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell' Informazione, via G.Caruso 16, Pisa I-56122 (Italy); Tedeschi, L. [Istituto di Fisiologia Clinica - CNR, via G. Moruzzi 1, Pisa I-56124 (Italy); Pieri, F. [Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell' Informazione, via G.Caruso 16, Pisa I-56122 (Italy); Domenici, C. [Istituto di Fisiologia Clinica - CNR, via G. Moruzzi 1, Pisa I-56124 (Italy)

    2011-08-01

    A simple and fast methodology for protein patterning on silicon substrates is presented, providing an insight into possible issues related to the interaction between biological and microelectronic technologies. The method makes use of standard photoresist lithography and is oriented towards the implementation of biosensors containing Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) conditioning circuitry. Silicon surfaces with photoresist patterns were prepared and hydroxylated by means of resist- and CMOS backend-compatible solutions. Subsequent aminosilane deposition and resist lift-off in organic solvents resulted into well-controlled amino-terminated geometries. The discussion is focused on resist- and CMOS-compatibility problems related to the used chemicals. Some samples underwent gold nanoparticle (Au NP) labeling and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) observation, in order to investigate the quality of the silane layer. Antibodies were immobilized on other samples, which were subsequently exposed to a fluorescently labeled antigen. Fluorescence microscopy observation showed that this method provides spatially selective immobilization of protein layers onto APTES-patterned silicon samples, while preserving protein reactivity inside the desired areas and low non-specific adsorption elsewhere. Strong covalent biomolecule binding was achieved, giving stable protein layers, which allows stringent binding conditions and a good binding specificity, really useful for biosensing.

  18. Dietary Patterns and Fitness Level in Mexican Teenagers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Estrada-Reyes, César; Tlatempa-Sotelo, Patricia; Valdés-Ramos, Roxana; Cabañas-Armesilla, María; Manjarrez-Montes-de-Oca, Rafael

    2018-01-01

    Nowadays, the term "physical fitness" has evolved from sports performance to health status, and it has been considered a strong predictor of cardiovascular disease. In this sense, test batteries have been developed to evaluate physical fitness such as the ALPHA-FIT battery. On the other hand, the analysis of dietary patterns has emerged as an alternative method to study the relationship between diet and chronic noncommunicable diseases. However, the association between dietary patterns and the physical fitness level has not been evaluated in both adults and adolescents. This association is most important in adolescents due to the fact that establishing healthy dietary behaviors and a favorable nutritional profile in early stages of life prevents various chronic-degenerative diseases. To analyze the association between dietary patterns and the level of fitness in Mexican teenagers. We analyzed the relationship between dietary patterns and the fitness level of 42 teenage students in Toluca, Mexico. Students were weighed and measured, and their food intake was recorded for 2 weekdays and one weekend day. Dietary patterns were obtained by factorial analysis. The ALPHA-FIT battery was used to measure the fitness level. Fifty percent of the students were found to have a low fitness level (62.1% men; 37.9% women). There was no association ( X 2 = 0.83) between the dietary patterns "high in fat and sugar," "high in protein", and "low in fat and protein" and the level of physical condition in teens. In this study, all of teenagers with a very low level of fitness obtained a high dietary pattern in protein; however, 40% with a high level of physical condition resulted in the same pattern; that is why we did not find a relationship between the fitness level and the patterns investigated in this study.

  19. Can a pairwise contact potential stabilize native protein folds against decoys obtained by threading?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vendruscolo, M; Najmanovich, R; Domany, E

    2000-02-01

    We present a method to derive contact energy parameters from large sets of proteins. The basic requirement on which our method is based is that for each protein in the database the native contact map has lower energy than all its decoy conformations that are obtained by threading. Only when this condition is satisfied one can use the proposed energy function for fold identification. Such a set of parameters can be found (by perceptron learning) if Mp, the number of proteins in the database, is not too large. Other aspects that influence the existence of such a solution are the exact definition of contact and the value of the critical distance Rc, below which two residues are considered to be in contact. Another important novel feature of our approach is its ability to determine whether an energy function of some suitable proposed form can or cannot be parameterized in a way that satisfies our basic requirement. As a demonstration of this, we determine the region in the (Rc, Mp) plane in which the problem is solvable, i.e., we can find a set of contact parameters that stabilize simultaneously all the native conformations. We show that for large enough databases the contact approximation to the energy cannot stabilize all the native folds even against the decoys obtained by gapless threading.

  20. Protein secretory patterns of rat Sertoli and peritubular cells are influenced by culture conditions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kierszenbaum, A.L.; Crowell, J.A.; Shabanowitz, R.B.; DePhilip, R.M.; Tres, L.L.

    1986-01-01

    An approach combining two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and autoradiography was used to correlate patterns of secretory proteins in cultures of Sertoli and peritubular cells with those observed in the incubation medium from segments of seminiferous tubules. Sertoli cells in culture and in seminiferous tubules secreted three proteins designated S70 (Mr 72,000-70,000), S45 (Mr 45,000), and S35 (Mr 35,000). Cultured Sertoli and peritubular cells and incubated seminiferous tubules secreted two proteins designated SP1 (Mr 42,000) and SP2 (Mr 50,000). SP1 and S45 have similar Mr but differ from each other in isoelectric point (pI). Cultured peritubular cells secreted a protein designated P40 (Mr 40,000) that was also seen in intact seminiferous tubules but not in seminiferous tubules lacking the peritubular cell wall. However, a large number of high-Mr proteins were observed only in the medium of cultured peritubular cells but not in the incubation medium of intact seminiferous tubules. Culture conditions influence the morphology and patterns of protein secretion of cultured peritubular cells. Peritubular cells that display a flat-stellate shape transition when placed in culture medium free of serum (with or without hormones and growth factors), accumulate various proteins in the medium that are less apparent when these cells are maintained in medium supplemented with serum. Two secretory proteins stimulated by follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) (designated SCm1 and SCm2) previously found in the medium of cultured Sertoli cells, were also observed in the incubation medium of seminiferous tubular segments stimulated by FSH. Results of this study show that, although cultured Sertoli and peritubular cells synthesize and secrete proteins also observed in segments of incubated seminiferous tubules anther group of proteins lacks seminiferous tubular correlates

  1. Protein and alkaloid patterns of the floral nectar in some solanaceous species.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kerchner, András; Darók, Judit; Bacskay, Ivett; Felinger, Attila; Jakab, Gábor; Farkas, Ágnes

    2015-09-01

    The family Solanaceae includes several melliferous plants, which tend to produce copious amounts of nectar. Floral nectar is a chemically complex aqueous solution, dominated by sugars, but minor components such as amino acids, proteins, flavonoids and alkaloids are present as well. This study aimed at analysing the protein and alkaloid profile of the nectar in seven solanaceous species. Proteins were examined with SDS-PAGE and alkaloids were analyzed with HPLC. The investigation of protein profile revealed significant differences in nectar-protein patterns not only between different plant genera, but also between the three Nicotiana species investigated. SDS-PAGE suggested the presence of several Nectarin proteins with antimicrobial activity in Nicotiana species. The nectar of all tobacco species contained the alkaloid nicotine, N. tabacum having the highest nicotine content. The nectar of Brugmansia suaveolens, Datura stramonium, Hyoscyamus niger and Lycium barbarum contained scopolamine, the highest content of which was measured in B. suaveolens. The alkaloid concentrations in the nectars of most solanaceous species investigated can cause deterrence in honeybees, and the nectar of N. rustica and N. tabacum can be considered toxic for honeybees.

  2. Toxicological relationships between proteins obtained from protein target predictions of large toxicity databases

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nigsch, Florian; Mitchell, John B.O.

    2008-01-01

    The combination of models for protein target prediction with large databases containing toxicological information for individual molecules allows the derivation of 'toxiclogical' profiles, i.e., to what extent are molecules of known toxicity predicted to interact with a set of protein targets. To predict protein targets of drug-like and toxic molecules, we built a computational multiclass model using the Winnow algorithm based on a dataset of protein targets derived from the MDL Drug Data Report. A 15-fold Monte Carlo cross-validation using 50% of each class for training, and the remaining 50% for testing, provided an assessment of the accuracy of that model. We retained the 3 top-ranking predictions and found that in 82% of all cases the correct target was predicted within these three predictions. The first prediction was the correct one in almost 70% of cases. A model built on the whole protein target dataset was then used to predict the protein targets for 150 000 molecules from the MDL Toxicity Database. We analysed the frequency of the predictions across the panel of protein targets for experimentally determined toxicity classes of all molecules. This allowed us to identify clusters of proteins related by their toxicological profiles, as well as toxicities that are related. Literature-based evidence is provided for some specific clusters to show the relevance of the relationships identified

  3. Effects of salt on the pattern of protein synthesis in barley roots

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hurkman, W.J.; Tanaka, C.K.

    1987-01-01

    The effect of salt stress on the incorporation of [ 3 5 S]methionine into protein was examined in roots of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.cv California Mariout 72). Plants were grown in nutrient solution with or without 200 millimolar NaCl. Roots of intact plants were labeled in vivo and proteins were extracted and analyzed by fluorography of two-dimensional gels. Although the protein patterns for control and salt-stressed plants were qualitatively similar, the net synthesis of a number of proteins was quantitatively changed. The most striking change was a significant increase of label in two protein pairs that had pls of approximately 6.3 and 6.5. Each pair consisted of proteins of approximately 26 and 27 kilodaltons (kD). In roots of control plants, the 27-kD proteins were more heavily labeled in the microsomal fraction relative to the 26-kD proteins, whereas the 26-kD proteins were enriched in the post 178,000g supernatant fraction; in roots of salt treated plants, the 26- and 27-kD proteins were more intensely labeled in both fractions. Labeling of the 26- and 27-kD proteins returned to control levels when salt-stressed plants were transferred to nutrient solution without NaCl. No cross-reaction was detected between the antibody to the 26-kD protein from salt-adapted tobacco cells and the 26- and 27-kD proteins of barley

  4. Inheritance of Protein Patterns in a Synthetic Allopolyploid of Triticum Monococcum (AA) and Aegilops Ventricosa (DDMvMv)

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Siddiqui, K. A.; Ingversen, J.; Køie, B.

    1972-01-01

    Patterns of seed proteins in Triticum monococcum (2n = 2x = 14 = AA), Aegilops ventricosa (2n = 4x = 28 = DDMVMV), and their synthetic amphiploid were studied. The distribution of proteins in the individual Osborne protein fractions of the amphiploid was characterized by a 14 per cent increase...

  5. Comparison of protein patterns after two-dimensional gel electrophoresis from leaves of in vitro cultures and seedlings of Rubus chamaemorus L.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Barbara Thiem

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Proteins from leaves of Rubus chamaemorus propagated in vitro were subjected to miniaturized 2-D electrophoresis. The 2-DE patterns of proteins showed qualitative differences between plants propagated in vitro and control seedlings. More proteins of a high molecular weight were observed in leaves of plants from in vitro culture. A two-dimensional map of proteins from leaves provides detailed data concerning both polymorphism and protein patterns of this species. This makes it possible to start constructing a protein map of R. chamaemorus. The reasons for qualitative differences are discussed.

  6. Effects of gamma-irradiation on meat proteins

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yook, H.S.; Kim, M.R.; Kim, J.O.; Lim, S.I.; Byun, M.W.

    1998-01-01

    The proteins extracted from beef, pork and chicken meats were irradiated with up to 100 kGy at room temperature. The extracted proteins were evaluated on their in vitro digestibility by incubating successively with pepsin and pancreatin conjugate. Amino acid compositions and SDS-PAGE pattern were also analyzedin for these proteins. Gamma irradiation within the applied dose range (up to 100 kGy) produced negligible in in vitro digestibility and amino acid composition. Analysis of gamma-irradiated proteins by SDS-PAGE revealed radiolysis of ovalbumin to proteins or peptides with lower molecular weight. On the other hand, the proteins directly extracted from irradiated meats containing moisture were also evaluated for their in vitro digestibility, amino acid compositions and SDS-PAGE pattern. However, the results obtained from this experiment were similar to those of irradiated proteins after extraction from the meats

  7. Classification using diffraction patterns for single-particle analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hu, Hongli; Zhang, Kaiming; Meng, Xing

    2016-01-01

    An alternative method has been assessed; diffraction patterns derived from the single particle data set were used to perform the first round of classification in creating the initial averages for proteins data with symmetrical morphology. The test protein set was a collection of Caenorhabditis elegans small heat shock protein 17 obtained by Cryo EM, which has a tetrahedral (12-fold) symmetry. It is demonstrated that the initial classification on diffraction patterns is workable as well as the real-space classification that is based on the phase contrast. The test results show that the information from diffraction patterns has the enough details to make the initial model faithful. The potential advantage using the alternative method is twofold, the ability to handle the sets with poor signal/noise or/and that break the symmetry properties. - Highlights: • New classification method. • Create the accurate initial model. • Better in handling noisy data.

  8. Classification using diffraction patterns for single-particle analysis

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hu, Hongli; Zhang, Kaiming [Department of Biophysics, the Health Science Centre, Peking University, Beijing 100191 (China); Meng, Xing, E-mail: xmeng101@gmail.com [Wadsworth Centre, New York State Department of Health, Albany, New York 12201 (United States)

    2016-05-15

    An alternative method has been assessed; diffraction patterns derived from the single particle data set were used to perform the first round of classification in creating the initial averages for proteins data with symmetrical morphology. The test protein set was a collection of Caenorhabditis elegans small heat shock protein 17 obtained by Cryo EM, which has a tetrahedral (12-fold) symmetry. It is demonstrated that the initial classification on diffraction patterns is workable as well as the real-space classification that is based on the phase contrast. The test results show that the information from diffraction patterns has the enough details to make the initial model faithful. The potential advantage using the alternative method is twofold, the ability to handle the sets with poor signal/noise or/and that break the symmetry properties. - Highlights: • New classification method. • Create the accurate initial model. • Better in handling noisy data.

  9. Discovering approximate-associated sequence patterns for protein-DNA interactions

    KAUST Repository

    Chan, Tak Ming

    2010-12-30

    Motivation: The bindings between transcription factors (TFs) and transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) are fundamental protein-DNA interactions in transcriptional regulation. Extensive efforts have been made to better understand the protein-DNA interactions. Recent mining on exact TF-TFBS-associated sequence patterns (rules) has shown great potentials and achieved very promising results. However, exact rules cannot handle variations in real data, resulting in limited informative rules. In this article, we generalize the exact rules to approximate ones for both TFs and TFBSs, which are essential for biological variations. Results: A progressive approach is proposed to address the approximation to alleviate the computational requirements. Firstly, similar TFBSs are grouped from the available TF-TFBS data (TRANSFAC database). Secondly, approximate and highly conserved binding cores are discovered from TF sequences corresponding to each TFBS group. A customized algorithm is developed for the specific objective. We discover the approximate TF-TFBS rules by associating the grouped TFBS consensuses and TF cores. The rules discovered are evaluated by matching (verifying with) the actual protein-DNA binding pairs from Protein Data Bank (PDB) 3D structures. The approximate results exhibit many more verified rules and up to 300% better verification ratios than the exact ones. The customized algorithm achieves over 73% better verification ratios than traditional methods. Approximate rules (64-79%) are shown statistically significant. Detailed variation analysis and conservation verification on NCBI records demonstrate that the approximate rules reveal both the flexible and specific protein-DNA interactions accurately. The approximate TF-TFBS rules discovered show great generalized capability of exploring more informative binding rules. © The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

  10. Denaturation and in Vitro Gastric Digestion of Heat-Treated Quinoa Protein Isolates Obtained at Various Extraction pH

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ruiz, Geraldine Avila; Opazo-Navarrete, Mauricio; Meurs, Marlon; Minor, Marcel; Sala, Guido; Boekel, van Tiny; Stieger, Markus; Janssen, Anja E.M.

    2016-01-01

    The aim of this study was to determine the influence of heat processing on denaturation and digestibility properties of protein isolates obtained from sweet quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd) at various extraction pH values (8, 9, 10 and 11). Pretreatment of suspensions of protein isolates at 60,

  11. Sequentially Integrated Optimization of the Conditions to Obtain a High-Protein and Low-Antinutritional Factors Protein Isolate from Edible Jatropha curcas Seed Cake.

    Science.gov (United States)

    León-López, Liliana; Dávila-Ortiz, Gloria; Jiménez-Martínez, Cristian; Hernández-Sánchez, Humberto

    2013-01-01

    Jatropha curcas seed cake is a protein-rich byproduct of oil extraction which could be used to produce protein isolates. The purpose of this study was the optimization of the protein isolation process from the seed cake of an edible provenance of J. curcas by an alkaline extraction followed by isoelectric precipitation method via a sequentially integrated optimization approach. The influence of four different factors (solubilization pH, extraction temperature, NaCl addition, and precipitation pH) on the protein and antinutritional compounds content of the isolate was evaluated. The estimated optimal conditions were an extraction temperature of 20°C, a precipitation pH of 4, and an amount of NaCl in the extraction solution of 0.6 M for a predicted protein content of 93.3%. Under these conditions, it was possible to obtain experimentally a protein isolate with 93.21% of proteins, 316.5 mg 100 g(-1) of total phenolics, 2891.84 mg 100 g(-1) of phytates and 168 mg 100 g(-1) of saponins. The protein content of the this isolate was higher than the content reported by other authors.

  12. Functional and antioxidant properties of protein hydrolysates obtained from white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Latorres, J M; Rios, D G; Saggiomo, G; Wasielesky, W; Prentice-Hernandez, C

    2018-02-01

    Protein hydrolysates from white shrimp ( Litopenaeus vannamei ) with different degrees of hydrolysis (DH-10 and 20%) were prepared using the enzymes Alcalase 2.4 L and Protamex. The hydrolysates were evaluated for amino acid composition, solubility, foaming properties, emulsifying and antioxidant activity. All the hydrolysates showed high concentrations of Glutamic Acid, Aspartic acid, Arginine, Glycine, Lysine, Proline. It was found that the increase in the production of negatively charged amino acids was related to increase in DH. The hydrophobic amino acids were higher for hydrolysates obtained with Alcalase (10% DH) and Protamex (20% DH). The results indicated that higher degree of hydrolysis showed positive relation with the protein solubility of the hydrolysates, while negatively influenced foam and emulsification properties. The antioxidant properties presented by the white shrimp protein hydrolysates were influenced by the composition and peptides size. Hydrolysates with higher peptide chain showed the highest antioxidant power for the 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging and reducing power, while hydrolysates with lower peptide chain showed higher antioxidant power for 2,2'-azinobis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline sulfonic acid) radical scavenging. All hydrolysates showed dose-dependent antioxidant activities. Therefore, the results of the present study suggest that white shrimp is a potential source of protein hydrolysates as bioactive ingredients for the use in the formulation of functional foods as well as natural antioxidants in lipid food systems.

  13. Alteration of protein patterns in black rock inhabiting fungi as a response to different temperatures

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tesei, Donatella; Marzban, Gorji; Zakharova, Kristina; Isola, Daniela; Selbmann, Laura; Sterflinger, Katja

    2012-01-01

    Rock inhabiting fungi are among the most stress tolerant organisms on Earth. They are able to cope with different stressors determined by the typical conditions of bare rocks in hot and cold extreme environments. In this study first results of a system biological approach based on two-dimensional protein profiles are presented. Protein patterns of extremotolerant black fungi – Coniosporium perforans, Exophiala jeanselmei – and of the extremophilic fungus – Friedmanniomyces endolithicus – were compared with the cosmopolitan and mesophilic hyphomycete Penicillium chrysogenum in order to follow and determine changes in the expression pattern under different temperatures. The 2D protein gels indicated a temperature dependent qualitative change in all the tested strains. Whereas the reference strain P. chrysogenum expressed the highest number of proteins at 40 °C, thus exhibiting real signs of temperature induced reaction, black fungi, when exposed to temperatures far above their growth optimum, decreased the number of proteins indicating a down-regulation of their metabolism. Temperature of 1 °C led to an increased number of proteins in all of the analysed strains, with the exception of P. chrysogenum. These first results on temperature dependent reactions in rock inhabiting black fungi indicate a rather different strategy to cope with non-optimal temperature than in the mesophilic hyphomycete P. chrysogenum. PMID:22862921

  14. Analysis of the diffraction pattern obtained by the Laue method

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Riquet, J. par; Bonnet, R.

    1978-01-01

    A computation method is presented which allows a rapid indexing of any unknown spot pattern obtained by back-reflection or transmission Laue methods. The Cartesian coordinates of n spots are measured in an orthonormal frame referred to the photographic film. Two spots 1 and 2 separated by a wide angular distance αsup(m) are carefully chosen. Their indices are assumed to be less than 5. The set (E) of all the pairs of planes (h 1 k 1 l 1 ) and (h 2 k 2 l 2 ) making an angle α close to αsup(m) is then computed. Since the pair of reflecting planes related to spots 1 and 2 belongs to (E), each computed pair of planes is tried, in order to determine the orientation of the crystal and to check whether the coordinates of the (n-2) other spots can be matched to dense planes of indices less than 8. If the uncertainty of the measurements is high or if n is too low, this method gives the possible orientations for the crystal. Plane indices less than 8 have been identified in cubic, tetragonal and orthorhombic crystals. (Auth.)

  15. A methodology for obtaining the control rods patterns in a BWR using systems based on ants colonies

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ortiz S, J.J.; Requena R, I.

    2003-01-01

    In this work the AZCATL-PBC system based on a technique of ants colonies for the search of control rods patterns of those reactors of the Nuclear Power station of Laguna Verde (CNLV) is presented. The technique was applied to a transition cycle and one of balance. For both cycles they were compared the k ef values obtained with a Haling calculation and the control rods pattern proposed by AZCATL-PBC for a burnt one fixed. It was found that the methodology is able to extend the length of the cycle with respect to the Haling prediction, maintaining sure to the reactor. (Author)

  16. The duck hepatitis B virus polymerase and core proteins accumulate in different patterns from their common mRNA

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yao Ermei; Schaller, Heinz; Tavis, John E.

    2003-01-01

    Hepadnaviral reverse transcription occurs in capsids in which the core (C) protein surrounds the reverse transcriptase (P) and pregenomic RNA (pgRNA). We analyzed the accumulation patterns of duck hepatitis B virus P, C, and pgRNA in transfected LMH cells, infected primary duck hepatocytes (PDH), and infected duck liver. In all three systems, P accumulated over time in a different pattern compared with C, despite translation of both proteins from the pgRNA. Although the accumulation patterns of the proteins varied between the systems, in each case P became detectable at the same time or earlier than C and the ratio of P relative to C dropped with time. These accumulation patterns were consistent with the translation rates and half-lives of P and C. Comparing the translation rates of P and C with the pgRNA level over time revealed that translation of P and C was negatively regulated in LMH cells. These data provide a framework for comparing replication studies performed in LMH cells, PDHs and ducks

  17. THE UTILISATION OF GRAPE MARC FOR OBTAINING FEED PROTEIN WITH ETHANOL CONSUMING YEASTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Steliana RODINO

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available The research presented in this work has been directed to achieve an optimal and economic medium, for the protein biosynthesis. The carbon source and the mineral elements are provided by the fresh marc diffusion solution and the source of organic nitrogen and growth factors are provided by proteic wine yeast extract. For the alcoholic fermentation it was used a strain of Saccharomyces ellipsoideus and for obtaining the biomass, a strain of Candida robusta. There were performed two series of experiments in which the alcoholic fermentation progress was monitored as follows: by titration of the carbohydrates, at the beginning and respectively at the end of the fermentation; by determining the optical density of the culture medium and by the determination of alcohol in the fermented solution. Protein biosynthesis was monitored by measurement of the alcohol concentration at the beginning and end of the process, by the determination of the optical density of the culture medium, by the determination of residual sugar, and by determining wet and dry biomass. The wet biomass was used for the protein titration. At the termination of the bioprocess was determined the dry matter in the culture medium.

  18. [Establishment of optimun conditions in order to obtain a protein isolate from Chilean Hazelnut].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Villarroel, Mario; Zapata, Constanza; Pino, Leonardo; Rubilar, Mónica

    2012-03-01

    An alternative to solve the problem of the overall deficit of proteins has been the use ofdefatted cakes generated by the extraction of oil from vegetable sources such as rapeseed, soybean, lupin, etc. This process at the same time increases the protein content, making this feasible to be used to enrich some types of food. This is the case of the chilean hazelnut (Gevuina avellana, Mol), monotypic species characterized by their high percentage of oil (50%) and whose defatted cake isolated protein could be used to obtain an isolated protein. For this purpose optimized conditions of extraction of protein were carried out using the surface response methodology (SRM) and a central composite design with three independent variables: time of contact of the cake with the solvent, sample/solvent ratio and pH was used. All variables were controlled at five different levels. The data were subjected to an analysis of regression and ANOVA, the first to determine the polynomial equation and the second to select the control factors with significant effect on the extraction of the protein. The best combination of factors turned out to be: time between 30 and 40 minutes, pH between 9 and 9.5 and a relationship sample/solvent between 1/15 to 1/16 with a final yield of 76%. The physical characteristics were: density 0,504 g/cm3, compaction 43, 34% apparent and pale yellow. Proximal analysis showed a concentration of protein of 76%, 13%, raw fiber carbohydrate 0.68% and oil 1.29%. With regard to the functional properties emphasized water absorption (320 g/100 g), absorption of oil (410 g/100 g) and foaming capacity (221%).

  19. Complement activating soluble pattern recognition molecules with collagen-like regions, mannan-binding lectin, ficolins and associated proteins

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Thiel, Steffen

    2007-01-01

    Mannan-binding lectin (MBL), L-ficolin, M-ficolin and H-ficolin are all complement activating soluble pattern recognition molecules with recognition domains linked to collagen-like regions. All four may form complexes with four structurally related proteins, the three MBL-associated serine...... proteases (MASPs), MASP-1, MASP-2 and MASP-3, and a smaller MBL-associated protein (MAp19). The four recognition molecules recognize patterns of carbohydrate or acetyl-group containing ligands. After binding to the relevant targets all four are able to activate the complement system. We thus have a system...... where four different and/or overlapping patterns of microbial origin or patterns of altered-self may be recognized, but in all cases the signalling molecules, the MASPs, are shared. MASP-1 and MASP-3 are formed from one gene, MASP1/3, by alternative splicing generating two different mRNAs from a single...

  20. Flexible method for fabricating protein patterns on superhydrophobic platforms controlled by magnetic field.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jian; Li, Hao; Zou, Haoyang; Wang, Chenmiao; Zhang, Hao; Mano, João F; Song, Wenlong

    2017-02-28

    Inspired by the rolling of water droplets on lotus leaves, we developed a novel, magnetic field-controlled patterning method for water-soluble proteins and other functional materials on superhydrophobic platforms. This simple method can be used to fabricate biochips and open micro-fluidic devices in a simple way.

  1. UV-Visible intensity ratio (aggregates/single particles) as a measure to obtain stability of gold nanoparticles conjugated with protein A

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rios-Corripio, M. A. [Instituto Politecnico Nacional, CIBA-Tlaxcala (Mexico); Garcia-Perez, B. E. [Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Departamento de Inmunologia, ENCB (Mexico); Jaramillo-Flores, M. E. [Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Departamento de Ingenieria Bioquimica, ENCB (Mexico); Gayou, V. L.; Rojas-Lopez, M., E-mail: marlonrl@yahoo.com.mx [Instituto Politecnico Nacional, CIBA-Tlaxcala (Mexico)

    2013-05-15

    We have analyzed the titration process of gold nanoparticles with several amounts of protein A (0.3, 0.5, 1, 3, 6, and 9 {mu}g/ml) in the presence of NaCl, which induces aggregation if the surface of particles is not fully covered with protein A. The colloidal solutions with different particle size (16, 18, 20, 33 nm) were synthesized by citrate reduction to be conjugated with protein A. UV-Visible spectroscopy was used to measure the absorption of the surface plasmon resonance of gold nanoparticles as a function of the concentration of protein A. Such dependence shows an aggregation region (0 < x<6 {mu}g/ml), where the amount of protein A was insufficient to cover the surface of particles, obtaining aggregation caused by NaCl. The next part is the stability region (x {>=} 6 {mu}g/ml), where the amount of protein used covers the surface of particles and protects it from the aggregation. In addition to that the ratio between the intensities of both: the aggregates and of the gold nanoparticle bands was plotted as a function of the concentration of protein A. It was determined that 6 {mu}g/ml is a sufficient value of protein A to stabilize the gold nanoparticle-protein A system. This method provides a simple way to stabilize gold nanoparticles obtained by citrate reduction, with protein A.

  2. Short-term effects of salt exposure on the maize chloroplast protein pattern.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zörb, Christian; Herbst, Ramona; Forreiter, Christoph; Schubert, Sven

    2009-09-01

    It is of fundamental importance to understand the physiological differences leading to salt resistance and to get access to the molecular mechanisms underlying this physiological response. The aim of this work was to investigate the effects of short-term salt exposure on the proteome of maize chloroplasts in the initial phase of salt stress (up to 4 h). It could be shown that sodium ions accumulate quickly and excessively in chloroplasts in the initial phase of moderate salt stress. A change in the chloroplast protein pattern was observed without a change in water potential of the leaves. 2-DE revealed that 12 salt-responsive chloroplast proteins increased while eight chloroplast proteins decreased. Some of the maize chloroplast proteins such as CF1e and a Ca(2+)-sensing receptor show a rather transient response for the first 4 h of salt exposure. The enhanced abundance of the ferredoxin NADPH reductase, the 23 kDa polypeptide of the photosystem II, and the FtsH-like protein might reflect mechanism to attenuate the detrimental effects of Na(+) on the photosynthetic machinery. The observed transient increase and subsequent decrease of selected proteins may exhibit a counterbalancing effect of target proteins in this context. Intriguingly, several subunits of the CF1-CF0 complex are unequally affected, whereas others do not respond at all.

  3. Functional patterned coatings by thin polymer film dewetting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Telford, Andrew M; Thickett, Stuart C; Neto, Chiara

    2017-12-01

    An approach for the fabrication of functional polymer surface coatings is introduced, where micro-scale structure and surface functionality are obtained by means of self-assembly mechanisms. We illustrate two main applications of micro-patterned polymer surfaces obtained through dewetting of bilayers of thin polymer films. By tuning the physical and chemical properties of the polymer bilayers, micro-patterned surface coatings could be produced that have applications both for the selective attachment and patterning of proteins and cells, with potential applications as biomaterials, and for the collection of water from the atmosphere. In all cases, the aim is to achieve functional coatings using approaches that are simple to realize, use low cost materials and are potentially scalable. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Characterizing genes with distinct methylation patterns in the context of protein-protein interaction network: application to human brain tissues.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Yongsheng; Xu, Juan; Chen, Hong; Zhao, Zheng; Li, Shengli; Bai, Jing; Wu, Aiwei; Jiang, Chunjie; Wang, Yuan; Su, Bin; Li, Xia

    2013-01-01

    DNA methylation is an essential epigenetic mechanism involved in transcriptional control. However, how genes with different methylation patterns are assembled in the protein-protein interaction network (PPIN) remains a mystery. In the present study, we systematically dissected the characterization of genes with different methylation patterns in the PPIN. A negative association was detected between the methylation levels in the brain tissues and topological centralities. By focusing on two classes of genes with considerably different methylation levels in the brain tissues, namely the low methylated genes (LMGs) and high methylated genes (HMGs), we found that their organizing principles in the PPIN are distinct. The LMGs tend to be the center of the PPIN, and attacking them causes a more deleterious effect on the network integrity. Furthermore, the LMGs express their functions in a modular pattern and substantial differences in functions are observed between the two types of genes. The LMGs are enriched in the basic biological functions, such as binding activity and regulation of transcription. More importantly, cancer genes, especially recessive cancer genes, essential genes, and aging-related genes were all found more often in the LMGs. Additionally, our analysis presented that the intra-classes communications are enhanced, but inter-classes communications are repressed. Finally, a functional complementation was revealed between methylation and miRNA regulation in the human genome. We have elucidated the assembling principles of genes with different methylation levels in the context of the PPIN, providing key insights into the complex epigenetic regulation mechanisms.

  5. Changes of CSF-protein pattern in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia during prophylactic CNS therapy (Berlin protocol)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Siemes, H.; Rating, D.; Siegert, M.; Hanefeld, F.; Mueller, S.; Gadner, H.; Riehm, H.

    1980-01-01

    The cerebral spinal fluid (CSF)-protein profiles of ten children with previously untreated acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) were investigated by agarose gel electrophoresis. The profiles were determined at diagnosis and during the fifth to eighth week of treatment when preventive therapy for central nervous system (CNS) leukemia (skull irradiation, intrathecal methotrexate (ithMTX) was administered. The profiles were compared with those obtained from a control group of 67 children and those from 42 patients with acute aseptic meningitis. The data from the latter group demonstrated the CSF-protein pattern of partial blood-CSF barrier (B-CSF-B) breakdown. The children with ALL showed no or only minor signs of a B-CSF-B impairment at diagnosis and after four weeks of systemic treatment. However, CSF changes indicative of a lesion of the B-CSF-B increased in all children continuously during CNS prophylaxis. The protein profile at the end of combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy was very similar to that in patients with acute aseptic meningitis. These observations point to neurotoxic side effects on the CNS barrier system with the combination of cranial radiation and ithMTX. A striking finding was restricted heterogeneity of gamma-globulin, observed in the CSF of nine out of the ten children with ALL before or during treatment. The significance of this abnormality is unknown

  6. Serum Protein Electrophoretic Pattern in Neonatal Calves Treated with Clinoptilolite

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Simona Marc

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available The objective of our study was to determine the effects of clinoptilolite supplemented in colostrum on the blood serum protein electrophoretic pattern of new-born calves. Methods: Romanian Black and White new-born calves involved in the study were divided into 3 groups: the control group (C that received colostrum without clinoptilolite, and experimental groups I (E1 and II (E2 that received colostrum supplemented with 0.5% and 2% clinoptilolite, respectively. The concentration of total protein and protein fractions (albumin, α1-globulin, α2-globulin, β-globulin and γ-globulin were analyzed by electrophoresis on cellulose acetate. Results: At hour 30 after birth, concentrations of γ-globulins, β-globulin and total protein in E1 group of calves were higher than in control group by 42.11% (p < 0.05, 28.48% (p > 0.05 and 18.52% (p > 0.05, respectively, and were higher, but not significantly, in group E2 compared to the control group. This was in accordance with a significant lower albumin/globulin ratio in groups E1 and E2 (29.35%, p < 0.05 and 35.87%, p < 0.05, respectively than in control group at 30 h postpartum, which indicates an obvious increase of the globulins fraction in experimental groups. The conclusion: Clinoptilolite was effective in improving passive transfer in new-born calves, but it was more effective if added in colostrum with a dose of 0.5% than with a dose of 2%.

  7. Protein addressing on patterned microchip by coupling chitosan electrodeposition and 'electro-click' chemistry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shi, Xiao-Wen; Qiu, Ling; Nie, Zhen; Xiao, Ling; Payne, Gregory F; Du, Yumin

    2013-12-01

    Many applications in proteomics and lab-on-chip analysis require methods that guide proteins to assemble at surfaces with high spatial and temporal control. Electrical inputs are particularly convenient to control, and there has been considerable effort to discover simple and generic mechanisms that allow electrical inputs to trigger protein assembly on-demand. Here, we report the electroaddressing of a protein to a patterned surface by coupling two generic electroaddressing mechanisms. First, we electrodeposit the stimuli-responsive film-forming aminopolysaccharide chitosan to form a hydrogel matrix at the electrode surface. After deposition, the matrix is chemically functionalized with alkyne groups. Second, we ''electro-click' an azide-tagged protein to the functionalized matrix using electrical signals to trigger conjugation by Huisgen 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions. Specifically, a cathodic potential is applied to the matrix-coated electrode to reduce Cu(II) to Cu(I) which is required for the click reaction. Using fluorescently-labeled bovine serum albumin as our model, we demonstrate that protein conjugation can be controlled spatially and temporally. We anticipate that the coupling of polysaccharide electrodeposition and electro-click chemistry will provide a simple and generic approach to electroaddress proteins within compatible hydrogel matrices.

  8. Biological activity of egg-yolk protein by-product hydrolysates obtained with the use of non-commercial plant protease

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. Zambrowicz

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Enzymatic hydrolysis leads to improved functional and biological properties of protein by-products, which can be further used as nutraceuticals and protein ingredients for food applications.The present study evaluated ACE-inhibitory, antioxidant and immunostimulating activities in hydrolysates of egg-yolk protein by-product (YP, generated during industrial process of delipidation of yolk. The protein substrate was hydrolyzed using non-commercial protease from Asian pumpkin (Cucurbita ficifolia. The reaction was conducted in 0.1 M Tris-HCl buffer (pH 8.0 at temperature of 37°C for 4 hours using different enzyme doses (100-1000 U/mg of substrate. The protein degradation was monitored by the determination of the degree of hydrolysis (DH, release of free amino groups (FAG and by RP-HPLC. In the obtained hydrolysates we also evaluated biological activities. It was shown that the highest DH of substrate (46.6% was obtained after 4h of reaction at the highest amount of enzyme. This hydrolysate exhibited antioxidant activity, including ferricion reducing (FRAP (56.41 μg Fe2+/mg, ferric ion chelating (695.76 μg Fe2+/mg and DPPH free radical scavenging (0.89 μmol troloxeq/mg as well as ACE-inhibitory (IC50=837.75 μg/mL activities.The research showed improved biological properties of enzymatically modified YP by-product.

  9. RNA-binding protein VICKZ is expressed in a germinal center associated pattern among lymphoma subtypes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Natkunam, Y.; Vainer, G.; Zhao, S.C.

    2005-01-01

    and tumorigenesis/metastasis. We generated an antibody that recognizes all three isoforms of VICKZ protein and characterized its expression in normal lymphoid tissue and in lymphoma subtypes. In normal tonsils, VICKZ protein showed a germinal center-specific pattern of expression with staining localized...... to the cytoplasm. Among 868 non-Hodgkin and Hodgkin lymphomas tested by immunohistochemistry on tissue microarrays, staining for VICKZ protein was present in 76% (126/165) of follicular lymphoma, 78% (155/200) of DLBCL, 90% (9/10) of mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma, and 100% (2/2) of Burkitt lymphoma. A subset...... protein in lymphoma subtypes suggests a potential utility for VICKZ in the identification of subgroups of DLBCL associated with different prognoses....

  10. Exploring protein dynamics space: the dynasome as the missing link between protein structure and function.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ulf Hensen

    Full Text Available Proteins are usually described and classified according to amino acid sequence, structure or function. Here, we develop a minimally biased scheme to compare and classify proteins according to their internal mobility patterns. This approach is based on the notion that proteins not only fold into recurring structural motifs but might also be carrying out only a limited set of recurring mobility motifs. The complete set of these patterns, which we tentatively call the dynasome, spans a multi-dimensional space with axes, the dynasome descriptors, characterizing different aspects of protein dynamics. The unique dynamic fingerprint of each protein is represented as a vector in the dynasome space. The difference between any two vectors, consequently, gives a reliable measure of the difference between the corresponding protein dynamics. We characterize the properties of the dynasome by comparing the dynamics fingerprints obtained from molecular dynamics simulations of 112 proteins but our approach is, in principle, not restricted to any specific source of data of protein dynamics. We conclude that: 1. the dynasome consists of a continuum of proteins, rather than well separated classes. 2. For the majority of proteins we observe strong correlations between structure and dynamics. 3. Proteins with similar function carry out similar dynamics, which suggests a new method to improve protein function annotation based on protein dynamics.

  11. In-house characterization of protein powder

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hartmann, Christian Grundahl; Harris, Pernille; Ståhl, Kenny

    2011-01-01

    . For safe identification of the crystal form the experimental patterns have to be compared with patterns calculated from known crystal structures. Very good agreement with Protein Data Bank data was obtained after including corrections for background, unit cell parameters, disordered bulk......Collecting protein powder diffraction data on standard in-house powder diffractometers requires careful handling of the samples. Specially designed sample holders combined with optimized collimation were found to be the key factors in improving the data quality and reducing the data collection time......-solvent, and geometric factors. The data collection and correction procedures were demonstrated by the identification of three different crystal forms of insulin....

  12. Nonadditive protein accumulation patterns in Maize (Zea mays L.) hybrids during embryo development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marcon, Caroline; Schützenmeister, André; Schütz, Wolfgang; Madlung, Johannes; Piepho, Hans-Peter; Hochholdinger, Frank

    2010-12-03

    Heterosis describes the superior performance of heterozygous F(1)-hybrid plants compared to their homozygous parental inbred lines. In the present study, heterosis was detected for length, weight, and the time point of seminal root primordia initiation in maize (Zea mays L.) embryos of the reciprocal F(1)-hybrids UH005xUH250 and UH250xUH005. A two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) proteome survey of the most abundant proteins of the reciprocal hybrids and their parental inbred lines 25 and 35 days after pollination revealed that 141 of 597 detected proteins (24%) exhibited nonadditive accumulation in at least one hybrid. Approximately 44% of all nonadditively accumulated proteins displayed an expression pattern that was not distinguishable from the low parent value. Electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) analyses and subsequent functional classification of the 141 proteins revealed that development, protein metabolism, redox-regulation, glycolysis, and amino acid metabolism were the most prominent functional classes among nonadditively accumulated proteins. In 35-day-old embryos of the hybrid UH250xUH005, a significant up-regulation of enzymes related to glucose metabolism which often exceeded the best parent values was observed. A comparison of nonadditive protein accumulation between rice and maize embryo data sets revealed a significant overlap of nonadditively accumulated proteins suggesting conserved organ- or tissue-specific regulatory mechanisms in monocots related to heterosis.

  13. Multivariate data analysis of two-dimensional gel electrophoresis protein patterns from few samples

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Kristina Nedenskov; Jessen, Flemming; Jørgensen, Bo

    2008-01-01

    One application of 2D gel electrophoresis is to reveal differences in protein pattern between two or more groups of individuals, attributable to their group membership. Multivariate data analytical methods are useful in pinpointing the spots relevant for discrimination by focusing not only...... on single spot differences, but on the covariance structure between proteins. However, their outcome is dependent on data scaling, and they may fail in producing valid multivariate models due to the much higher number of "irrelevant" spots present in the gels. The case where only few gels are available...... and where the aim is to find as many as possible of the group-dependent proteins seems particularly difficult to handle. The present paper investigates such a case regarding the effect of scaling and of prefiltering by univariate nonparametric statistics on the selection of spots. Besides, a modified...

  14. Radiolysis of DNA-protein complexes

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Begusova, Marie [Department of Radiation Dosimetry, Nuclear Physics Institute, Na Truhlarce 39/64, CZ-18086, Prague 8 (Czech Republic)]. E-mail: begusova@ujf.cas.cz; Gillard, Nathalie [Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire, CNRS, rue Charles-Sadron, F-45071 Orleans Cedex 2 (France); Sy, Denise [Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire, CNRS, rue Charles-Sadron, F-45071 Orleans Cedex 2 (France); Castaing, Bertrand [Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire, CNRS, rue Charles-Sadron, F-45071 Orleans Cedex 2 (France); Charlier, Michel [Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire, CNRS, rue Charles-Sadron, F-45071 Orleans Cedex 2 (France); Spotheim-Maurizot, Melanie [Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire, CNRS, rue Charles-Sadron, F-45071 Orleans Cedex 2 (France)

    2005-02-01

    We discuss here modifications of DNA and protein radiolysis due to the interaction of these two partners in specific complexes. Experimental patterns of frank strand breaks (FSB) and alkali revealed breaks (ARB) obtained for DNA lac operator bound to the lac repressor and for a DNA containing an abasic site analog bound to the formamidopyrimidine-DNA glycosylase are reported. Experimental data are compared to predicted damage distribution obtained using the theoretical model RADACK.

  15. Radiolysis of DNA-protein complexes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Begusova, Marie; Gillard, Nathalie; Sy, Denise; Castaing, Bertrand; Charlier, Michel; Spotheim-Maurizot, Melanie

    2005-01-01

    We discuss here modifications of DNA and protein radiolysis due to the interaction of these two partners in specific complexes. Experimental patterns of frank strand breaks (FSB) and alkali revealed breaks (ARB) obtained for DNA lac operator bound to the lac repressor and for a DNA containing an abasic site analog bound to the formamidopyrimidine-DNA glycosylase are reported. Experimental data are compared to predicted damage distribution obtained using the theoretical model RADACK

  16. Protein and Glycoprotein Patterns Related to Morphogenesis in Mammillaria gracillis Pfeiff. Tissue Culture

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Biljana Balen

    2002-01-01

    Full Text Available As plants with Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM, cacti are highly affected by artificial environmental conditions in tissue culture. Plants of Mammillaria gracillis Pfeiff. (Cactaceae propagated in vitro produced callus spontaneously. This habituated callus regenerated normal and hyperhydric shoots without the addition of growth regulators. In order to compare habituated callus with the tumorous one, cactus cells were transformed with two strains of Agrobacterium tumefaciens: the wild strain B6S3 (tumour line TW and the rooty mutant GV3101 (tumour line TR. Gene expression in cactus plants, habituated callus, regenerated shoots and two tumour lines was analysed at the level of cellular and extracellular protein and glycoprotein profiles. Proteins were separated by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and 2-D PAGE electrophoresis and silver stained. Concavalin A-peroxidase staining detected glycoproteins with D-manose in their glycan component on protein blots. Developmentally specific protein patterns of Mammillaria gracillis tissue lines were detected. The 2-D PAGE electrophoresis revealed some tissue specific protein groups. The cellular glycoprotein of 42 kDa detected by ConA was highly expressed in undifferentiated tissues (habituated callus, TW and TR tumours and in hyperhydric regenerants. Tumours produced extracellular proteins of 33, 23 and 22 kDa. The N glycosylation of cellular and extracellular proteins was related to specific developmental stage of cactus tissue.

  17. Common and distinctive localization patterns of Crumbs polarity complex proteins in the mammalian eye.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Jin Young; Song, Ji Yun; Karnam, Santi; Park, Jun Young; Lee, Jamie J H; Kim, Seonhee; Cho, Seo-Hee

    2015-01-01

    Crumbs polarity complex proteins are essential for cellular and tissue polarity, and for adhesion of epithelial cells. In epithelial tissues deletion of any of three core proteins disrupts localization of the other proteins, indicating structural and functional interdependence among core components. Despite previous studies of function and co-localization that illustrated the properties that these proteins share, it is not known whether an individual component of the complex plays a distinct role in a unique cellular and developmental context. In order to investigate this question, we primarily used confocal imaging to determine the expression and subcellular localization of the core Crumbs polarity complex proteins during ocular development. Here we show that in developing ocular tissues core Crumbs polarity complex proteins, Crb, Pals1 and Patj, generally appear in an overlapping pattern with some exceptions. All three core complex proteins localize to the apical junction of the retinal and lens epithelia. Pals1 is also localized in the Golgi of the retinal cells and Patj localizes to the nuclei of the apically located subset of progenitor cells. These findings suggest that core Crumbs polarity complex proteins exert common and independent functions depending on cellular context. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  18. Fetal functional brain age assessed from universal developmental indices obtained from neuro-vegetative activity patterns.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dirk Hoyer

    Full Text Available Fetal brain development involves the development of the neuro-vegetative (autonomic control that is mediated by the autonomic nervous system (ANS. Disturbances of the fetal brain development have implications for diseases in later postnatal life. In that context, the fetal functional brain age can be altered. Universal principles of developmental biology applied to patterns of autonomic control may allow a functional age assessment. The work aims at the development of a fetal autonomic brain age score (fABAS based on heart rate patterns. We analysed n = 113 recordings in quiet sleep, n = 286 in active sleep, and n = 29 in active awakeness from normals. We estimated fABAS from magnetocardiographic recordings (21.4-40.3 weeks of gestation preclassified in quiet sleep (n = 113, 63 females and active sleep (n = 286, 145 females state by cross-validated multivariate linear regression models in a cross-sectional study. According to universal system developmental principles, we included indices that address increasing fluctuation range, increasing complexity, and pattern formation (skewness, power spectral ratio VLF/LF, pNN5. The resulting models constituted fABAS. fABAS explained 66/63% (coefficient of determination R(2 of training and validation set of the variance by age in quiet, while 51/50% in active sleep. By means of a logistic regression model using fluctuation range and fetal age, quiet and active sleep were automatically reclassified (94.3/93.1% correct classifications. We did not find relevant gender differences. We conclude that functional brain age can be assessed based on universal developmental indices obtained from autonomic control patterns. fABAS reflect normal complex functional brain maturation. The presented normative data are supplemented by an explorative study of 19 fetuses compromised by intrauterine growth restriction. We observed a shift in the state distribution towards active awakeness. The lower WGA

  19. Usefulness of in-house obtained recombinant proteins Yop of Yersinia enterocolitica as highly specific antigens in ELISA and recom-dot performed in the serodiagnosis of yersiniosis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rastawicki, Waldemar; Smietafiska, Karolina; Chrost, Anna; Wolkowicz, Tomasz; Rokosz-Chudziak, Natalia

    Proper analysis of the human immune response is crucial in the laboratory diagnosis of many bacterial infections-The current serological diagnosis of yersiniosis often is carried out using ELISA with native antigens. However, recombinant proteins increase the specificity of the serological assays, particularly in patients with chronic, non- specific infections. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the usefulness of in-house obtained recombinant proteins Yop of Yersinia enterocolitica as highly specific antigens in ELISA and recom-dot performed in the serodiagnosis of yersiniosis. Recombinant YopD, YopB, YopE and V-Ag proteins of Y enterocolitica were expressing in E. coli BL21 (DE3) using the pET-30 Ek/LIC expression vector (Novagen). Purification was accomplished by immobilized metal (Ni2) affinity column chromatography (His-trap). The proteins were used as antigens in standard ELISA and recom-dot assay, which was performed on nitrocellulose strips. The study population, used for characterization of the humoral immune response to the recombinant proteins, consisted of 74 patients suspected for Y enterocolitica infection and 41 clinically healthy blood donors. Some of the results obtained by ELISA and recom-dot were compared with results obtained by commercial western-blot Yersinia (Virotech). In the group of patients suspected for yersiniosis in clinical investigation the most positive results were obtained in ELISA with the recombinant protein YopD (IgA respectively 25 (42.4%), IgG 41 (69.5%), IgM 24 (40.7%). The percentage ofpositive results in the group of blood donors did not exceed 10.0% in IgG and 5.0% in IgA/IgM classes of immunoglobulin. The results obtained in the recom-dot assay showed that among 74 tested serum samples obtained from individuals suspected of yersiniosis the most common IgA, IgG and IgM antibodies were found for recombinant protein YopD (respectively IgG in 60.8%, IgA in 37.8% and IgM in 33.8% of serum samples). IgG antibodies to

  20. Evaluation of the Escherichia coli (E.coli Strains based on protein profiles obtained from traditional Ice cream in Isfahan City

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maryam Ranjbar

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Bacterial strains present in food products undergo different thermal processes such as coldness and warmth. Such cases cause a shock in bacteria and force the bacteria to produce proteins and partly, develop a change in the production of enzyme. This can give the strain a special characteristic, knowledge of this characteristic will contribute to a timely and more precise identification. Materials and methods: During this time more than 100 samples have been examined, out of which, 48 Indol positive isolation samples were examined by phenotypic tests and sodium dodecyle sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS- PAGE. Results: – The results of numerical analysis of phenotypic characteristics and protein patterns showed that only 79% of the collected isolates (phenon 1 and 2 could be identified as E.coli compared with reference strains. E.coli strains from ice creams were showed some Variation in banding patterns. Major differences were observed in protein bands between 23.59 - and 20.79 -kDa molecular mass range which the isolates were compared with reference strains. Discussion and conclusion: Our study concluded that food’s bacterial strains are influenced by temperatures in different processes and also it could stimulate the production of proteins or change the enzymes. Therefore, The reason of taking care of the issues is that changes in the proteins’ structures can lead to change in the biochemical properties, and finally this change can misguide us. Further research is being performed to characterize these atypical strains by molecular methods.

  1. Overlapping functions of argonaute proteins in patterning and morphogenesis of Drosophila embryos.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wibke J Meyer

    2006-08-01

    Full Text Available Argonaute proteins are essential components of the molecular machinery that drives RNA silencing. In Drosophila, different members of the Argonaute family of proteins have been assigned to distinct RNA silencing pathways. While Ago1 is required for microRNA function, Ago2 is a crucial component of the RNA-induced silencing complex in siRNA-triggered RNA interference. Drosophila Ago2 contains an unusual amino-terminus with two types of imperfect glutamine-rich repeats (GRRs of unknown function. Here we show that the GRRs of Ago2 are essential for the normal function of the protein. Alleles with reduced numbers of GRRs cause specific disruptions in two morphogenetic processes associated with the midblastula transition: membrane growth and microtubule-based organelle transport. These defects do not appear to result from disruption of siRNA-dependent processes but rather suggest an interference of the mutant Ago2 proteins in an Ago1-dependent pathway. Using loss-of-function alleles, we further demonstrate that Ago1 and Ago2 act in a partially redundant manner to control the expression of the segment-polarity gene wingless in the early embryo. Our findings argue against a strict separation of Ago1 and Ago2 functions and suggest that these proteins act in concert to control key steps of the midblastula transition and of segmental patterning.

  2. Alignment of non-covalent interactions at protein-protein interfaces.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hongbo Zhu

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The study and comparison of protein-protein interfaces is essential for the understanding of the mechanisms of interaction between proteins. While there are many methods for comparing protein structures and protein binding sites, so far no methods have been reported for comparing the geometry of non-covalent interactions occurring at protein-protein interfaces. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we present a method for aligning non-covalent interactions between different protein-protein interfaces. The method aligns the vector representations of van der Waals interactions and hydrogen bonds based on their geometry. The method has been applied to a dataset which comprises a variety of protein-protein interfaces. The alignments are consistent to a large extent with the results obtained using two other complementary approaches. In addition, we apply the method to three examples of protein mimicry. The method successfully aligns respective interfaces and allows for recognizing conserved interface regions. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The Galinter method has been validated in the comparison of interfaces in which homologous subunits are involved, including cases of mimicry. The method is also applicable to comparing interfaces involving non-peptidic compounds. Galinter assists users in identifying local interface regions with similar patterns of non-covalent interactions. This is particularly relevant to the investigation of the molecular basis of interaction mimicry.

  3. Correlation of acidic and basic carrier ampholyte and immobilized pH gradient two-dimensional gel electrophoresis patterns based on mass spectrometric protein identification

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nawrocki, A; Larsen, Martin Røssel; Podtelejnikov, A V

    1998-01-01

    Separation of proteins on either carrier ampholyte-based or immobilized pH gradient-based two-dimensional (2-D) gels gives rise to electrophoretic patterns that are difficult to compare visually. In this paper we have used matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI......-MS) to determine the identities of 335 protein spots in these two 2-D gel systems, including a substantial number of basic proteins which had never been identified before. Proteins that were identified in both gel systems allowed us to cross-reference the gel patterns. Vector analysis of these cross...

  4. A comparative study of cell cycle mediator protein expression patterns in anaplastic and papillary thyroid carcinoma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Evans, Juanita J; Crist, Henry S; Durvesh, Saima; Bruggeman, Richard D; Goldenberg, David

    2012-07-01

    Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) is an extremely aggressive and rapidly fatal neoplasm. The aim of this study was to identify a limited cell cycle associated protein expression pattern unique to ATC and to correlate that pattern with clinical outcome. This represents one of the largest tissue micro-array projects comparing the cell cycle protein expression data of ATC to other well-differentiated tumors in the literature. Tissue microarrays were created from 21 patients with ATC and an age and gender matched cohort of patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). Expression of epidermal growth factor receptor, cyclin D1, cyclin E, p53, p21, p16, aurora kinase A, opioid growth factor (OGF), OGF-receptor, thyroglobulin and Ki-67 was evaluated in a semi-quantitative fashion. Differences in protein expression between the cohorts were evaluated using chi-square tests with Bonferroni adjustments. Survival time and presence of metastasis at presentation were collected. The ATC cohort showed a statistically significant decrease (p cycle with aberrant expression of multiple protein markers suggesting increased proliferative activity and loss of control of cell cycle progression to G₁ phase. These findings support the assertion that ATC may represent the furthest end of a continuum of thyroid carcinoma dedifferentiation.

  5. Larger red-shift in optical emissions obtained from the thin films of globular proteins (BSA, lysozyme) – polyelectrolyte (PAA) complexes

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Talukdar, Hrishikesh [Physical Sciences Division, Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology, Vigyan Path, Paschim Boragaon, Garchuk, Guwahati 781035, Assam (India); Kundu, Sarathi, E-mail: sarathi.kundu@gmail.com [Physical Sciences Division, Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology, Vigyan Path, Paschim Boragaon, Garchuk, Guwahati 781035, Assam (India); Basu, Saibal [Solid State Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai 400 085 (India)

    2016-09-30

    Graphical abstract: Thin films of protein-polyelectrolyte complexes show larger red-shift in optical emission. - Highlights: • Globular proteins (lysozyme and BSA) and polyelectrolyte (sodium polyacrylic acid) are used to form protein-polyelectrolyte complexes (PPC). • Larger red-shift in optical emission is obtained from the thin films of PPC. • Red-shift is not obtained from the solution of PPC and pure protein thin films. • Larger red-shift from PPC films is due to the energy dissipation as non-radiative form through interactions with nearby atoms. • Red-shift in optical emission is independent on the thickness of the PPC film. - Abstract: Globular proteins (lysozyme and BSA) and polyelectrolyte (sodium polyacrylic acid) are used to form protein-polyelectrolyte complexes (PPC). Out-of-plane structures of ≈30–60 nm thick PPC films and their surface morphologies have been studied by using X-ray reflectivity and atomic force microscopy, whereas optical behaviors of PPC and protein conformations have been studied by using UV–vis, photoluminescence and FTIR spectroscopy respectively. Our study reveals that thin films of PPC show a larger red-shift of 23 and 16 nm in the optical emissions in comparison to that of pure protein whereas bulk PPC show a small blue-shift of ≈3 nm. A small amount of peak-shift is found to occur due to the heat treatment or concentration variation of the polyelectrolyte/protein in bulk solution but cannot produce such film thickness independent larger red-shift. Position of the emission peak remains nearly unchanged with the film thickness. Mechanism for such larger red-shift has been proposed.

  6. Powder diffraction from a continuous microjet of submicrometer protein crystals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shapiro, D A; Chapman, H N; Deponte, D; Doak, R B; Fromme, P; Hembree, G; Hunter, M; Marchesini, S; Schmidt, K; Spence, J; Starodub, D; Weierstall, U

    2008-11-01

    Atomic-resolution structures from small proteins have recently been determined from high-quality powder diffraction patterns using a combination of stereochemical restraints and Rietveld refinement [Von Dreele (2007), J. Appl. Cryst. 40, 133-143; Margiolaki et al. (2007), J. Am. Chem. Soc. 129, 11865-11871]. While powder diffraction data have been obtained from batch samples of small crystal-suspensions, which are exposed to X-rays for long periods of time and undergo significant radiation damage, the proof-of-concept that protein powder diffraction data from nanocrystals of a membrane protein can be obtained using a continuous microjet is shown. This flow-focusing aerojet has been developed to deliver a solution of hydrated protein nanocrystals to an X-ray beam for diffraction analysis. This method requires neither the crushing of larger polycrystalline samples nor any techniques to avoid radiation damage such as cryocooling. Apparatus to record protein powder diffraction in this manner has been commissioned, and in this paper the first powder diffraction patterns from a membrane protein, photosystem I, with crystallite sizes of less than 500 nm are presented. These preliminary patterns show the lowest-order reflections, which agree quantitatively with theoretical calculations of the powder profile. The results also serve to test our aerojet injector system, with future application to femtosecond diffraction in free-electron X-ray laser schemes, and for serial crystallography using a single-file beam of aligned hydrated molecules.

  7. Data on xylem sap proteins from Mn- and Fe-deficient tomato plants obtained using shotgun proteomics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ceballos-Laita, Laura; Gutierrez-Carbonell, Elain; Takahashi, Daisuke; Abadía, Anunciación; Uemura, Matsuo; Abadía, Javier; López-Millán, Ana Flor

    2018-04-01

    This article contains consolidated proteomic data obtained from xylem sap collected from tomato plants grown in Fe- and Mn-sufficient control, as well as Fe-deficient and Mn-deficient conditions. Data presented here cover proteins identified and quantified by shotgun proteomics and Progenesis LC-MS analyses: proteins identified with at least two peptides and showing changes statistically significant (ANOVA; p ≤ 0.05) and above a biologically relevant selected threshold (fold ≥ 2) between treatments are listed. The comparison between Fe-deficient, Mn-deficient and control xylem sap samples using a multivariate statistical data analysis (Principal Component Analysis, PCA) is also included. Data included in this article are discussed in depth in the research article entitled "Effects of Fe and Mn deficiencies on the protein profiles of tomato ( Solanum lycopersicum) xylem sap as revealed by shotgun analyses" [1]. This dataset is made available to support the cited study as well to extend analyses at a later stage.

  8. Antimicrobial Resistance Pattern in Escherichia coli Isolates Obtained from a Specialized Women and Children Hospital in Shiraz, Iran: A Prevalence Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mahtab Hadadi

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background: Escherichia coli, known as a clinically significant bacteria, can cause a wide range of infections, including urinary tract infections (UTIs, blood stream infections (BSIs, and can frequently be isolated from various clinical specimens. Evaluation of antimicrobial resistant pattern is a necessary action, especially about such bacteria which are frequent and life threatening. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency and antimicrobial resistance pattern of E. coli isolates obtained from various clinical specimens. Methods: This retrospective study was performed within a seven month period from January 2015 to August 2015 at a specialized women and children hospital in Shiraz, Iran. E. coli isolates were obtained from various clinical specimens and identified using standard microbiological procedure. Antimicrobial susceptibility patterns were determined using disk diffusion method in accordance with CLSI recommendation. Results: Of the total 130 positive cultures, the majority of E. coli isolates were obtained from urine (96=73.8% and blood (11=8.5% specimens. Overall, gentamicin (70.8% was the effective antibiotic for the tested E. coli isolates. E. coli isolates obtained from urine specimens showed the highest resistance rates against ampicillin (84.4% and nalidixic acid (61.5%; while they showed the most sensitivity to gentamicin (79.2%, nitrofurantoin (70.8% and ciprofloxacin (66.7%. Moreover, the highest antibiotic resistance rates belonged to the isolates recovered from endotracheal tube (ETT. Conclusion: The results showed that gentamicin was the most effective antibiotic against E. coli infections. However, in addition to the gentamicin, we can recommend nitrofurantoin and ciprofloxacin as the other effective agents for UTIs

  9. Food Protein-polysaccharide Conjugates Obtained via the Maillard Reaction: A Review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Oliveira, Fabíola Cristina; Coimbra, Jane Sélia Dos Reis; de Oliveira, Eduardo Basílio; Zuñiga, Abraham Damian Giraldo; Rojas, Edwin E Garcia

    2016-05-18

    The products formed by glycosylation of food proteins with carbohydrates via the Maillard reaction, also known as conjugates, are agents capable of changing and improving techno-functional characteristics of proteins. The Maillard reaction uses the covalent bond between a group of a reducing carbohydrates and an amino group of a protein. This reaction does not require additional chemicals as it occurs naturally under controlled conditions of temperature, time, pH, and moisture. Moreover, there is growing interest in modifying proteins for industrial food applications. This review analyses the current state of art of the Maillard reaction on food protein functionalities. It also discusses the influence of the Maillard reaction on the conditions and formulation of reagents that improve desirable techno-functional characteristics of food protein.

  10. Physicochemical and functional properties of protein isolate obtained from cottonseed meal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, Mengting; Ren, Yanjing; Xie, Wei; Zhou, Dayun; Tang, Shurong; Kuang, Meng; Wang, Yanqin; Du, Shuang-Kui

    2018-02-01

    To investigate the effect of preparation methods of cottonseed meals on protein properties, the physicochemical and functional properties of proteins isolated from hot-pressed solvent extraction cottonseed meal (HCM), cold-pressed solvent extraction cottonseed meal (CCM) and subcritical fluid extraction cottonseed meal (SCM) were investigated. Cottonseed proteins had two major bands (at about 45 and 50kD), two X-ray diffraction peaks (8.5° and 19.5°) and one endothermic peak (94.31°C-97.72°C). Proteins of HCM showed relatively more β-sheet (38.3%-40.5%), and less β-turn (22.2%-25.8%) and α-helix (15.8%-19.5%), indicating the presence of highly denatured protein molecules. Proteins of CCM and SCM exhibited high water/oil absorption capacity, emulsifying abilities, surface hydrophobicity and fluorescence intensity, suggesting that the proteins have potential as functional ingredients in the food industry. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Application of native agarose gel electrophoresis of serum proteins in veterinary diagnostics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jania Bartosz

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Electrophoretic techniques, used to separate mixtures of electrically charged particles, are widely used in science. One of these techniques, native protein electrophoresis in an agarose gel, is applied in human and veterinary medicine. Changes in the proportions of individual protein fractions correspond to significant changes in the physiology of the body. Although the pattern obtained by electrophoretic separation rarely indicates a specific disease, it provides valuable information for the differential diagnosis. Decades of research on the types of patterns obtained in the case of particular diseases have led to the accumulation of substantial knowledge. The paper presents the available information on this topic. Serum protein electrophoresis is recommended in cases of increased levels of total protein in order to reveal the nature of the process. The basic information which can be obtained from electrophoretic separation includes the immune status of the organism. Both increased antigenic stimulation and immunodeficiency are clearly visible in electropherograms. Moreover, the level of heterogeneity of the corresponding protein fractions can help to distinguish between infectious diseases and cancer - multiple myeloma - the latter producing a homogeneous immunoglobulin fraction. Analysis of other protein fractions helps to detect or confirm an ongoing inflammatory process and provides information regarding liver function. Even when the concentration of total protein is within the reference range, this analysis can be recommended as a basic laboratory test.

  12. The E4 protein; structure, function and patterns of expression

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Doorbar, John, E-mail: jdoorba@nimr.mrc.ac.uk

    2013-10-15

    }E4, these kinases regulate one of the E1{sup ∧}E4 proteins main functions, the association with the cellular keratin network, and eventually also its cleavage by the protease calpain which allows assembly into amyloid-like fibres and reorganisation of the keratin network. Although the E4 proteins of different HPV types appear divergent at the level of their primary amino acid sequence, they share a recognisable modular organisation and pattern of expression, which may underlie conserved functions and regulation. Assembly into higher-order multimers and suppression of cell proliferation are common to all E4 proteins examined. Although not yet formally demonstrated, a role in virus release and transmission remains a likely function for E4. - Highlights: • E4 gene products have a modular structure, and are expressed from the E1{sup ∧}E4 spliced mRNA. • E4 proteins are modified during epithelial differentiation by phosphorylation and proteolysis. • The E4 proteins contribute to genome amplification-efficiency and virus synthesis. • E4 proteins are abundantly expressed and may facilitate efficient virus release and transmission. • High-risk E4 proteins are deposited as amyloid fibres and can be used as infection biomarkers.

  13. Classification, expression pattern and comparative analysis of sugarcane expressed sequences tags (ESTs encoding glycine-rich proteins (GRPs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fusaro Adriana

    2001-01-01

    Full Text Available Since the isolation of the first glycine-rich proteins (GRPs in plants a wealth of new GRPs have been identified. The highly specific but diverse expression pattern of grp genes, taken together with the distinct sub-cellular localization of some GRP groups, clearly indicate that these proteins are involved in several independent physiological processes. Notwithstanding the absence of a clear definition of the role of GRPs in plant cells, studies conducted with these proteins have provided new and interesting insights into the molecular biology and cell biology of plants. Complexly regulated promoters and distinct mechanisms for the regulation of gene expression have been demonstrated and new protein targeting pathways, as well as the exportation of GRPs from different cell types have been discovered. These data show that GRPs can be useful as markers and/or models to understand distinct aspects of plant biology. In this paper, the structural and functional features of these proteins in sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L. are summarized. Since this is the first description of GRPs in sugarcane, special emphasis has been given to the expression pattern of these GRP genes by studying their abundance and prevalence in the different cDNA-libraries of the Sugarcane Expressed Sequence Tag (SUCEST project . The comparison of sugarcane GRPs with GRPs from other species is also discussed.

  14. A statistical approach to the estimation of mechanical unfolding parameters from the unfolding patterns of protein heteropolymers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Beddard, G S; Brockwell, D J

    2010-01-01

    A statistical calculation is described with which the saw-tooth-like unfolding patterns of concatenated heteropolymeric proteins can be used to estimate the forced unfolding parameters of a previously uncharacterized protein. The chance of observing the various sequences of unfolding events, such as ABAABBB or BBAAABB etc, for two proteins of types A and B is calculated using proteins with various ratios of A and B and at different values of effective unfolding rate constants. If the experimental rate constant for forced unfolding, k 0 , and distance to the transition state x u are known for one protein, then the calculation allows an estimation of values for the other. The predictions are compared with Monte Carlo simulations and experimental data. (communication)

  15. Salt stress-induced protein pattern associated with photosynthetic parameters and andrographolide content in Andrographis paniculata Nees.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Talei, Daryush; Valdiani, Alireza; Maziah, Mahmood; Sagineedu, Sreenivasa Rao; Abiri, Rambod

    2015-01-01

    Andrographis paniculata is a multifunctional medicinal plant and a potent source of bioactive compounds. Impact of environmental stresses such as salinity on protein diversification, as well as the consequent changes in the photosynthetic parameters and andrographolide content (AG) of the herb, has not yet been thoroughly investigated. The present study showed that the salinity affects the protein pattern, and subsequently, it decreased the photosynthetic parameters, protein content, total dry weight, and total crude extract. Exceptionally, the AG content was increased (p ≤ 0.01). Moreover, it was noticed that the salinity at 12 dS m(-1) led to the maximum increase in AG content in all accessions. Interestingly, the leaf protein analysis revealed that the two polymorphic protein bands as low- and medium-sized of 17 and 45 kDa acted as the activator agents for the photosynthetic parameters and AG content. Protein sequencing and proteomic analysis can be conducted based on the present findings in the future.

  16. Normal and abnormal electrical activation of the heart. Imaging patterns obtained by phase analysis of equilibrium cardiac studies

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pavel, D.; Byrom, E.; Swiryn, S.; Meyer-Pavel, C.; Rosen, K.

    1981-01-01

    By using a temporal Fourier analysis of gated equilibrium cardiac studies, phase images were obtained. These functional images were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively to determine if specific patterns can be found for normal versus abnormal electrical activation of the heart. The study included eight subjects with normal cardiac function and 24 patients with abnormal electrical activation: eight with left bundle branch block (LBBB), two with right bundle branch block (RBBB), six with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome (WPW), one with junctional rhythm, one with spontaneous sustained ventricular tachycardia (VT) (all with normal wall motion), two with chronic transvenous pacemakers, and four with induced sustained VT (all with regional wall motion abnormalities). The results show that the two ventricals have the same mean phase (within +-9 0 ) in normals, but significantly different mean phases in all patients with bundle branch blocks. Of the six WPW patients, three had a distinctive abnormal pattern. The patient with junctional rhythm, those with transvenous pacemakers, and those with VT all had abnormal patterns on the phase image. The phase image is capable of showing differences between patients with electrical activation and a variety of electrical abnormalities. Within the latter category distinct patterns can be associated with each type of abnormality. (author)

  17. Changes in the pattern of protein synthesis of prosopis chilensis induced by high temperatures

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Medina, C.; Cardemil, L. (Univ. de Chile, Santiago (USA))

    1989-04-01

    Seeds of Prosopis chilensis, a leguminous tree from semi-arid regions of Central Chile, were germinated at temperatures of 25-30-35-40-45 and 50{degree}C. Germination was 100% between 25 and 40{degree}C, being faster at 35{degree}C. The best temperature for root growth was also 35{degree}C. There was not germination at 50{degree}C. However, seedlings coming from seeds germinated at 35{degree}C were capable of growing at higher temperatures of 45 and 50{degree}C. Pattern of protein synthesis was followed in roots incubated with {sup 35}S-methionine at increasing temperatures between 35 and 50{degree}C. SDS-PAGE of the proteins followed by fluorography shows that at temperatures above 35{degree}C, new protein bands appear while others become thicker. Most of the protein bands have decreased at 50{degree}C, with the exception of the new bands. A band of 70 KD, that is present at 35{degree}C, is more prominent at 50{degree}C. These proteins may have an important role in the thermotolerance of Prosopis chilensis to stressing temperatures.

  18. Changes in the pattern of protein synthesis of prosopis chilensis induced by high temperatures

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Medina, C.; Cardemil, L.

    1989-01-01

    Seeds of Prosopis chilensis, a leguminous tree from semi-arid regions of Central Chile, were germinated at temperatures of 25-30-35-40-45 and 50 degree C. Germination was 100% between 25 and 40 degree C, being faster at 35 degree C. The best temperature for root growth was also 35 degree C. There was not germination at 50 degree C. However, seedlings coming from seeds germinated at 35 degree C were capable of growing at higher temperatures of 45 and 50 degree C. Pattern of protein synthesis was followed in roots incubated with 35 S-methionine at increasing temperatures between 35 and 50 degree C. SDS-PAGE of the proteins followed by fluorography shows that at temperatures above 35 degree C, new protein bands appear while others become thicker. Most of the protein bands have decreased at 50 degree C, with the exception of the new bands. A band of 70 KD, that is present at 35 degree C, is more prominent at 50 degree C. These proteins may have an important role in the thermotolerance of Prosopis chilensis to stressing temperatures

  19. Different zinc sensitivity of Brassica organs is accompanied by distinct responses in protein nitration level and pattern.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Feigl, Gábor; Kolbert, Zsuzsanna; Lehotai, Nóra; Molnár, Árpád; Ördög, Attila; Bordé, Ádám; Laskay, Gábor; Erdei, László

    2016-03-01

    Zinc is an essential microelement, but its excess exerts toxic effects in plants. Heavy metal stress can alter the metabolism of reactive oxygen (ROS) and nitrogen species (RNS) leading to oxidative and nitrosative damages; although the participation of these processes in Zn toxicity and tolerance is not yet known. Therefore this study aimed to evaluate the zinc tolerance of Brassica organs and the putative correspondence of it with protein nitration as a relevant marker for nitrosative stress. Both examined Brassica species (B. juncea and B. napus) proved to be moderate Zn accumulators; however B. napus accumulated more from this metal in its organs. The zinc-induced damages (growth diminution, altered morphology, necrosis, chlorosis, and the decrease of photosynthetic activity) were slighter in the shoot system of B. napus than in B. juncea. The relative zinc tolerance of B. napus shoot was accompanied by moderate changes of the nitration pattern. In contrast, the root system of B. napus suffered more severe damages (growth reduction, altered morphology, viability loss) and slighter increase in nitration level compared to B. juncea. Based on these, the organs of Brassica species reacted differentially to excess zinc, since in the shoot system modification of the nitration pattern occurred (with newly appeared nitrated protein bands), while in the roots, a general increment in the nitroproteome could be observed (the intensification of the same protein bands being present in the control samples). It can be assumed that the significant alteration of nitration pattern is coupled with enhanced zinc sensitivity of the Brassica shoot system and the general intensification of protein nitration in the roots is attached to relative zinc endurance. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. Modularity in protein structures: study on all-alpha proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khan, Taushif; Ghosh, Indira

    2015-01-01

    Modularity is known as one of the most important features of protein's robust and efficient design. The architecture and topology of proteins play a vital role by providing necessary robust scaffolds to support organism's growth and survival in constant evolutionary pressure. These complex biomolecules can be represented by several layers of modular architecture, but it is pivotal to understand and explore the smallest biologically relevant structural component. In the present study, we have developed a component-based method, using protein's secondary structures and their arrangements (i.e. patterns) in order to investigate its structural space. Our result on all-alpha protein shows that the known structural space is highly populated with limited set of structural patterns. We have also noticed that these frequently observed structural patterns are present as modules or "building blocks" in large proteins (i.e. higher secondary structure content). From structural descriptor analysis, observed patterns are found to be within similar deviation; however, frequent patterns are found to be distinctly occurring in diverse functions e.g. in enzymatic classes and reactions. In this study, we are introducing a simple approach to explore protein structural space using combinatorial- and graph-based geometry methods, which can be used to describe modularity in protein structures. Moreover, analysis indicates that protein function seems to be the driving force that shapes the known structure space.

  1. Differential expression patterns of metastasis suppressor proteins in basal cell carcinoma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bozdogan, Onder; Yulug, Isik G; Vargel, Ibrahim; Cavusoglu, Tarik; Karabulut, Ayse A; Karahan, Gurbet; Sayar, Nilufer

    2015-08-01

    Basal cell carcinomas (BCCs) are common malignant skin tumors. Despite having a significant invasion capacity, they metastasize only rarely. Our aim in this study was to detect the expression patterns of the NM23-H1, NDRG1, E-cadherin, RHOGDI2, CD82/KAI1, MKK4, and AKAP12 metastasis suppressor proteins in BCCs. A total of 96 BCC and 10 normal skin samples were included for the immunohistochemical study. Eleven frozen BCC samples were also studied by quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) to detect the gene expression profile. NM23-H1 was strongly and diffusely expressed in all types of BCC. Significant cytoplasmic expression of NDRG1 and E-cadherin was also detected. However, AKAP12 and CD82/KAI1 expression was significantly decreased. The expressions of the other proteins were somewhere between the two extremes. Similarly, qRT-PCR analysis showed down-regulation of AKAP12 and up-regulation of NM23-H1 and NDRG1 in BCC. Morphologically aggressive BCCs showed significantly higher cytoplasmic NDRG1 expression scores and lower CD82/KAI1 scores than non-aggressive BCCs. The relatively preserved levels of NM23-H1, NDRG1, and E-cadherin proteins may have a positive effect on the non-metastasizing features of these tumors. © 2014 The International Society of Dermatology.

  2. Proteins labelling with 125I and experimental determination of their specific activity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Caro, R.A.; Ciscato, V.A.; Giacomini, S.M.V. de; Quiroga, S.; Radicella, R.

    1975-11-01

    A standardization of the labelling technique of proteins with 125 I and the control of the obtained products, principally their specific activities was performed, in order to utilize them correctly in radioimmunoassays. The quantities of chloramine-T and sodium metabisulphite were lowered, with regard to the original method, to 3.6 and 9.6 μg respectively. Under these conditions, optimal yields and radioiodinated proteins with good immunological activities were obtained. It was found that the specific activity calculated, as usual, from the yield obtained by electrophoresis, is higher than the real value. For these reasons the yields and the corresponding specific activities were determined from ascending chromatographies performed with 70 per cent methanol as solvent, during two hours in darkness. The radioimmunoassay displacement curves obtained with proteins labelled which the proposed method and the specific activities of which were calculated from their radiochromatographic patterns, were reproducible and gave a percentage of bound radioiodinated protein in the absence of cold protein of 50 +- 4. (author) [es

  3. Nutritional Status and Daytime Pattern of Protein Intake on Match, Post-Match, Rest and Training Days in Senior Professional and Youth Elite Soccer Players.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bettonviel A, E O; Brinkmans N, Y J; Russcher, Kris; Wardenaar, Floris C; Witard, Oliver C

    2016-06-01

    The nutritional status of elite soccer players across match, postmatch, training and rest days has not been defined. Recent evidence suggests the pattern of dietary protein intake impacts the daytime turnover of muscle proteins and, as such, influences muscle recovery. We assessed the nutritional status and daytime pattern of protein intake in senior professional and elite youth soccer players and compared findings against published recommendations. Fourteen senior professional (SP) and 15 youth elite (YP) soccer players from the Dutch premier division completed nutritional assessments using a 24-hr web-based recall method. Recall days consisted of a match, postmatch, rest, and training day. Daily energy intake over the 4-day period was similar between SP (2988 ± 583 kcal/day) and YP (2938 ± 465 kcal/day; p = .800). Carbohydrate intake over the combined 4-day period was lower in SP (4.7 ± 0.7 g·kg-1 BM·day-1) vs. YP (6.0 ± 1.5 g·kg-1 BM·day-1, p = .006) and SP failed to meet recommended carbohydrate intakes on match and training days. Conversely, recommended protein intakes were met for SP (1.9 ± 0.3 g·kg-1 BM·day-1) and YP (1.7 ± 0.4 g·kg-1 BM·day-1), with no differences between groups (p = .286). Accordingly, both groups met or exceeded recommended daily protein intakes on individual match, postmatch, rest and training days. A similar "balanced" daytime pattern of protein intake was observed in SP and YP. To conclude, SP increased protein intake on match and training days to a greater extent than YP, however at the expense of carbohydrate intake. The daytime distribution of protein intake for YP and SP aligned with current recommendations of a balanced protein meal pattern.

  4. Interpretive Reporting of Protein Electrophoresis Data by Microcomputer

    Science.gov (United States)

    Talamo, Thomas S.; Losos, Frank J.; Kessler, G. Frederick

    1982-01-01

    A microcomputer based system for interpretive reporting of protein electrophoretic data has been developed. Data for serum, urine and cerebrospinal fluid protein electrophoreses as well as immunoelectrophoresis can be entered. Patient demographic information is entered through the keyboard followed by manual entry of total and fractionated protein levels obtained after densitometer scanning of the electrophoretic strip. The patterns are then coded, interpreted, and final reports generated. In most cases interpretation time is less than one second. Misinterpretation by computer is uncommon and can be corrected by edit functions within the system. These discrepancies between computer and pathologist interpretation are automatically stored in a data file for later review and possible program modification. Any or all previous tests on a patient may be reviewed with graphic display of the electrophoretic pattern. The system has been in use for several months and is presently well accepted by both laboratory and clinical staff. It also allows rapid storage, retrieval and analysis of protein electrophoretic datab.

  5. Codon Bias Patterns of E. coli's Interacting Proteins.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maddalena Dilucca

    Full Text Available Synonymous codons, i.e., DNA nucleotide triplets coding for the same amino acid, are used differently across the variety of living organisms. The biological meaning of this phenomenon, known as codon usage bias, is still controversial. In order to shed light on this point, we propose a new codon bias index, CompAI, that is based on the competition between cognate and near-cognate tRNAs during translation, without being tuned to the usage bias of highly expressed genes. We perform a genome-wide evaluation of codon bias for E.coli, comparing CompAI with other widely used indices: tAI, CAI, and Nc. We show that CompAI and tAI capture similar information by being positively correlated with gene conservation, measured by the Evolutionary Retention Index (ERI, and essentiality, whereas, CAI and Nc appear to be less sensitive to evolutionary-functional parameters. Notably, the rate of variation of tAI and CompAI with ERI allows to obtain sets of genes that consistently belong to specific clusters of orthologous genes (COGs. We also investigate the correlation of codon bias at the genomic level with the network features of protein-protein interactions in E.coli. We find that the most densely connected communities of the network share a similar level of codon bias (as measured by CompAI and tAI. Conversely, a small difference in codon bias between two genes is, statistically, a prerequisite for the corresponding proteins to interact. Importantly, among all codon bias indices, CompAI turns out to have the most coherent distribution over the communities of the interactome, pointing to the significance of competition among cognate and near-cognate tRNAs for explaining codon usage adaptation. Notably, CompAI may potentially correlate with translation speed measurements, by accounting for the specific delay induced by wobble-pairing between codons and anticodons.

  6. Solitons and protein folding: An In Silico experiment

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ilieva, N., E-mail: nevena.ilieva@parallel.bas.bg [Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, Bulgarian Aacademy of Sciences, Sofia (Bulgaria); Dai, J., E-mail: daijing491@gmail.com [School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing (China); Sieradzan, A., E-mail: adams86@wp.pl [Faculty of Chemistry, University of Gdańsk, Gdańsk (Poland); Niemi, A., E-mail: Antti.Niemi@physics.uu.se [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Uppsala (Sweden); LMPT–CNRS, Université de Tours, Tours (France)

    2015-10-28

    Protein folding [1] is the process of formation of a functional 3D structure from a random coil — the shape in which amino-acid chains leave the ribosome. Anfinsen’s dogma states that the native 3D shape of a protein is completely determined by protein’s amino acid sequence. Despite the progress in understanding the process rate and the success in folding prediction for some small proteins, with presently available physics-based methods it is not yet possible to reliably deduce the shape of a biologically active protein from its amino acid sequence. The protein-folding problem endures as one of the most important unresolved problems in science; it addresses the origin of life itself. Furthermore, a wrong fold is a common cause for a protein to lose its function or even endanger the living organism. Soliton solutions of a generalized discrete non-linear Schrödinger equation (GDNLSE) obtained from the energy function in terms of bond and torsion angles κ and τ provide a constructive theoretical framework for describing protein folds and folding patterns [2]. Here we study the dynamics of this process by means of molecular-dynamics simulations. The soliton manifestation is the pattern helix–loop–helix in the secondary structure of the protein, which explains the importance of understanding loop formation in helical proteins. We performed in silico experiments for unfolding one subunit of the core structure of gp41 from the HIV envelope glycoprotein (PDB ID: 1AIK [3]) by molecular-dynamics simulations with the MD package GROMACS. We analyzed 80 ns trajectories, obtained with one united-atom and two different all-atom force fields, to justify the side-chain orientation quantification scheme adopted in the studies and to eliminate force-field based artifacts. Our results are compatible with the soliton model of protein folding and provide first insight into soliton-formation dynamics.

  7. Solitons and protein folding: An In Silico experiment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ilieva, N.; Dai, J.; Sieradzan, A.; Niemi, A.

    2015-01-01

    Protein folding [1] is the process of formation of a functional 3D structure from a random coil — the shape in which amino-acid chains leave the ribosome. Anfinsen’s dogma states that the native 3D shape of a protein is completely determined by protein’s amino acid sequence. Despite the progress in understanding the process rate and the success in folding prediction for some small proteins, with presently available physics-based methods it is not yet possible to reliably deduce the shape of a biologically active protein from its amino acid sequence. The protein-folding problem endures as one of the most important unresolved problems in science; it addresses the origin of life itself. Furthermore, a wrong fold is a common cause for a protein to lose its function or even endanger the living organism. Soliton solutions of a generalized discrete non-linear Schrödinger equation (GDNLSE) obtained from the energy function in terms of bond and torsion angles κ and τ provide a constructive theoretical framework for describing protein folds and folding patterns [2]. Here we study the dynamics of this process by means of molecular-dynamics simulations. The soliton manifestation is the pattern helix–loop–helix in the secondary structure of the protein, which explains the importance of understanding loop formation in helical proteins. We performed in silico experiments for unfolding one subunit of the core structure of gp41 from the HIV envelope glycoprotein (PDB ID: 1AIK [3]) by molecular-dynamics simulations with the MD package GROMACS. We analyzed 80 ns trajectories, obtained with one united-atom and two different all-atom force fields, to justify the side-chain orientation quantification scheme adopted in the studies and to eliminate force-field based artifacts. Our results are compatible with the soliton model of protein folding and provide first insight into soliton-formation dynamics

  8. Lipid-rich and protein-poor carbon allocation patterns of phytoplankton in the northern Chukchi Sea, 2011

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yun, Mi Sun; Joo, Hui Tae; Park, Jung Woo; Kang, Jae Joong; Kang, Sung-Ho; Lee, Sang H.

    2018-04-01

    The carbon allocations of phytoplankton into different photosynthetic end products (lipids, LMWM, polysaccharides, and proteins) were determined to understand physiological conditions of phytoplankton in the northern Chukchi Sea during the Korean Arctic expedition, 2011, using the 13C isotope tracer technique. The carbon allocation rates of lipids, LMWM, polysaccharides, and proteins were 0.00009-0.00062 h-1, 0.00001-0.00049 h-1, 0.00001-0.00025 h-1, and 0.00001-0.00062 h-1 within the euphotic depths from surface to 1% light depths during our cruise period, respectively. Significant relationships between protein production rates and chlorophyll a concentrations (large and total) were found in this study. Moreover, we found a significant negative relationship between lipid production rates and ammonium concentrations. These relationships match well with the previous results for environmental/physiological conditions for phytoplankton growth. Overall, phytoplankton allocated more photosynthetic carbon into lipids (42.5 ± 17.7%) whereas relatively lower to proteins (20.4 ± 15.5%) in this study. The lipid-rich and protein-poor allocation patterns in this study suggest that phytoplankton in the northern Chukchi Sea were in a stationary growth phase under nutrient deficient condition based on biological and environmental conditions observed during our study period. Based on comparison with the previous studies in the northern Bering Sea and southern Chukchi Sea, we found that the photosynthetic carbon allocation patterns depending on physiological status of phytoplankton under the different growth and/or nutrient conditions could be largely vary at different regions in the Arctic Ocean. More intensive research on the physiological status of phytoplankton is further required to determine how phytoplankton response to the changing environmental conditions and consequently how they impact on higher trophic levels in marine ecosystems in the Arctic Ocean.

  9. Light at night alters daily patterns of cortisol and clock proteins in female Siberian hamsters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bedrosian, T A; Galan, A; Vaughn, C A; Weil, Z M; Nelson, R J

    2013-06-01

    Humans and other organisms have adapted to a 24-h solar cycle in response to life on Earth. The rotation of the planet on its axis and its revolution around the sun cause predictable daily and seasonal patterns in day length. To successfully anticipate and adapt to these patterns in the environment, a variety of biological processes oscillate with a daily rhythm of approximately 24 h in length. These rhythms arise from hierarchally-coupled cellular clocks generated by positive and negative transcription factors of core circadian clock gene expression. From these endogenous cellular clocks, overt rhythms in activity and patterns in hormone secretion and other homeostatic processes emerge. These circadian rhythms in physiology and behaviour can be organised by a variety of cues, although they are most potently entrained by light. In recent history, there has been a major change from naturally-occurring light cycles set by the sun, to artificial and sometimes erratic light cycles determined by the use of electric lighting. Virtually every individual living in an industrialised country experiences light at night (LAN) but, despite its prevalence, the biological effects of such unnatural lighting have not been fully considered. Using female Siberian hamsters (Phodopus sungorus), we investigated the effects of chronic nightly exposure to dim light on daily rhythms in locomotor activity, serum cortisol concentrations and brain expression of circadian clock proteins (i.e. PER1, PER2, BMAL1). Although locomotor activity remained entrained to the light cycle, the diurnal fluctuation of cortisol concentrations was blunted and the expression patterns of clock proteins in the suprachiasmatic nucleus and hippocampus were altered. These results demonstrate that chronic exposure to dim LAN can dramatically affect fundamental cellular function and emergent physiology. © 2013 British Society for Neuroendocrinology.

  10. Myelin-associated proteins labelled by slow axonal transport

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Giorgi, P.P.; DuBois, H.

    1981-01-01

    This paper deals with the problem of protein metabolism and provides evidence that the neuronal contribution to myelin metabolism may be restricted to lipids only. On the other hand this line of research led to the partial characterization of a group of neuronal proteins probably involved in axo-glial interactions subserving the onset of myelination and the structural maintenance of the mature myelin sheath. Intraocular injection of radioactive amino acids allows the study of the anterograde transport of labelled proteins along retinofugal fibres which are well myelinated. Myelin extracted from the optic nerve and tract under these conditions also contains labelled proteins. Three hypotheses are available to explain this phenomenon. To offer an explanation for this phenomenon the work was planned as follows. a) Characterization of the spatio-temporal pattern of labelling of myelin, in order to define the experimental conditions (survival time and region of the optic pathway to be studied) necessary to obtain maximal labelling. b) Characterization (by gel electrophoresis) of the myelin-associated proteins which become labelled by axonal transport, in order to work on a consistent pattern of labelling. c) Investigation of the possible mechanism responsible for the labelling of myelin-associated proteins. (Auth.)

  11. Exact and Effective Pair-Wise Potential for Protein-Ligand Interactions Obtained from a Semiempirical Energy Partition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    André Melo

    2008-09-01

    Full Text Available In this work, the partition method introduced by Carvalho and Melo was used to study the complex between Cucurbita maxima trypsin inhibitor (CMTI-I and glycerol at the AM1 level. An effective potential, combining non-bonding and polarization plus charge transfer (PLCT terms, was introduced to evaluate the magnitude of the interaction between each amino acid and the ligand. In this case study, the nonbonding–PLCT noncompensation characterizes the stabilization energy of the association process in study. The main residues (Gly29, Cys3 and Arg5 with net attractive effects and Arg1 (with a net repulsive effect, responsible by the stability of protein-ligand complex, are associated with large nonbonding energies non-compensated by PLCT effects. The results obtained enable us to conclude that the present decomposition scheme can be used for understanding the cohesive phenomena in proteins.

  12. Protein sequences from mastodon and Tyrannosaurus rex revealed by mass spectrometry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Asara, John M; Schweitzer, Mary H; Freimark, Lisa M; Phillips, Matthew; Cantley, Lewis C

    2007-04-13

    Fossilized bones from extinct taxa harbor the potential for obtaining protein or DNA sequences that could reveal evolutionary links to extant species. We used mass spectrometry to obtain protein sequences from bones of a 160,000- to 600,000-year-old extinct mastodon (Mammut americanum) and a 68-million-year-old dinosaur (Tyrannosaurus rex). The presence of T. rex sequences indicates that their peptide bonds were remarkably stable. Mass spectrometry can thus be used to determine unique sequences from ancient organisms from peptide fragmentation patterns, a valuable tool to study the evolution and adaptation of ancient taxa from which genomic sequences are unlikely to be obtained.

  13. Twist on protein microarrays: layering wax-patterned nitrocellulose to create customizable and separable arrays of multiplexed affinity columns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Lange, Victoria; Vörös, János

    2014-05-06

    We developed the simple and inexpensive FoRe microarray to simultaneously test several 1 μL samples for multiple proteins. By combining forward and reverse phase microarrays into an innovative three-dimensional format, the FoRe array exploits the advantages and eliminates several drawbacks of the traditional approaches (i.e., large sample volumes, protein loss, and cross-reactivity between detection antibodies). Samples are pipetted into an array of separable, multiplexed affinity columns. Several nitrocellulose membranes, each functionalized with a different capture antibody, are stacked to create a customizable affinity column. The nitrocellulose is patterned with wax to form 25 isolated microspots on each layer, allowing us to analyze multiple samples in parallel. After running the immunoassay, the stacks are quickly disassembled, revealing 2D microarrays of different fractions from multiple samples. By combining the stack-and-separate technique with wax patterning, we keep the arrays low cost and easily tailored to a variety of applications. We successfully performed 3D multiplexing using a model system with mouse and rabbit IgG. Binding proved to be independent of the position in the stack, and the limit of detection for a mouse IgG sandwich assay was 7.3 pM in BSA and 15 pM in human plasma. The FoRe microarray makes it possible to identify protein expression patterns across several minute volume samples; for example, it could be used to analyze cell lysate in drug response studies or pricks of blood from small animal studies.

  14. Expression patterns of five polymorphic membrane proteins during the Chlamydia abortus developmental cycle.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wheelhouse, Nick; Sait, Michelle; Wilson, Kim; Aitchison, Kevin; McLean, Kevin; Smith, David G E; Longbottom, David

    2012-12-07

    It has been suggested that polymorphic membrane proteins (Pmps) belonging to the Type V autotransporter protein family play an important role in the pathogenesis of Chlamydia abortus (C. abortus; formerly Chlamydophila abortus) infection. In a previous study we demonstrated the expression of all the pmps at the transcriptional level. The purpose of this study was to measure the number of Pmp positive inclusions throughout the C. abortus developmental cycle to investigate heterogeneity in expression patterns. McCoy cells were infected with C. abortus and analysed for Pmp expression over a 72 h period by fluorescent immunocytochemistry. Pmp18D could be detected at all analysed time points, and could only be accurately quantified from 36 hpi while Pmp10G positive inclusions could be visualised from 36hpi. Expression of Pmps 13G, 16G and 17G could only be visualised later in the cycle and within less than half of visualised inclusions. These results indicate that while expression of specific Pmps is constitutive (Pmp18D), the pattern of expression of other Pmps is more variable. This suggests that different members of the Pmp family may play different roles within the developmental cycle of the organism, with some (Pmps10G and 18D) having roles throughout the cycle, while the heterogeneity of expression of others may aid in antigenic variation. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  15. Femtosecond X-ray diffraction from two-dimensional protein crystals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Matthias Frank

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available X-ray diffraction patterns from two-dimensional (2-D protein crystals obtained using femtosecond X-ray pulses from an X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL are presented. To date, it has not been possible to acquire transmission X-ray diffraction patterns from individual 2-D protein crystals due to radiation damage. However, the intense and ultrafast pulses generated by an XFEL permit a new method of collecting diffraction data before the sample is destroyed. Utilizing a diffract-before-destroy approach at the Linac Coherent Light Source, Bragg diffraction was acquired to better than 8.5 Å resolution for two different 2-D protein crystal samples each less than 10 nm thick and maintained at room temperature. These proof-of-principle results show promise for structural analysis of both soluble and membrane proteins arranged as 2-D crystals without requiring cryogenic conditions or the formation of three-dimensional crystals.

  16. Improved plasma amino acids pattern following 12 months of supplemented low-protein diet in peritoneal dialysis patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Na; Qian, Jiaqi; Lin, Aiwu; Fang, Wei; Cao, Liou; Wang, Qin; Ni, Zhaohui; Lindholm, Bengt; Axelsson, Jonas; Yao, Qiang

    2010-07-01

    Decreased plasma essential amino acid (EAA) levels, increased nonessential amino acid (NEAA) levels, and low EAA to NEAA ratio (E/NEAA) are common in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients and may impact uremic complications. In the present study, we investigate the impact of keto acids-supplemented low-protein (sLP) diet on plasma amino acids (AAs) patterns in stable PD patients. This is a supplemental analysis of a previously published prospective and randomized trial. Thirty-nine PD patients selected from the original population were divided to receive either low (LP: 0.6-0.8 g/kg ideal body weight [IBW]/d, n = 13), keto acids-supplemented low- (sLP: 0.6-0.8 g/kg IBW/d + 0.12 g/kg IBW/d of keto acids, n = 12), or high- (HP: 1.0-1.2 g/kg IBW/d, n = 14) protein diets and followed for 1 year. Plasma AA patterns were assessed at baseline and 12 months using high-performance liquid chromatography. Whereas there were no significant differences between the three groups at baseline, following 12 months, the E/NEAA had increased significantly in group sLP (0.58 +/- 0.16 to 0.83 +/- 0.20, p diet supplemented with keto acids significantly improved the pattern of plasma AA in prevalent PD patients.

  17. Protein-resistant polymer coatings obtained by matrix assisted pulsed laser evaporation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rusen, L. [National Institute for Lasers, Plasma and Radiation Physics, 409 Atomistilor Street, PO Box MG-16, 077125, Magurele, Bucharest (Romania); Mustaciosu, C. [Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering - IFIN HH, Magurele, Bucharest (Romania); Mitu, B.; Filipescu, M.; Dinescu, M. [National Institute for Lasers, Plasma and Radiation Physics, 409 Atomistilor Street, PO Box MG-16, 077125, Magurele, Bucharest (Romania); Dinca, V., E-mail: dinali@nipne.ro [National Institute for Lasers, Plasma and Radiation Physics, 409 Atomistilor Street, PO Box MG-16, 077125, Magurele, Bucharest (Romania)

    2013-08-01

    Adsorption of proteins and polysaccharides is known to facilitate microbial attachment and subsequent formation of biofilm on surfaces that ultimately results in its biofouling. Therefore, protein repellent modified surfaces are necessary to block the irreversible attachment of microorganisms. Within this context, the feasibility of using the Poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(ε-caprolactone) methyl ether (PEG-block-PCL Me) copolymer as potential protein-resistant coating was explored in this work. The films were deposited using Matrix Assisted Pulsed Laser Evaporation (MAPLE), a technique that allows good control of composition, thickness and homogeneity. The chemical and morphological characteristics of the films were examined using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), contact angle measurements and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The FTIR data demonstrates that the functional groups in the MAPLE-deposited films remain intact, especially for fluences below 0.5 J cm{sup −2}. Optical Microscopy and AFM images show that the homogeneity and the roughness of the coatings are related to both laser parameters (fluence, number of pulses) and target composition. Protein adsorption tests were performed on the PEG-block-PCL Me copolymer coated glass and on bare glass surface as a control. The results show that the presence of copolymer as coating significantly reduces the adsorption of proteins.

  18. Generic framework for mining cellular automata models on protein-folding simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Diaz, N; Tischer, I

    2016-05-13

    Cellular automata model identification is an important way of building simplified simulation models. In this study, we describe a generic architectural framework to ease the development process of new metaheuristic-based algorithms for cellular automata model identification in protein-folding trajectories. Our framework was developed by a methodology based on design patterns that allow an improved experience for new algorithms development. The usefulness of the proposed framework is demonstrated by the implementation of four algorithms, able to obtain extremely precise cellular automata models of the protein-folding process with a protein contact map representation. Dynamic rules obtained by the proposed approach are discussed, and future use for the new tool is outlined.

  19. A high-throughput 2D-analytical technique to obtain single protein parameters from complex cell lysates for in silico process development of ion exchange chromatography.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kröner, Frieder; Elsäßer, Dennis; Hubbuch, Jürgen

    2013-11-29

    The accelerating growth of the market for biopharmaceutical proteins, the market entry of biosimilars and the growing interest in new, more complex molecules constantly pose new challenges for bioseparation process development. In the presented work we demonstrate the application of a multidimensional, analytical separation approach to obtain the relevant physicochemical parameters of single proteins in a complex mixture for in silico chromatographic process development. A complete cell lysate containing a low titre target protein was first fractionated by multiple linear salt gradient anion exchange chromatography (AEC) with varying gradient length. The collected fractions were subsequently analysed by high-throughput capillary gel electrophoresis (HT-CGE) after being desalted and concentrated. From the obtained data of the 2D-separation the retention-volumes and the concentration of the single proteins were determined. The retention-volumes of the single proteins were used to calculate the related steric-mass action model parameters. In a final evaluation experiment the received parameters were successfully applied to predict the retention behaviour of the single proteins in salt gradient AEC. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Scoring protein interaction decoys using exposed residues (SPIDER): a novel multibody interaction scoring function based on frequent geometric patterns of interfacial residues.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khashan, Raed; Zheng, Weifan; Tropsha, Alexander

    2012-08-01

    Accurate prediction of the structure of protein-protein complexes in computational docking experiments remains a formidable challenge. It has been recognized that identifying native or native-like poses among multiple decoys is the major bottleneck of the current scoring functions used in docking. We have developed a novel multibody pose-scoring function that has no theoretical limit on the number of residues contributing to the individual interaction terms. We use a coarse-grain representation of a protein-protein complex where each residue is represented by its side chain centroid. We apply a computational geometry approach called Almost-Delaunay tessellation that transforms protein-protein complexes into a residue contact network, or an undirectional graph where vertex-residues are nodes connected by edges. This treatment forms a family of interfacial graphs representing a dataset of protein-protein complexes. We then employ frequent subgraph mining approach to identify common interfacial residue patterns that appear in at least a subset of native protein-protein interfaces. The geometrical parameters and frequency of occurrence of each "native" pattern in the training set are used to develop the new SPIDER scoring function. SPIDER was validated using standard "ZDOCK" benchmark dataset that was not used in the development of SPIDER. We demonstrate that SPIDER scoring function ranks native and native-like poses above geometrical decoys and that it exceeds in performance a popular ZRANK scoring function. SPIDER was ranked among the top scoring functions in a recent round of CAPRI (Critical Assessment of PRedicted Interactions) blind test of protein-protein docking methods. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  1. New user-friendly approach to obtain an Eisenberg plot and its use as a practical tool in protein sequence analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keller, Rob C A

    2011-01-01

    The Eisenberg plot or hydrophobic moment plot methodology is one of the most frequently used methods of bioinformatics. Bioinformatics is more and more recognized as a helpful tool in Life Sciences in general, and recent developments in approaches recognizing lipid binding regions in proteins are promising in this respect. In this study a bioinformatics approach specialized in identifying lipid binding helical regions in proteins was used to obtain an Eisenberg plot. The validity of the Heliquest generated hydrophobic moment plot was checked and exemplified. This study indicates that the Eisenberg plot methodology can be transferred to another hydrophobicity scale and renders a user-friendly approach which can be utilized in routine checks in protein-lipid interaction and in protein and peptide lipid binding characterization studies. A combined approach seems to be advantageous and results in a powerful tool in the search of helical lipid-binding regions in proteins and peptides. The strength and limitations of the Eisenberg plot approach itself are discussed as well. The presented approach not only leads to a better understanding of the nature of the protein-lipid interactions but also provides a user-friendly tool for the search of lipid-binding regions in proteins and peptides.

  2. Amino acid pair- and triplet-wise groupings in the interior of α-helical segments in proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Sousa, Miguel M; Munteanu, Cristian R; Pazos, Alejandro; Fonseca, Nuno A; Camacho, Rui; Magalhães, A L

    2011-02-21

    A statistical approach has been applied to analyse primary structure patterns at inner positions of α-helices in proteins. A systematic survey was carried out in a recent sample of non-redundant proteins selected from the Protein Data Bank, which were used to analyse α-helix structures for amino acid pairing patterns. Only residues more than three positions apart from both termini of the α-helix were considered as inner. Amino acid pairings i, i+k (k=1, 2, 3, 4, 5), were analysed and the corresponding 20×20 matrices of relative global propensities were constructed. An analysis of (i, i+4, i+8) and (i, i+3, i+4) triplet patterns was also performed. These analysis yielded information on a series of amino acid patterns (pairings and triplets) showing either high or low preference for α-helical motifs and suggested a novel approach to protein alphabet reduction. In addition, it has been shown that the individual amino acid propensities are not enough to define the statistical distribution of these patterns. Global pair propensities also depend on the type of pattern, its composition and orientation in the protein sequence. The data presented should prove useful to obtain and refine useful predictive rules which can further the development and fine-tuning of protein structure prediction algorithms and tools. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. NMR spin relaxation in proteins: The patterns of motion that dissipate power to the bath

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Shapiro, Yury E., E-mail: eva.meirovitch@biu.ac.il, E-mail: yuryeshapiro@gmail.com; Meirovitch, Eva, E-mail: eva.meirovitch@biu.ac.il, E-mail: yuryeshapiro@gmail.com [The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900-02 (Israel)

    2014-04-21

    We developed in recent years the two-body coupled-rotator slowly relaxing local structure (SRLS) approach for the analysis of NMR relaxation in proteins. The two bodies/rotators are the protein (diffusion tensor D{sub 1}) and the spin-bearing probe, e.g., the {sup 15}N−{sup 1}H bond (diffusion tensor, D{sub 2}), coupled by a local potential (u). A Smoluchowski equation is solved to yield the generic time correlation functions (TCFs), which are sums of weighted exponentials (eigenmodes). By Fourier transformation one obtains the generic spectral density functions (SDFs) which underlie the experimental relaxation parameters. The typical paradigm is to characterize structural dynamics in terms of the best-fit values of D{sub 1}, D{sub 2}, and u. Additional approaches we pursued employ the SRLS TCFs, SDFs, or eigenmodes as descriptors. In this study we develop yet another perspective. We consider the SDF as function of the angular velocity associated with the fluctuating fields underlying NMR relaxation. A parameter called j-fraction, which represents the relative contribution of eigenmode, i, to a given value of the SDF function at a specific frequency, ω, is defined. j-fraction profiles of the dominant eigenmodes are derived for 0 ≤ ω ≤ 10{sup 12} rad/s. They reveal which patterns of motion actuate power dissipation at given ω-values, what are their rates, and what is their relative contribution. Simulations are carried out to determine the effect of timescale separation, D{sub 1}/D{sub 2}, axial potential strength, and local diffusion axiality. For D{sub 1}/D{sub 2} ≤ 0.01 and strong local potential of 15 k{sub B}T, power is dissipated by global diffusion, renormalized (by the strong potential) local diffusion, and probe diffusion on the surface of a cone (to be called cone diffusion). For D{sub 1}/D{sub 2} = 0.1, power is dissipated by mixed eigenmodes largely of a global-diffusion-type or cone-diffusion-type, and a nearly bare renormalized

  4. Consumption of a healthy dietary pattern results in significant reductions in C-reactive protein levels in adults: a meta-analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neale, E P; Batterham, M J; Tapsell, L C

    2016-05-01

    Consumption of healthy dietary patterns has been associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome. Dietary intervention targets disease prevention, so studies increasingly use biomarkers of underlying inflammation and metabolic syndrome progression to examine the diet-health relationship. The extent to which these biomarkers contribute to the body of evidence on healthy dietary patterns is unknown. The aim of this meta-analysis was to determine the effect of healthy dietary patterns on biomarkers associated with adiposity, insulin resistance, and inflammation in adults. A systematic search of Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (all years to April 2015) was conducted. Inclusion criteria were randomized controlled trials; effects of dietary patterns assessed on C-reactive protein (CRP), total adiponectin, high-molecular-weight adiponectin, tumor necrosis factor-α, adiponectin:leptin, resistin, or retinol binding protein 4. Random effects meta-analyses were conducted to assess the weighted mean differences in change or final mean values for each outcome. Seventeen studies were included in the review. These reflected research on dietary patterns associated with the Mediterranean diet, Nordic diet, Tibetan diet, and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet. Consumption of a healthy dietary pattern was associated with significant reductions in CRP (weighted mean difference, -0.75 [-1.16, -0.35]; P = .0003). Non-significant changes were found for all other biomarkers. This analysis found evidence for favorable effects of healthy dietary patterns on CRP, with limited evidence for other biomarkers. Future research should include additional randomized controlled trials incorporating a greater range of dietary patterns and biomarkers. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. Generation of 3D templates of active sites of proteins with rigid prosthetic groups.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nebel, Jean-Christophe

    2006-05-15

    With the increasing availability of protein structures, the generation of biologically meaningful 3D patterns from the simultaneous alignment of several protein structures is an exciting prospect: active sites could be better understood, protein functions and protein 3D structures could be predicted more accurately. Although patterns can already be generated at the fold and topological levels, no system produces high-resolution 3D patterns including atom and cavity positions. To address this challenge, our research focuses on generating patterns from proteins with rigid prosthetic groups. Since these groups are key elements of protein active sites, the generated 3D patterns are expected to be biologically meaningful. In this paper, we present a new approach which allows the generation of 3D patterns from proteins with rigid prosthetic groups. Using 237 protein chains representing proteins containing porphyrin rings, our method was validated by comparing 3D templates generated from homologues with the 3D structure of the proteins they model. Atom positions were predicted reliably: 93% of them had an accuracy of 1.00 A or less. Moreover, similar results were obtained regarding chemical group and cavity positions. Results also suggested our system could contribute to the validation of 3D protein models. Finally, a 3D template was generated for the active site of human cytochrome P450 CYP17, the 3D structure of which is unknown. Its analysis showed that it is biologically meaningful: our method detected the main patterns of the cytochrome P450 superfamily and the motifs linked to catalytic reactions. The 3D template also suggested the position of a residue, which could be involved in a hydrogen bond with CYP17 substrates and the shape and location of a cavity. Comparisons with independently generated 3D models comforted these hypotheses. Alignment software (Nestor3D) is available at http://www.kingston.ac.uk/~ku33185/Nestor3D.html

  6. Intrafocal heterogeneity of ERG protein expression and gene fusion pattern in prostate cancer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suh, Ja Hee; Park, Jeong Hwan; Lee, Cheol; Moon, Kyung Chul

    2017-10-01

    Prostate cancer is considered to be highly heterogeneous, with various morphologic features and biologic behaviors. The TMPRSS2-ERG gene fusion is the most frequently observed genetic aberration in prostate cancer. The aim of this study was to elucidate the intrafocal heterogeneity of ERG gene fusion status. ERG immunohistochemistry (IHC) was performed in samples from 168 prostate cancer patients who had undergone radical prostatectomy, and 40 cases showing ERG-positive IHC staining were selected for tissue microarray (TMA) construction. Two to six representative cores were selected from each tumor focus. In the cases with heterogeneous ERG IHC staining intensity, the areas showing different intensities were separately selected. Using the TMA blocks, IHC and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) were conducted to evaluate the heterogeneity of ERG protein expression and ERG fusion gene patterns, respectively, in a single tumor focus. Heterogeneity of ERG IHC staining was defined as the simultaneous presence of negative and positive cores in the same tumor focus. Heterogeneity of ERG FISH was defined by the presence of cores with positive and negative FISH signals or cores with break-apart and interstitial deletion FISH signals in the same tumor focus. A total of 202 TMA cores were isolated from 40 ERG-positive cases. Of the 202 total cores, 19 were negative for ERG IHC staining, and 46 showed 1+, 52 showed 2+, and 85 showed 3+ ERG staining intensity. Eleven cores were negative for ERG FISH signal, 119 cores showed ERG break-apart FISH signals, and the remaining 72 cores revealed interstitial deletion. Intrafocal heterogeneity of ERG IHC staining was found in 20% (8/40) of cases, and intrafocal heterogeneity of ERG gene fusion pattern was found in 32.5% (13/40) of cases. In summary, this study showed significantly frequent intrafocal heterogeneity of ERG protein expression, gene fusion status and fusion pattern. This heterogeneity can be caused by the development

  7. Diversity of Histologic Patterns and Expression of Cytoskeletal Proteins in Canine Skeletal Osteosarcoma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nagamine, E; Hirayama, K; Matsuda, K; Okamoto, M; Ohmachi, T; Kadosawa, T; Taniyama, H

    2015-09-01

    Osteosarcoma (OS), the most common bone tumor, includes OS of the head (OSH) and appendicular OS (OSA). In dogs, it is classified into 6 histologic subtypes: osteoblastic, chondroblastic, fibroblastic, telangiectatic, giant cell, and poorly differentiated. This study investigated the significance of the histologic classification relevant to clinical outcome and the histologic and immunohistochemical relationships between pleomorphism and expression of cytoskeletal proteins in 60 cases each of OSH and OSA. Most neoplasms exhibited histologic diversity, and 64% of OS contained multiple subtypes. In addition to the above 6 subtypes, myxoid, round cell, and epithelioid subtypes were observed. Although the epithelioid subtypes were observed in only OSH, no significant difference in the frequency of other subtypes was observed. Also, no significant relevance was observed between the clinical outcome and histologic subtypes. Cytokeratin (CK) was expressed in both epithelioid and sarcomatoid tumor cells in various subtypes, and all CK-positive tumor cells also expressed vimentin. Vimentin and α-smooth muscle actin (SMA) were expressed in all subtypes. A few SMA-positive spindle-shaped tumor cells exhibited desmin expression. Glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive tumor cells were observed in many subtypes, and some of these cells showed neurofilament expression. Although OSH exhibited significantly stronger immunoreactivity for SMA than OSA, no significant difference in other cytoskeletal proteins was observed. Some tumor cells had cytoskeletal protein expression compatible with the corresponding histologic subtypes, such as CK in the epithelioid subtype and SMA in the fibroblastic subtype. Thus, canine skeletal OS is composed of pleomorphic and heterogenous tumor cells as is reflected in the diversity of histologic patterns and expression of cytoskeletal proteins. © The Author(s) 2015.

  8. Effect of Enzymatic Digestion of Protein Derivatives Obtained from Mucuna pruriens L. on Production of Proinflammatory Mediators by BALB/c Mouse Macrophages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martínez Leo, Edwin E; Arana Argáez, Victor E; Acevedo Fernández, Juan J; Puc, Rosa Moo; Segura Campos, Maira R

    2018-04-25

    Inflammation is considered to be a major risk factor for the pathogenesis of chronic non-communicable diseases. Macrophages are important immune cells, which regulate inflammation and host defense by secretion of proinflammatory mediators. Obtaining biopeptides by enzymatic hydrolysis adds value to proteins of vegetative origin, such as Mucuna pruriens L. The present study evaluated the effect of enzymatic digestion of protein derivatives obtained from M. pruriens L. on the production of proinflammatory mediators by BALB/c mouse macrophages. Five different molecular weight peptide fractions were obtained (F > 10, 5-10, 3-5, 1-3, and < 1 kDa, respectively). At 300 μg/mL, F5-10 kDa inhibited 50.26 and 61.00% NO and H 2 O 2 production, respectively. Moreover, F5-10 kDa reduced the IL-6 and TNFα levels to 60.25 and 69.54%, respectively. After enzymatic digestive simulation, F5-10 kDa decreased the inflammatory mediators.

  9. Diel pattern of circadian clock and storage protein gene expression in leaves and during seed filling in cowpea (Vigna unguiculata).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weiss, Julia; Terry, Marta I; Martos-Fuentes, Marina; Letourneux, Lisa; Ruiz-Hernández, Victoria; Fernández, Juan A; Egea-Cortines, Marcos

    2018-02-14

    Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) is an important source of protein supply for animal and human nutrition. The major storage globulins VICILIN and LEGUMIN (LEG) are synthesized from several genes including LEGA, LEGB, LEGJ and CVC (CONVICILIN). The current hypothesis is that the plant circadian core clock genes are conserved in a wide array of species and that primary metabolism is to a large extent controlled by the plant circadian clock. Our aim was to investigate a possible link between gene expression of storage proteins and the circadian clock. We identified cowpea orthologues of the core clock genes VunLHY, VunTOC1, VunGI and VunELF3, the protein storage genes VunLEG, VunLEGJ, and VunCVC as well as nine candidate reference genes used in RT-PCR. ELONGATION FACTOR 1-A (ELF1A) resulted the most suitable reference gene. The clock genes VunELF3, VunGI, VunTOC1 and VunLHY showed a rhythmic expression profile in leaves with a typical evening/night and morning/midday phased expression. The diel patterns were not completely robust and only VungGI and VungELF3 retained a rhythmic pattern under free running conditions of darkness. Under field conditions, rhythmicity and phasing apparently faded during early pod and seed development and was regained in ripening pods for VunTOC1 and VunLHY. Mature seeds showed a rhythmic expression of VunGI resembling leaf tissue under controlled growth chamber conditions. Comparing time windows during developmental stages we found that VunCVC and VunLEG were significantly down regulated during the night in mature pods as compared to intermediate ripe pods, while changes in seeds were non-significant due to high variance. The rhythmic expression under field conditions was lost under growth chamber conditions. The core clock gene network is conserved in cowpea leaves showing a robust diel expression pattern except VunELF3 under growth chamber conditions. There appears to be a clock transcriptional reprogramming in pods and seeds compared to

  10. Fabrication of Self-Cleaning, Reusable Titania Templates for Nanometer and Micrometer Scale Protein Patterning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moxey, Mark; Johnson, Alexander; El-Zubir, Osama; Cartron, Michael; Dinachali, Saman Safari; Hunter, C Neil; Saifullah, Mohammad S M; Chong, Karen S L; Leggett, Graham J

    2015-06-23

    The photocatalytic self-cleaning characteristics of titania facilitate the fabrication of reuseable templates for protein nanopatterning. Titania nanostructures were fabricated over square centimeter areas by interferometric lithography (IL) and nanoimprint lithography (NIL). With the use of a Lloyd's mirror two-beam interferometer, self-assembled monolayers of alkylphosphonates adsorbed on the native oxide of a Ti film were patterned by photocatalytic nanolithography. In regions exposed to a maximum in the interferogram, the monolayer was removed by photocatalytic oxidation. In regions exposed to an intensity minimum, the monolayer remained intact. After exposure, the sample was etched in piranha solution to yield Ti nanostructures with widths as small as 30 nm. NIL was performed by using a silicon stamp to imprint a spin-cast film of titanium dioxide resin; after calcination and reactive ion etching, TiO2 nanopillars were formed. For both fabrication techniques, subsequent adsorption of an oligo(ethylene glycol) functionalized trichlorosilane yielded an entirely passive, protein-resistant surface. Near-UV exposure caused removal of this protein-resistant film from the titania regions by photocatalytic degradation, leaving the passivating silane film intact on the silicon dioxide regions. Proteins labeled with fluorescent dyes were adsorbed to the titanium dioxide regions, yielding nanopatterns with bright fluorescence. Subsequent near-UV irradiation of the samples removed the protein from the titanium dioxide nanostructures by photocatalytic degradation facilitating the adsorption of a different protein. The process was repeated multiple times. These simple methods appear to yield durable, reuseable samples that may be of value to laboratories that require nanostructured biological interfaces but do not have access to the infrastructure required for nanofabrication.

  11. A family of related proteins is encoded by the major Drosophila heat shock gene family

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wadsworth, S.C.

    1982-01-01

    At least four proteins of 70,000 to 75,000 molecular weight (70-75K) were synthesized from mRNA which hybridized with a cloned heat shock gene previously shown to be localized to the 87A and 87C heat shock puff sites. These in vitro-synthesized proteins were indistinguishable from in vivo-synthesized heat shock-induced proteins when analyzed on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels. A comparison of the pattern of this group of proteins synthesized in vivo during a 5-min pulse or during continuous labeling indicates that the 72-75K proteins are probably not kinetic precursors to the major 70K heat shock protein. Partial digestion products generated with V8 protease indicated that the 70-75K heat shock proteins are closely related, but that there are clear differences between them. The partial digestion patterns obtained from heat shock proteins from the Kc cell line and from the Oregon R strain of Drosophila melanogaster are very similar. Genetic analysis of the patterns of 70-75K heat shock protein synthesis indicated that the genes encoding at least two of the three 72-75K heat shock proteins are located outside of the major 87A and 87C puff sites

  12. Quantitative protein localization signatures reveal an association between spatial and functional divergences of proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Loo, Lit-Hsin; Laksameethanasan, Danai; Tung, Yi-Ling

    2014-03-01

    Protein subcellular localization is a major determinant of protein function. However, this important protein feature is often described in terms of discrete and qualitative categories of subcellular compartments, and therefore it has limited applications in quantitative protein function analyses. Here, we present Protein Localization Analysis and Search Tools (PLAST), an automated analysis framework for constructing and comparing quantitative signatures of protein subcellular localization patterns based on microscopy images. PLAST produces human-interpretable protein localization maps that quantitatively describe the similarities in the localization patterns of proteins and major subcellular compartments, without requiring manual assignment or supervised learning of these compartments. Using the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system, we show that PLAST is more accurate than existing, qualitative protein localization annotations in identifying known co-localized proteins. Furthermore, we demonstrate that PLAST can reveal protein localization-function relationships that are not obvious from these annotations. First, we identified proteins that have similar localization patterns and participate in closely-related biological processes, but do not necessarily form stable complexes with each other or localize at the same organelles. Second, we found an association between spatial and functional divergences of proteins during evolution. Surprisingly, as proteins with common ancestors evolve, they tend to develop more diverged subcellular localization patterns, but still occupy similar numbers of compartments. This suggests that divergence of protein localization might be more frequently due to the development of more specific localization patterns over ancestral compartments than the occupation of new compartments. PLAST enables systematic and quantitative analyses of protein localization-function relationships, and will be useful to elucidate protein

  13. Study on the plasma proteins of A-bomb survived patients including those suffered by the remained radioactivities. Report 2. Quantitative observation of the plasma protein fractions by electrophoretic test and to solve the problems for physiological clinical significance of its patterns

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Makidono, J; Takanashi, S; Yoshimoto, T; Kai, T; Yoshimoto, K; Matsutani, M; Miura, M

    1963-10-01

    The plasma proteins of A-bombed survivors, healthy persons, long term x-ray equipment handling people (for instance the radiologists and x-ray technicians), cancer patients, and tumor irradiated cancer patients were examined by the electrophoretic test. It was found that the electrophoretic patterns of plasma proteins could be divided into normal (N-pattern) and abnormal (..beta.. and ..gamma.. patterns) patterns, when they were classified according to the accents of each fraction. The patterns of the healthy persons and the long term x-ray handling people showed normal (N) pattern, however, it showed 43% abnormal patterns in A-bombed survivors and 48% in cancer patients. Furthermore, the patterns could be changed by radiotherapy to cancer, ie., from N to ..beta.. or vice versa. As a result of the quantitative observation about individual pattern, the accents of ..beta..-globulins in ..beta..-patterns and ..gamma..-globulins in ..gamma..-patterns were found. The globulins increased in the A bomb survivors and the long term x-ray handling people, and this increase was also seen in the cases of cancer patients which showed 85% of them were effected with uclers (self disintegrated) by clinical examinations. A physiological clinical significance of these abnormal patterns (..beta.. and ..gamma..) in the plasma proteins indicates the disorders in its body and an important immunological meaning. Abnormal patterns in those who suffered by the remained radioactivities caused by the A-bomb showed 70%, whose average was much higher than those of direct A-bombed survivors. It is pointed out that, in recent days, there is a trend of more and gradual increase in the malignant neoplamsm than the disorders of direct A-bombed survivors.

  14. Precise Manipulation and Patterning of Protein Crystals for Macromolecular Crystallography Using Surface Acoustic Waves.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Feng; Zhou, Weijie; Li, Peng; Mao, Zhangming; Yennawar, Neela H; French, Jarrod B; Huang, Tony Jun

    2015-06-01

    Advances in modern X-ray sources and detector technology have made it possible for crystallographers to collect usable data on crystals of only a few micrometers or less in size. Despite these developments, sample handling techniques have significantly lagged behind and often prevent the full realization of current beamline capabilities. In order to address this shortcoming, a surface acoustic wave-based method for manipulating and patterning crystals is developed. This method, which does not damage the fragile protein crystals, can precisely manipulate and pattern micrometer and submicrometer-sized crystals for data collection and screening. The technique is robust, inexpensive, and easy to implement. This method not only promises to significantly increase efficiency and throughput of both conventional and serial crystallography experiments, but will also make it possible to collect data on samples that were previously intractable. © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  15. Studies of serial serum electrophoretic pattern for prognosis in various cancer patients during irradiation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ra, Woo Youn; Woo, Won Hyung

    1971-01-01

    During the period from June. 1969 to Dec. 1970, the serum protein electrophoretic patterns of 44 cases of various cancer patients have been studied to determine the alterations in serum protein fractions in patients who were responding to irradiation or those failing. The serum electrophoretic pattern could be observed as an indicator of prognosis or radiosensitivity. A blood sample was obtained prior to any treatment and the follow up sampling was performed 2 times during radiation therapy. Serum total protein was determined by the method of Wolfson and serum electrophoresis was carried out by using Spinoco Model R B electrophoresis system. The results were following: Seven cases out of cases of cervical cancer responding favorably to radiotherapy showed decreased in Alpha-2 globulin fraction were increased. A case whose third time serum electrophoretic pattern showed multiple myeloma type died 5 months after radiotherapy with bone metastasis. Four cases out of 9 cases of favorably responded breast cancer patients showed decreased in Alpha-2 globulin foraction compared with 2 cases of unfavorable response showed increased in Alpha-2 globulin fraction

  16. Studies of serial serum electrophoretic pattern for prognosis in various cancer patients during irradiation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ra, Woo Youn; Woo, Won Hyung [Kyungpook National University School of Medicine, Taegu (Korea, Republic of)

    1971-10-15

    During the period from June. 1969 to Dec. 1970, the serum protein electrophoretic patterns of 44 cases of various cancer patients have been studied to determine the alterations in serum protein fractions in patients who were responding to irradiation or those failing. The serum electrophoretic pattern could be observed as an indicator of prognosis or radiosensitivity. A blood sample was obtained prior to any treatment and the follow up sampling was performed 2 times during radiation therapy. Serum total protein was determined by the method of Wolfson and serum electrophoresis was carried out by using Spinoco Model R B electrophoresis system. The results were following: Seven cases out of cases of cervical cancer responding favorably to radiotherapy showed decreased in Alpha-2 globulin fraction were increased. A case whose third time serum electrophoretic pattern showed multiple myeloma type died 5 months after radiotherapy with bone metastasis. Four cases out of 9 cases of favorably responded breast cancer patients showed decreased in Alpha-2 globulin foraction compared with 2 cases of unfavorable response showed increased in Alpha-2 globulin fraction.

  17. Nanocomposite biofilms obtained from Whitemouth croaker (Micropogonias furnieri) protein isolate and Montmorillonite: evaluation of the physical, mechanical and barrier properties

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cortez-Vega, William Renzo; Bagatini, Daniela Cardozo; Souza, Juliana Tais Andreghetto de; Prentice, Carlos

    2013-01-01

    The objective of this study was to evaluate the properties of nanocomposite biofilms based on Whitemouth croaker (Micropogonias furnieri) protein isolate with organophilic clays. Initially the croaker protein isolate (CPI) was obtained using the pH shifting process from by-products of croaker industrialization. A Box and Behnken experimental design was used to develop the films, with three levels of CPI (2, 3.5 and 5 g.100 g -1 solution), montmorillonite MMT clay (0.3, 0.5 and 0.7 g.100 g -1 solution) and glycerol (25, 30 and 35 g.100g -1 CPI). The polymeric films were produced by the 'casting technique'. The tensile strength values ranged from 7.2 to 10.7 MPa and the elongation values from 39.6 to 45.8 %. The water vapor permeability (WVP) values ranged from 3.2 to 5.5 (g.mm.m -2 .d -1 ) and the CPI had an average protein content of 97.87 % protein (d. b.). It was concluded that the nanocomposite films produced from CPI with MMT were promising from the standpoint of their mechanical properties, visual appearance and easy handling, as well as for their low water vapor permeability and low water solubility. With respect to their mechanical properties, the concentrations of CPI and MMT were the main factors influencing the development of the nanocomposite films. The results obtained from the experimental design indicated that 3.5 g of CPI.100 g -1 solution, 0.5 g of MMT.100 g -1 solution and 30 g of glycerol.100 g -1 CPI would be the ideal parameters for the development of nanocomposite films by 'casting'. (author)

  18. Major immunogenic proteins of phocid herpes-viruses and their relationships to proteins of canine and feline herpesviruses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harder, T C; Harder, M; de Swart, R L; Osterhaus, A D; Liess, B

    1998-04-01

    The immunogenic proteins of cells infected with the alpha- or the gamma-herpesvirus of seals, phocid herpesvirus-1 and -2 (PhHV-1, -2), were examined in radioimmunoprecipitation assays as a further step towards the development of a PhHV-1 vaccine. With sera obtained from convalescent seals of different species or murine monoclonal antibodies (Mabs), at least seven virus-induced glycoproteins were detected in lysates of PhHV-1-infected CrFK cells. A presumably disulphide-linked complex composed of glycoproteins of 59, 67 and 113/120 kDa, expressed on the surface of infected cells, was characterized as a major immunogenic infected cell protein of PhHV-1. This glycoprotein complex has previously been identified as the proteolytically cleavable glycoprotein B homologue of PhHV-1 (14). At least three distinct neutralization-relevant epitopes were operationally mapped, by using Mabs, on the glycoprotein B of PhHV-1. Among the infected cell proteins of the antigenically closely related feline and canine herpesvirus, the glycoprotein B equivalent proved to be the most highly conserved glycoprotein. Sera obtained from different seal species from Arctic, Antarctic, and European habitats did not precipitate uniform patterns of infected cell proteins from PhHV-1-infected cell lysates although similar titres of neutralizing antibodies were displayed. Thus, antigenic differences among the alphaherpesvirus species prevalent in the different pinniped populations cannot be excluded. PhHV-2 displayed a different pattern of infected cell proteins and only limited cross-reactivity to PhHV-1 at the protein level was detected, which is in line with its previous classification as a distinct species, based on nucleotide sequence analysis, of the gammaherpesvirus linenge. A Mab raised against PhHV-2 and specific for a major glycoprotein of 117 kDa, cross reacted with the glycoprotein B of PhHV-1. The 117-kDa glycoprotein could represent the uncleaved PhHV-2 glycoprotein B homologue.

  19. Seed protein variations of Salicornia L. and allied taxa in Turkey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yaprak, A E; Yurdakulol, E

    2007-06-01

    Electrophoretic seed protein patterns of a number of accessions of Salicornia europaea L. sl., S. prostrata Palas, S. fragilis P.W. Ball and Tutin, Sarcocornia fruticosa (L.) A. J. Scott, Sarcocornia perennis (Miller.) A. J. Scott, Arthrocnemum glaucum (Del.) Ung.-Sternb., Microcnemum coralloides (Loscos and Pardo) subsp. anatolicum Wagenitz and Halocnemum strobilaceum (Pall.) Bieb. were electrophoretically analysed on SDS-PAGE. In total 48 different bands were identified. The obtained data have been treated numerically using the cluster analysis method of unweighted pair group (UPGMA). Finally it was determined that all species separated according to seed protein profiles. And the cladogram obtained studied taxa have been given.

  20. Identification of a dietary pattern prospectively associated with bone mass in Australian young adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van den Hooven, Edith H; Ambrosini, Gina L; Huang, Rae-Chi; Mountain, Jenny; Straker, Leon; Walsh, John P; Zhu, Kun; Oddy, Wendy H

    2015-11-01

    Relatively little is known about the relations between dietary patterns and bone health in adolescence, which is a period of substantial bone mass accrual. We derived dietary patterns that were hypothesized to be related to bone health on the basis of their protein, calcium, and potassium contents and investigated their prospective associations with bone mineral density (BMD), bone area, and bone mineral content (BMC) in a cohort of young adults. The study included 1024 young adults born to mothers who were participating in the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study. Dietary information was obtained from food-frequency questionnaires at 14 and 17 y of age. Dietary patterns were characterized according to protein, calcium, and potassium intakes with the use of reduced-rank regression. BMD, bone area, and BMC were estimated with the use of a total body dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scan at 20 y of age. We identified 2 major dietary patterns. The first pattern was positively correlated with intakes of protein, calcium, and potassium and had high factor loadings for low-fat dairy products, whole grains, and vegetables. The second pattern was positively correlated with protein intake but negatively correlated with intakes of calcium and potassium and had high factor loadings for meat, poultry, fish, and eggs. After adjustment for anthropometric, sociodemographic, and lifestyle factors, a higher z score for the first pattern at 14 y of age was positively associated with BMD and BMC at 20 y of age [differences: 8.6 mg/cm(2) (95% CI: 3.0, 14.1 mg/cm(2)) and 21.9 g (95% CI: 6.5, 37.3 g), respectively, per SD increase in z score]. The z score for this same pattern at 17 y of age was not associated with bone outcomes at 20 y of age. The second pattern at 14 or 17 y of age was not associated with BMD, BMC, or bone area. A dietary pattern characterized by high intakes of protein, calcium, and potassium in midadolescence was associated with higher BMD and BMC at 20

  1. Analysis of proteins involved in biodegradation of crop biomass

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crawford, Kamau; Trotman, Audrey

    1998-01-01

    The biodegradation of crop biomass for re-use in crop production is part of the bioregenerative life support concept proposed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for long duration, manned space exploration. The current research was conducted in the laboratory to evaluate the use of electrophoretic analysis as a means of rapidly assaying for constitutive and induced proteins associated with the bacterial degradation of crop residue. The proteins involved in crop biomass biodegradation are either constitutive or induced. As a result, effluent and cultures were examined to investigate the potential of using electrophoretic techniques as a means of monitoring the biodegradation process. Protein concentration for optimum banding patterns was determined using the Bio-Rad Protein Assay kit. Four bacterial soil isolates were obtained from the G.W. Carver research Farm at Tuskegee University and used in the decomposition of components of plant biomass. The culture, WDSt3A was inoculated into 500 mL of either Tryptic Soy Broth or Nutrient Broth. Incubation, with shaking of each flask was for 96 hours at 30 C. The cultures consistently gave unique banding patterns under denaturing protein electrophoresis conditions, The associated extracellular enzymes also yielded characteristic banding patterns over a 14-day period, when native electrophoresis techniques were used to examine effluent from batch culture bioreactors. The current study evaluated sample preparation and staining protocols to determine the ease of use, reproducibility and reliability, as well as the potential for automation.

  2. Tissue specificity of the hormonal response in sex accessory tissues is associated with nuclear matrix protein patterns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Getzenberg, R H; Coffey, D S

    1990-09-01

    The DNA of interphase nuclei have very specific three-dimensional organizations that are different in different cell types, and it is possible that this varying DNA organization is responsible for the tissue specificity of gene expression. The nuclear matrix organizes the three-dimensional structure of the DNA and is believed to be involved in the control of gene expression. This study compares the nuclear structural proteins between two sex accessory tissues in the same animal responding to the same androgen stimulation by the differential expression of major tissue-specific secretory proteins. We demonstrate here that the nuclear matrix is tissue specific in the rat ventral prostate and seminal vesicle, and undergoes characteristic alterations in its protein composition upon androgen withdrawal. Three types of nuclear matrix proteins were observed: 1) nuclear matrix proteins that are different and tissue specific in the rat ventral prostate and seminal vesicle, 2) a set of nuclear matrix proteins that either appear or disappear upon androgen withdrawal, and 3) a set of proteins that are common to both the ventral prostate and seminal vesicle and do not change with the hormonal state of the animal. Since the nuclear matrix is known to bind androgen receptors in a tissue- and steroid-specific manner, we propose that the tissue specificity of the nuclear matrix arranges the DNA in a unique conformation, which may be involved in the specific interaction of transcription factors with DNA sequences, resulting in tissue-specific patterns of secretory protein expression.

  3. Influence of the dietary protein deficiency on the activities of ribosomes and polysome patterns in muscle and liver of rats

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Goto, Akihiko; Kametaka, Masao

    1975-01-01

    A group of rats weighing about 120 g were killed at the beginning of the experiment and after 10 days on the 20% casein diet (C-0 and C-10 groups), and another group of rats were killed after 1,2 and 10 days on the protein-free diet (PF-1, PF-2 and PF-10 groups). From muscle and the liver of each group ribosomes were prepared, and the protein synthesis activity and the polysome patterns were investigated. The activity of polysome fractionated into each size was also measured. Muscle ribosome activity in PF-1, PF-2 and PF-10 groups decreased to about 60%, 40% and 40% of that in C groups, respectively, and this decrease was due to a fall in activity of prolysome itself rather than disaggregation of polysome. Liver ribosome activity in PF-1, PF-2 and PF-10 groups were reduced to about 95%, 90% and 65% of that in C groups, respectively. These alterations in PF-1 and PF-2 groups seemed to be in part related to changes in polysome pattern, whereas ribosome activity in PF-10 group was reduced without changes in polysome pattern. (auth.)

  4. Minimum Information Loss Based Multi-kernel Learning for Flagellar Protein Recognition in Trypanosoma Brucei

    KAUST Repository

    Wang, Jim Jing-Yan; Gao, Xin

    2014-01-01

    for the purposes of both biological research and drug design. In this paper, we investigate computationally recognizing flagellar proteins in T. Brucei by pattern recognition methods. It is argued that an optimal decision function can be obtained as the difference

  5. Genetic and antigenic analysis of the G attachment protein of bovine respiratory syncytial virus strains

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Elvander, M.; Vilcek, S.; Baule, C.

    1998-01-01

    Antigenic and genetic studies of bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) were made on isolates obtained from three continents over 27 years. Antigenic variation between eight isolates was initially determined using protein G-specific monoclonal antibodies. Four distinct reaction patterns were...... of a 731 nucleotide fragment in the G protein gene. Nine of the BRSV strains were analysed by direct sequencing of RT-PCR amplicons whereas sequences of 18 BRSV and three human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) strains were obtained from GenBank. The analysis revealed similarities of 88-100% among BRSV...

  6. Cell segmentation in time-lapse fluorescence microscopy with temporally varying sub-cellular fusion protein patterns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bunyak, Filiz; Palaniappan, Kannappan; Chagin, Vadim; Cardoso, M

    2009-01-01

    Fluorescently tagged proteins such as GFP-PCNA produce rich dynamically varying textural patterns of foci distributed in the nucleus. This enables the behavioral study of sub-cellular structures during different phases of the cell cycle. The varying punctuate patterns of fluorescence, drastic changes in SNR, shape and position during mitosis and abundance of touching cells, however, require more sophisticated algorithms for reliable automatic cell segmentation and lineage analysis. Since the cell nuclei are non-uniform in appearance, a distribution-based modeling of foreground classes is essential. The recently proposed graph partitioning active contours (GPAC) algorithm supports region descriptors and flexible distance metrics. We extend GPAC for fluorescence-based cell segmentation using regional density functions and dramatically improve its efficiency for segmentation from O(N(4)) to O(N(2)), for an image with N(2) pixels, making it practical and scalable for high throughput microscopy imaging studies.

  7. Expression Patterns and Identified Protein-Protein Interactions Suggest That Cassava CBL-CIPK Signal Networks Function in Responses to Abiotic Stresses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mo, Chunyan; Wan, Shumin; Xia, Youquan; Ren, Ning; Zhou, Yang; Jiang, Xingyu

    2018-01-01

    Cassava is an energy crop that is tolerant of multiple abiotic stresses. It has been reported that the interaction between Calcineurin B-like (CBL) protein and CBL-interacting protein kinase (CIPK) is implicated in plant development and responses to various stresses. However, little is known about their functions in cassava. Herein, 8 CBL ( MeCBL ) and 26 CIPK ( MeCIPK ) genes were isolated from cassava by genome searching and cloning of cDNA sequences of Arabidopsis CBL s and CIPK s. Reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis showed that the expression levels of MeCBL and MeCIPK genes were different in different tissues throughout the life cycle. The expression patterns of 7 CBL and 26 CIPK genes in response to NaCl, PEG, heat and cold stresses were analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR), and it was found that the expression of each was induced by multiple stimuli. Furthermore, we found that many pairs of CBLs and CIPKs could interact with each other via investigating the interactions between 8 CBL and 25 CIPK proteins using a yeast two-hybrid system. Yeast cells co-transformed with cassava MeCIPK24, MeCBL10 , and Na + /H + antiporter MeSOS1 genes exhibited higher salt tolerance compared to those with one or two genes. These results suggest that the cassava CBL-CIPK signal network might play key roles in response to abiotic stresses.

  8. Expression Patterns and Identified Protein-Protein Interactions Suggest That Cassava CBL-CIPK Signal Networks Function in Responses to Abiotic Stresses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chunyan Mo

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Cassava is an energy crop that is tolerant of multiple abiotic stresses. It has been reported that the interaction between Calcineurin B-like (CBL protein and CBL-interacting protein kinase (CIPK is implicated in plant development and responses to various stresses. However, little is known about their functions in cassava. Herein, 8 CBL (MeCBL and 26 CIPK (MeCIPK genes were isolated from cassava by genome searching and cloning of cDNA sequences of Arabidopsis CBLs and CIPKs. Reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR analysis showed that the expression levels of MeCBL and MeCIPK genes were different in different tissues throughout the life cycle. The expression patterns of 7 CBL and 26 CIPK genes in response to NaCl, PEG, heat and cold stresses were analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR, and it was found that the expression of each was induced by multiple stimuli. Furthermore, we found that many pairs of CBLs and CIPKs could interact with each other via investigating the interactions between 8 CBL and 25 CIPK proteins using a yeast two-hybrid system. Yeast cells co-transformed with cassava MeCIPK24, MeCBL10, and Na+/H+ antiporter MeSOS1 genes exhibited higher salt tolerance compared to those with one or two genes. These results suggest that the cassava CBL-CIPK signal network might play key roles in response to abiotic stresses.

  9. Deleted in malignant brain tumors-1 protein (DMBT1): a pattern recognition receptor with multiple binding sites.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ligtenberg, Antoon J M; Karlsson, Niclas G; Veerman, Enno C I

    2010-01-01

    Deleted in Malignant Brain Tumors-1 protein (DMBT1), salivary agglutinin (DMBT1(SAG)), and lung glycoprotein-340 (DMBT1(GP340)) are three names for glycoproteins encoded by the same DMBT1 gene. All these proteins belong to the scavenger receptor cysteine-rich (SRCR) superfamily of proteins: a superfamily of secreted or membrane-bound proteins with SRCR domains that are highly conserved down to sponges, the most ancient metazoa. In addition to SRCR domains, all DMBT1s contain two CUB domains and one zona pellucida domain. The SRCR domains play a role in the function of DMBT1s, which is the binding of a broad range of pathogens including cariogenic streptococci, Helicobacter pylori and HIV. Mucosal defense proteins like IgA, surfactant proteins and lactoferrin also bind to DMBT1s through their SRCR domains. The binding motif on the SRCR domains comprises an 11-mer peptide in which a few amino acids are essential for binding (GRVEVLYRGSW). Adjacent to each individual SRCR domain are glycosylation domains, where the attached carbohydrate chains play a role in the binding of influenza A virus and Helicobacter pylori. The composition of the carbohydrate chains is not only donor specific, but also varies between different organs. These data demonstrate a role for DMBT1s as pattern recognition molecules containing various peptide and carbohydrate binding motifs.

  10. Deleted in Malignant Brain Tumors-1 Protein (DMBT1: A Pattern Recognition Receptor with Multiple Binding Sites

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Enno C. I. Veerman

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available Deleted in Malignant Brain Tumors-1 protein (DMBT1, salivary agglutinin (DMBT1SAG, and lung glycoprotein-340 (DMBT1GP340 are three names for glycoproteins encoded by the same DMBT1 gene. All these proteins belong to the scavenger receptor cysteine-rich (SRCR superfamily of proteins: a superfamily of secreted or membrane-bound proteins with SRCR domains that are highly conserved down to sponges, the most ancient metazoa. In addition to SRCR domains, all DMBT1s contain two CUB domains and one zona pellucida domain. The SRCR domains play a role in the function of DMBT1s, which is the binding of a broad range of pathogens including cariogenic streptococci, Helicobacter pylori and HIV. Mucosal defense proteins like IgA, surfactant proteins and lactoferrin also bind to DMBT1s through their SRCR domains. The binding motif on the SRCR domains comprises an 11-mer peptide in which a few amino acids are essential for binding (GRVEVLYRGSW. Adjacent to each individual SRCR domain are glycosylation domains, where the attached carbohydrate chains play a role in the binding of influenza A virus and Helicobacter pylori. The composition of the carbohydrate chains is not only donor specific, but also varies between different organs. These data demonstrate a role for DMBT1s as pattern recognition molecules containing various peptide and carbohydrate binding motifs.

  11. Social Isolation Modulates CLOCK Protein and Beta-Catenin Expression Pattern in Gonadotropin-Inhibitory Hormone Neurons in Male Rats

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chuin Hau Teo

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Postweaning social isolation reduces the amplitude of the daily variation of CLOCK protein in the brain and induces lower reproductive activity. Gonadotropin-inhibitory hormone (GnIH acts as an inhibitor in the reproductive system and has been linked to stress. Social isolation has been shown to lower neuronal activity of GnIH-expressing neurons in the dorsomedial hypothalamus (DMH. The exact mechanism by which social isolation may affect GnIH is still unclear. We investigated the impact of social isolation on regulatory cellular mechanisms in GnIH neurons. We examined via immunohistochemistry the expression of CLOCK protein at four different times throughout the day in GnIH cells tagged with enhanced fluorescent green protein (EGFP-GnIH in 9-week-old adult male rats that have been raised for 6 weeks under postweaning social isolation and compared them with group-raised control rats of the same age. We also studied the expression of β-catenin—which has been shown to be affected by circadian proteins such as Bmal1—in EGFP-GnIH neurons to determine whether it could play a role in linking CLOCK in GnIH neurons. We found that social isolation modifies the pattern of CLOCK expression in GnIH neurons in the DMH. Socially isolated rats displayed greater CLOCK expression in the dark phase, while control rats displayed increased CLOCK expression in the light phase. Furthermore, β-catenin expression pattern in GnIH cells was disrupted by social isolation. This suggests that social isolation triggers changes in CLOCK and GnIH expression, which may be associated with an increase in nuclear β-catenin during the dark phase.

  12. Social Isolation Modulates CLOCK Protein and Beta-Catenin Expression Pattern in Gonadotropin-Inhibitory Hormone Neurons in Male Rats.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teo, Chuin Hau; Soga, Tomoko; Parhar, Ishwar S

    2017-01-01

    Postweaning social isolation reduces the amplitude of the daily variation of CLOCK protein in the brain and induces lower reproductive activity. Gonadotropin-inhibitory hormone (GnIH) acts as an inhibitor in the reproductive system and has been linked to stress. Social isolation has been shown to lower neuronal activity of GnIH-expressing neurons in the dorsomedial hypothalamus (DMH). The exact mechanism by which social isolation may affect GnIH is still unclear. We investigated the impact of social isolation on regulatory cellular mechanisms in GnIH neurons. We examined via immunohistochemistry the expression of CLOCK protein at four different times throughout the day in GnIH cells tagged with enhanced fluorescent green protein (EGFP-GnIH) in 9-week-old adult male rats that have been raised for 6 weeks under postweaning social isolation and compared them with group-raised control rats of the same age. We also studied the expression of β-catenin-which has been shown to be affected by circadian proteins such as Bmal1-in EGFP-GnIH neurons to determine whether it could play a role in linking CLOCK in GnIH neurons. We found that social isolation modifies the pattern of CLOCK expression in GnIH neurons in the DMH. Socially isolated rats displayed greater CLOCK expression in the dark phase, while control rats displayed increased CLOCK expression in the light phase. Furthermore, β-catenin expression pattern in GnIH cells was disrupted by social isolation. This suggests that social isolation triggers changes in CLOCK and GnIH expression, which may be associated with an increase in nuclear β-catenin during the dark phase.

  13. Deciphering RNA-Recognition Patterns of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ambuj Srivastava

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available Intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs and protein (IDPs are highly flexible owing to their lack of well-defined structures. A subset of such proteins interacts with various substrates; including RNA; frequently adopting regular structures in the final complex. In this work; we have analysed a dataset of protein–RNA complexes undergoing disorder-to-order transition (DOT upon binding. We found that DOT regions are generally small in size (less than 3 residues for RNA binding proteins. Like structured proteins; positively charged residues are found to interact with RNA molecules; indicating the dominance of electrostatic and cation-π interactions. However, a comparison of binding frequency shows that interface hydrophobic and aromatic residues have more interactions in only DOT regions than in a protein. Further; DOT regions have significantly higher exposure to water than their structured counterparts. Interactions of DOT regions with RNA increase the sheet formation with minor changes in helix forming residues. We have computed the interaction energy for amino acids–nucleotide pairs; which showed the preference of His–G; Asn–U and Ser–U at for the interface of DOT regions. This study provides insights to understand protein–RNA interactions and the results could also be used for developing a tool for identifying DOT regions in RNA binding proteins.

  14. Development of edible films obtained from submicron emulsions based on whey protein concentrate, oil/beeswax and brea gum.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cecchini, Juan Pablo; Spotti, María J; Piagentini, Andrea M; Milt, Viviana G; Carrara, Carlos R

    2017-06-01

    Edible films with whey protein concentrate (WPC) with a lipid component, sunflower oil (O) or beeswax (W), to enhance barrier to water vapor were obtained. Brea gum was used as emulsifier and also as matrix component. In order to achieve emulsion with small and homogeneous droplet size, an ultrasonicator equipment was used after obtaining a pre-emulsion using a blender. The films were made by casting. Effects of lipid fraction on droplet size, zeta potential, mechanical properties, water vapor permeability (WVP), solubility, and optical properties were determined. The droplet size of emulsions with BG decreased when decreasing the lipid content in the formulation. The zeta potential was negative for all the formulations, since the pH was close to 6 for all of them and pI of BG is close to 2.5, and pI of ß-lactoglobulin and α-lactalbumin (main proteins in WPC) are 5.2 and 4.1, respectively. Increasing W or SO content in blended films reduced the tensile strength and puncture resistance significantly. BG and WPC films without lipid presented better mechanical properties. The presence of lipids decreased the WVP, as expected, and those films having BG improved this property. BG films were slightly amber as a result of the natural color of the gum. BG has shown to be a good polysaccharide for emulsifying the lipid fraction and improving the homogeneity and mechanical properties of the films with WPC and beeswax or oil.

  15. Definition of natural T cell antigens with mimicry epitopes obtained from dedicated synthetic peptide libraries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hiemstra, H S; van Veelen, P A; Schloot, N C; Geluk, A; van Meijgaarden, K E; Willemen, S J; Leunissen, J A; Benckhuijsen, W E; Amons, R; de Vries, R R; Roep, B O; Ottenhoff, T H; Drijfhout, J W

    1998-10-15

    Progress has recently been made in the use of synthetic peptide libraries for the identification of T cell-stimulating ligands. T cell epitopes identified from synthetic libraries are mimics of natural epitopes. Here we show how the mimicry epitopes obtained from synthetic peptide libraries enable unambiguous identification of natural T cell Ags. Synthetic peptide libraries were screened with Mycobacterium tuberculosis-reactive and -autoreactive T cell clones. In two cases, database homology searches with mimicry epitopes isolated from a dedicated synthetic peptide library allowed immediate identification of the natural antigenic protein. In two other cases, an amino acid pattern that reflected the epitope requirements of the T cell was determined by substitution and omission mixture analysis. Subsequently, the natural Ag was identified from databases using this refined pattern. This approach opens new perspectives for rapid and reliable Ag definition, representing a feasible alternative to the biochemical and genetic approaches described thus far.

  16. AFAL: a web service for profiling amino acids surrounding ligands in proteins

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arenas-Salinas, Mauricio; Ortega-Salazar, Samuel; Gonzales-Nilo, Fernando; Pohl, Ehmke; Holmes, David S.; Quatrini, Raquel

    2014-11-01

    With advancements in crystallographic technology and the increasing wealth of information populating structural databases, there is an increasing need for prediction tools based on spatial information that will support the characterization of proteins and protein-ligand interactions. Herein, a new web service is presented termed amino acid frequency around ligand (AFAL) for determining amino acids type and frequencies surrounding ligands within proteins deposited in the Protein Data Bank and for assessing the atoms and atom-ligand distances involved in each interaction (availability: http://structuralbio.utalca.cl/AFAL/index.html). AFAL allows the user to define a wide variety of filtering criteria (protein family, source organism, resolution, sequence redundancy and distance) in order to uncover trends and evolutionary differences in amino acid preferences that define interactions with particular ligands. Results obtained from AFAL provide valuable statistical information about amino acids that may be responsible for establishing particular ligand-protein interactions. The analysis will enable investigators to compare ligand-binding sites of different proteins and to uncover general as well as specific interaction patterns from existing data. Such patterns can be used subsequently to predict ligand binding in proteins that currently have no structural information and to refine the interpretation of existing protein models. The application of AFAL is illustrated by the analysis of proteins interacting with adenosine-5'-triphosphate.

  17. Effects of ionizing radiations on proteins

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Maire, M. le; Foresta, B. de; Viel, A.; Thauvette, L.; Beauregard, G.; Potier, M.

    1990-01-01

    We have reinvestigated the use of ionizing radiations to measure the molecular mass of water-soluble or membrane proteins. Exposure of purified standard proteins to increasing doses of ionizing radiation causes progressive fragmentation of the native protein into defined peptide patterns. The coloured band corresponding to the intact protein was measured on the SDS gel as a function of dose to determine the dose (D 37.t ) corresponding to 37% of the initial amount of unfragmented protein deposited on the gel. This led to a calibration curve and the known molecular mass of the standard proteins. However, we have to conclude that this method is useless to determine the state of aggregation of a protein, since, for all the oligomers tested, the best fit was obtained by using the protomeric molecular mass, suggesting that there is no energy transfer between protomers. Furthermore, SDS greatly increases the fragmentation rate of proteins, which suggests additional calibration problems for membrane proteins in detergent or in the lipid bilayer. The main drawback of the technique is that some proteins behaved anomalously, leading to very large errors in the apparent target size as compared with true molecular mass. It is thus unreliable to apply the radiation method for absolute molecular-mass determination. We then focused on the novel finding that discrete fragmentation of proteins occurs at preferential sites, and this was studied with aspartate transcarbamylase. (author)

  18. General Model for Retroviral Capsid Pattern Recognition by TRIM5 Proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wagner, Jonathan M; Christensen, Devin E; Bhattacharya, Akash; Dawidziak, Daria M; Roganowicz, Marcin D; Wan, Yueping; Pumroy, Ruth A; Demeler, Borries; Ivanov, Dmitri N; Ganser-Pornillos, Barbie K; Sundquist, Wesley I; Pornillos, Owen

    2018-02-15

    Restriction factors are intrinsic cellular defense proteins that have evolved to block microbial infections. Retroviruses such as HIV-1 are restricted by TRIM5 proteins, which recognize the viral capsid shell that surrounds, organizes, and protects the viral genome. TRIM5α uses a SPRY domain to bind capsids with low intrinsic affinity ( K D of >1 mM) and therefore requires higher-order assembly into a hexagonal lattice to generate sufficient avidity for productive capsid recognition. TRIMCyp, on the other hand, binds HIV-1 capsids through a cyclophilin A domain, which has a well-defined binding site and higher affinity ( K D of ∼10 μM) for isolated capsid subunits. Therefore, it has been argued that TRIMCyp proteins have dispensed with the need for higher-order assembly to function as antiviral factors. Here, we show that, consistent with its high degree of sequence similarity with TRIM5α, the TRIMCyp B-box 2 domain shares the same ability to self-associate and facilitate assembly of a TRIMCyp hexagonal lattice that can wrap about the HIV-1 capsid. We also show that under stringent experimental conditions, TRIMCyp-mediated restriction of HIV-1 is indeed dependent on higher-order assembly. Both forms of TRIM5 therefore use the same mechanism of avidity-driven capsid pattern recognition. IMPORTANCE Rhesus macaques and owl monkeys are highly resistant to HIV-1 infection due to the activity of TRIM5 restriction factors. The rhesus macaque TRIM5α protein blocks HIV-1 through a mechanism that requires self-assembly of a hexagonal TRIM5α lattice around the invading viral core. Lattice assembly amplifies very weak interactions between the TRIM5α SPRY domain and the HIV-1 capsid. Assembly also promotes dimerization of the TRIM5α RING E3 ligase domain, resulting in synthesis of polyubiquitin chains that mediate downstream steps of restriction. In contrast to rhesus TRIM5α, the owl monkey TRIM5 homolog, TRIMCyp, binds isolated HIV-1 CA subunits much more tightly

  19. Extracts Obtained from Pterocarpus angolensis DC and Ziziphus mucronata Exhibit Antiplasmodial Activity and Inhibit Heat Shock Protein 70 (Hsp70 Function

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tawanda Zininga

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Malaria parasites are increasingly becoming resistant to currently used antimalarial therapies, therefore there is an urgent need to expand the arsenal of alternative antimalarial drugs. In addition, it is also important to identify novel antimalarial drug targets. In the current study, extracts of two plants, Pterocarpus angolensis and Ziziphus mucronata were obtained and their antimalarial functions were investigated. Furthermore, we explored the capability of the extracts to inhibit Plasmodium falciparum heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70 function. Heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70 are molecular chaperones whose function is to facilitate protein folding. Plasmodium falciparum the main agent of malaria, expresses two cytosol-localized Hsp70s: PfHsp70-1 and PfHsp70-z. The PfHsp70-z has been reported to be essential for parasite survival, while inhibition of PfHsp70-1 function leads to parasite death. Hence both PfHsp70-1 and PfHsp70-z are potential antimalarial drug targets. Extracts of P. angolensis and Z. mucronata inhibited the basal ATPase and chaperone functions of the two parasite Hsp70s. Furthermore, fractions of P. angolensis and Z. mucronata inhibited P. falciparum 3D7 parasite growth in vitro. The extracts obtained in the current study exhibited antiplasmodial activity as they killed P. falciparum parasites maintained in vitro. In addition, the findings further suggest that some of the compounds in P. angolensis and Z. mucronata may target parasite Hsp70 function.

  20. Temporal pattern changes in duodenal protein tyrosine nitration events in response to Eimeria acervulina infection in chickens.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elsasser, Ted H; Miska, Kate; Kahl, Stanislaw; Fetterer, Raymond H; Martínez Ramirez, Alfredo

    2018-06-04

    Intracellular generation of nitric oxide (NO) and superoxide anion (SOA) can result in the formation of 3'-nitrotyrosine proteins (NTp). Nitrated proteins usually are associated with significant perturbation in protein function, apoptosis, autophagy, and cell death. We undertook the present study to establish the temporal dynamics of NTp generation in cytokeratin-18-positive epithelial cells (ETCs) of broiler chickens in response to infection with Eimeria acervulina. Duodenal tissue was harvested from noninfected (NOI) and infected (INF) broilers on days (d) 1, 3, 6, 7, and 10 postinfection (PI) and fixed, embedded, and sectioned for quantitative image analysis, immunohistochemistry with antibodies specific to NTp and the SOA-generating enzyme xanthine oxidase (XO). The pixel density characteristics for NTp and XO representative of ETCs demonstrated that NTp and XO increased in intestinal villi as early as d1 PI (P ETCs through d6 PI. For XO, increases in cell content increased only through d3. On d6 and d7 PI, high levels of NTp were present in immune infiltrating cells (IIC) where no XO was detected. The increases in ETC NTp occurred in a defined pattern, significant by villus-to-crypt location for day of infection, initiating in the distal villus and progressing down into the crypts. Two NTp patterns were observed for ETCs: a high level associated with ETCs harboring parasites and a low-level increase in ETCs not containing Eimeria but in proximity to such. The data suggest that NTp and XO responses may mediate some of the processes through which ETCs respond to Eimeria to limit the extent of infection by this pathogen.

  1. Fibrous Protein Structures: Hierarchy, History and Heroes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Squire, John M; Parry, David A D

    2017-01-01

    During the 1930s and 1940s the technique of X-ray diffraction was applied widely by William Astbury and his colleagues to a number of naturally-occurring fibrous materials. On the basis of the diffraction patterns obtained, he observed that the structure of each of the fibres was dominated by one of a small number of different types of molecular conformation. One group of fibres, known as the k-m-e-f group of proteins (keratin - myosin - epidermin - fibrinogen), gave rise to diffraction characteristics that became known as the α-pattern. Others, such as those from a number of silks, gave rise to a different pattern - the β-pattern, while connective tissues yielded a third unique set of diffraction characteristics. At the time of Astbury's work, the structures of these materials were unknown, though the spacings of the main X-ray reflections gave an idea of the axial repeats and the lateral packing distances. In a breakthrough in the early 1950s, the basic structures of all of these fibrous proteins were determined. It was found that the long protein chains, composed of strings of amino acids, could be folded up in a systematic manner to generate a limited number of structures that were consistent with the X-ray data. The most important of these were known as the α-helix, the β-sheet, and the collagen triple helix. These studies provided information about the basic building blocks of all proteins, both fibrous and globular. They did not, however, provide detailed information about how these molecules packed together in three-dimensions to generate the fibres found in vivo. A number of possible packing arrangements were subsequently deduced from the X-ray diffraction and other data, but it is only in the last few years, through the continued improvements of electron microscopy, that the packing details within some fibrous proteins can now be seen directly. Here we outline briefly some of the milestones in fibrous protein structure determination, the role of the

  2. Protein crystallography with a micrometre-sized synchrotron-radiation beam

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Moukhametzianov, Rouslan; Burghammer, Manfred; Edwards, Patricia C.; Petitdemange, Sebastien; Popov, Dimitri; Fransen, Maikel; McMullan, Gregory; Schertler, Gebhard F. X.; Riekel, Christian

    2008-01-01

    For the first time, protein microcrystallography has been performed with a focused synchrotron-radiation beam of 1 µm using a goniometer with a sub-micrometre sphere of confusion. The crystal structure of xylanase II has been determined with a flux density of about 3 × 10 10 photons s −1 µm −2 at the sample. For the first time, protein microcrystallography has been performed with a focused synchrotron-radiation beam of 1 µm using a goniometer with a sub-micrometre sphere of confusion. The crystal structure of xylanase II has been determined with a flux density of about 3 × 10 10 photons s −1 µm −2 at the sample. Two sets of diffraction images collected from different sized crystals were shown to comprise data of good quality, which allowed a 1.5 Å resolution xylanase II structure to be obtained. The main conclusion of this experiment is that a high-resolution diffraction pattern can be obtained from 20 µm 3 crystal volume, corresponding to about 2 × 10 8 unit cells. Despite the high irradiation dose in this case, it was possible to obtain an excellent high-resolution map and it could be concluded from the individual atomic B-factor patterns that there was no evidence of significant radiation damage. The photoelectron escape from a narrow diffraction channel is a possible reason for reduced radiation damage as indicated by Monte Carlo simulations. These results open many new opportunities in scanning protein microcrystallography and make random data collection from microcrystals a real possibility, therefore enabling structures to be solved from much smaller crystals than previously anticipated as long as the crystallites are well ordered

  3. Identification of ultramodified proteins using top-down spectra

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Liu, Xiaowen; Hengel, Shawna M.; Wu, Si; Tolic, Nikola; Pasa-Tolic, Ljiljana; Pevzner, Pavel A.

    2013-04-10

    Post-translational modifications (PTMs) play an important role in various biological processes through changing protein structure and function. Some ultramodified proteins (like histones) have multiple PTMs forming PTM patterns that define the functionality of a protein. While bottom-up mass spectrometry (MS) has been successful in identifying individual PTMs within short peptides, it is unable to identify PTM patterns spread along entire proteins in a coordinated fashion. In contrast, top-down MS analyzes intact proteins and reveals PTM patterns along the entire proteins. However, while recent advances in instrumentation have made top-down MS accessible to many laboratories, most computational tools for top-down MS focus on proteins with few PTMs and are unable to identify complex PTM patterns. We propose a new algorithm, MS-Align-E, that identifies both expected and unexpected PTMs in ultramodified proteins. We demonstrate that MS-Align-E identifies many protein forms of histone H4 and benchmark it against the currently accepted software tools.

  4. Computational prediction of protein-protein interactions in Leishmania predicted proteomes.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonio M Rezende

    Full Text Available The Trypanosomatids parasites Leishmania braziliensis, Leishmania major and Leishmania infantum are important human pathogens. Despite of years of study and genome availability, effective vaccine has not been developed yet, and the chemotherapy is highly toxic. Therefore, it is clear just interdisciplinary integrated studies will have success in trying to search new targets for developing of vaccines and drugs. An essential part of this rationale is related to protein-protein interaction network (PPI study which can provide a better understanding of complex protein interactions in biological system. Thus, we modeled PPIs for Trypanosomatids through computational methods using sequence comparison against public database of protein or domain interaction for interaction prediction (Interolog Mapping and developed a dedicated combined system score to address the predictions robustness. The confidence evaluation of network prediction approach was addressed using gold standard positive and negative datasets and the AUC value obtained was 0.94. As result, 39,420, 43,531 and 45,235 interactions were predicted for L. braziliensis, L. major and L. infantum respectively. For each predicted network the top 20 proteins were ranked by MCC topological index. In addition, information related with immunological potential, degree of protein sequence conservation among orthologs and degree of identity compared to proteins of potential parasite hosts was integrated. This information integration provides a better understanding and usefulness of the predicted networks that can be valuable to select new potential biological targets for drug and vaccine development. Network modularity which is a key when one is interested in destabilizing the PPIs for drug or vaccine purposes along with multiple alignments of the predicted PPIs were performed revealing patterns associated with protein turnover. In addition, around 50% of hypothetical protein present in the networks

  5. A comparative study of the refractive index of silk protein thin films towards biomaterial based optical devices

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bucciarelli, A.; Mulloni, V.; Maniglio, D.; Pal, R. K.; Yadavalli, V. K.; Motta, A.; Quaranta, A.

    2018-04-01

    Over the last two decades, silk fibroin has been exploited as a versatile optical material in biological applications due to a combination of unique properties. Recently, protocols have been developed to produce a silk fibroin negative tone resist that is UV crosslinkable, thereby allowing micro and nanoscale patterning of the protein using traditional photolithographic tools. The same protocol has been applied to the silk protein sericin to develop a sericin resist. Despite the immense potential of these biomaterials to develop micro optical patterns on silicon and glass surfaces, as well as self-standing components, their refractive indexes are not well characterized. In this work, optimizing a method to obtain extremely smooth, thin films, the refractive index (RI) of fibroin and sericin proteins and resists were characterized using ellipsometry. The parameters of the Sellmeier and Cauchy dispersion laws have been determined to obtain the RI over a large wavelength range. A complete morphological study of the films has been conducted. In addition, the effect of solvent on the optical properties of silk fibroin and sericin thin films are reported, with differences in values explained by examining the change in the protein secondary structure.

  6. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis pattern (pH 6-11) and identification of water-soluble barley seed and malt proteins by mass spectrometry

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bak-Jensen, K.S.; Laugesen, S.; Roepstorff, P.

    2004-01-01

    A protocol was established for two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) of barley seed and malt proteins in the pH range of 6-11. Proteins extracted from flour in a low-salt buffer were focused after cup-loading onto IPG strips. Successful separation in the second dimension was achieved using...... gradient gels in a horizontal SDS-PAGE system. Silver staining of gels visualized around 380 (seed) and 500 (malt) spots. Thirty-seven different proteins from seeds were identified in 60 spots, among these 46 were visualized also in the malt 2-D pattern. Proteins were identified by peptide mass...... in defence against pathogens (21 spots), 4 in storage, folding, and synthesis of proteins, and in nitrogen metabolism (5 spots), 6 in carbohydrate metabolism (11 spots), and 4 in stress and detoxification (9 spots). Six proteins (7 spots) were not grouped in these categories, and 3 were not ascribed...

  7. Release patterns of pregnancy-associated plasma protein A in patients with acute coronary syndromes assessed by an optimized monoclonal antibody assay

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schoos, Mikkel; Iversen, Kasper; Teisner, Ane

    2008-01-01

    Objective. Pregnancy-associated plasma protein A (PAPP-A) is expressed in eroded and ruptured atheromatous plaques, and circulating levels are elevated in acute coronary syndromes (ACS). Our objective was to investigate release patterns of PAPP-A in ACS and whether they differ among different typ...

  8. Some physicochemical and nutritional studies on Karkade (Hibiscus sabdariffa) seed proteins

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ahmed, Saif Aldein Bashir

    1998-01-01

    Seeds of Karkade (Al-Rahad variety) were obtained from western Sudan, and investigated perliminary for their chemical composition, the oil of the seed also was investigated. The factors affecting protein extractability such as PH, salt type and concentration and solvent to flour ratio, were studied. The anti nutritional factors investigated were protease inhibitors, gossypol, phytates and tanins, means of inactivation such as heat treatment for trypsin inhibitor and differential solubility for phytates were proposed. Protein fractionation due to solubility was carried out. Other physiochemical properties included polyacrylamide gel electrophersis, ultra violet absorption spectrum and gel filtration pattern. The functional properties investigated were bulk density, solubility, water and oil absorption, emulsifying activity and viscosity. Karkade seed was found to be rich in protein, oil and mineral matter. The amino acid profile of karkade seed proteins indicated the presence of most of essential amino acids in adequate amounts. The relative net protein ratio (RNPR) was found to be 0.75. Protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score of karkade seed protein was found to be 0.63 ( compared to casein in 1.0). The molecular weights of the protein fractions investigated by SDS- PAGE were in the range of 12-82 kDa. UV absorption spectra reflects changes in the molecular structure (native proteins absorb at 280 nm and also interaction with other components e.g. nucleic acids, poly phenols.....etc). Gel filtration pattern reflect changes in molecular size

  9. Some physicochemical and nutritional studies on Karkade (Hibiscus sabdariffa) seed proteins

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ahmed, Saif Aldein Bashir [Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Khartoum, Khatroum (Sudan)

    1998-01-01

    Seeds of Karkade (Al-Rahad variety) were obtained from western Sudan, and investigated perliminary for their chemical composition, the oil of the seed also was investigated. The factors affecting protein extractability such as PH, salt type and concentration and solvent to flour ratio, were studied. The anti nutritional factors investigated were protease inhibitors, gossypol, phytates and tanins, means of inactivation such as heat treatment for trypsin inhibitor and differential solubility for phytates were proposed. Protein fractionation due to solubility was carried out. Other physiochemical properties included polyacrylamide gel electrophersis, ultra violet absorption spectrum and gel filtration pattern. The functional properties investigated were bulk density, solubility, water and oil absorption, emulsifying activity and viscosity. Karkade seed was found to be rich in protein, oil and mineral matter. The amino acid profile of karkade seed proteins indicated the presence of most of essential amino acids in adequate amounts. The relative net protein ratio (RNPR) was found to be 0.75. Protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score of karkade seed protein was found to be 0.63 ( compared to casein in 1.0). The molecular weights of the protein fractions investigated by SDS- PAGE were in the range of 12-82 kDa. UV absorption spectra reflects changes in the molecular structure (native proteins absorb at 280 nm and also interaction with other components e.g. nucleic acids, poly phenols.....etc). Gel filtration pattern reflect changes in molecular size. 204 refs. , 35 tabs. , 8 figs.

  10. Adaptation of Salmonella enterica Hadar under static magnetic field: effects on outer membrane protein pattern

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Snoussi Sarra

    2012-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Salmonella enterica serovar Hadar (S. Hadar is a highly prevalent foodborne pathogen and therefore a major cause of human gastroenteritis worldwide. Outer membrane proteins whose production is often regulated by environmental conditions also play important roles in the adaptability of bacterial pathogens to various environments. Results The present study investigated the adaptation of S. Hadar under the effect of acute static magnetic field exposure (200 mT, 9 h and the impact on the outer membrane protein pattern. Via two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE and LC-MS/MS spectrometry, we compared the proteome of enriched-outer membrane fraction before and after exposure to a magnetic field. A total of 11 proteins, displaying more than a two-fold change, were differentially expressed in exposed cells, among which 7 were up-regulated and 4 down-regulated. These proteins were involved in the integrity of cell envelope (TolB, Pal, in the response to oxidative stress (OmpW, dihydrolipoamide dehydrogenase, UspF, in the oxidative stress status (bacterioferritin, in virulence (OmpX, Yfgl or in motility (FlgE and UspF. Complementary experiments associated the down-regulation of FlgE and UspF with an alteration of swarming, a flagella-driven motility, under SMF. Furthermore, the antibiotic disc diffusion method confirmed a decrease of gentamicin susceptibility in exposed cells. This decrease could be partly associated with the up-regulation of TolC, outer membrane component of an efflux pump. OmpA, a multifunctional protein, was up-regulated. Conclusions SMF (200 mT seems to maintain the cell envelope integrity and to submit the exposed cells to an oxidative stress. Some alterations suggest an increase of the ability of exposed cells to form biofilms.

  11. WildSpan: mining structured motifs from protein sequences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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

  12. Electrophoretic protein patterns and numerical analysis of Candida albicans from the oral cavities of healthy children

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Boriollo Marcelo Fabiano Gomes

    2003-01-01

    restricted dissemination route of these microorganisms in some groups of healthy scholars, which may be dependent of either socioeconomic categories or geographic site of each child. In contrast to the higher similarity, the lower similarity or higher polymorphism degree (0.499 < S D < 0.788 of protein profiles was shown in 23 (30.6% C. albicans oral isolates. Considering the social epidemiological aspect, 42.1%, 41.7%, 26.6%, 23.5%, and 16.7% were isolates from children concerning to socioeconomic categories A, D, C, B, and E, respectively, and geographically, 63.6%, 50%, 33.3%, 33.3%, 30%, 25%, and 14.3% were isolates from children from schools LAE (Liceu Colégio Albert Einstein, MA (E.E.P.S.G. "Prof. Elias de Melo Ayres", CS (E.E.P.G. "Prof. Carlos Sodero", AV (Alphaville, HF (E.E.P.S.G. "Honorato Faustino, FMC (E.E.P.G. "Prof. Francisco Mariano da Costa", and MEP (E.E.P.S.G. "Prof. Manasses Ephraim Pereira, respectively. Such results suggest a higher protein polymorphism degree among some strains isolated from healthy children independent of their socioeconomic strata or geographic sites. Complementary studies, involving healthy students and their families, teachers, servants, hygiene and nutritional habits must be done in order to establish the sources of such colonization patterns in population groups of healthy children. The whole-cell protein profile obtained by SDS-PAGE associated with computer-assisted numerical analysis may provide additional criteria for the taxonomic and epidemiological studies of C. albicans.

  13. Quantitative expression patterns of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-β/δ (PPARβ/δ) protein in mice

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Girroir, Elizabeth E.; Hollingshead, Holly E.; He Pengfei; Zhu Bokai; Perdew, Gary H.; Peters, Jeffrey M.

    2008-01-01

    The expression patterns of PPARβ/δ have been described, but the majority of these data are based on mRNA data. To date, there are no reports that have quantitatively examined the expression of PPARβ/δ protein in mouse tissues. In the present study, a highly specific PPARβ/δ antibody was developed, characterized, and used to examine tissue expression patterns of PPARβ/δ. As compared to commercially available anti-PPARβ/δ antibodies, one of six polyclonal anti-PPARβ/δ antibodies developed was significantly more effective for immunoprecipitation of in vitro-translated PPARβ/δ. This antibody was used for quantitative Western blot analysis using radioactive detection methods. Expression of PPARβ/δ was highest in colon, small intestine, liver, and keratinocytes as compared to other tissues including heart, spleen, skeletal muscle, lung, brain, and thymus. Interestingly, PPARβ/δ expression was localized in the nucleus and RXRα can be co-immunoprecipitated with nuclear PPARβ/δ. Results from these studies demonstrate that PPARβ/δ expression is highest in intestinal epithelium, liver, and keratinocytes, consistent with significant biological roles in these tissues

  14. Nephrotoxicity of Bence-Jones proteins: interference in renal epithelial cell acidification

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicastri A.L.

    2002-01-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the present study was to evaluate the acidification of the endosome-lysosome system of renal epithelial cells after endocytosis of two human immunoglobulin lambda light chains (Bence-Jones proteins, BJP obtained from patients with multiple myeloma. Renal epithelial cell handling of two BJP (neutral and acidic BJP was evaluated by rhodamine fluorescence. Renal cells (MDCK were maintained in culture and, when confluent, were incubated with rhodamine-labeled BJP for different periods of time. Photos were obtained with a fluorescence microscope (Axiolab-Zeiss. Labeling density was determined on slides with a densitometer (Shimadzu Dual-Wavelength Flying-Spot Scanner CS9000. Endocytosis of neutral and acidic BJP was correlated with acidic intracellular compartment distribution using acridine orange labeling. We compared the pattern of distribution after incubation of native neutral and acidic BJP and after complete deglycosylation of BJP by periodate oxidation. The subsequent alteration of pI converted neutral BJP to acidic BJP. There was a significant accumulation of neutral BJP in endocytic structures, reduced lysosomal acidification, and a diffuse pattern of acidification. This pattern was reversed after total deglycosylation and subsequent alteration of the pI to an acidic BJP. We conclude that the physicochemical characteristics of BJP interfere with intracellular acidification, possibly explaining the strong nephrotoxicity of neutral BJP. Lysosomal acidification is fundamental for adequate protein processing and catabolism.

  15. Solid-phase assay for the phosphorylation of proteins blotted on nitrocellulose membrane filters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Valtorta, F.; Schiebler, W.; Jahn, R.; Ceccarelli, B.; Greengard, P.

    1986-01-01

    A new procedure for the phosphorylation and assay of phosphoproteins is described. Proteins are solubilized from tissue samples, separated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, transferred onto nitrocellulose membrane filters, and the blotted polypeptides are phyosphorylated with the catalytic subunit of cyclic AMP (adenosine 3':5'-monophosphate)-dependent protein kinase. The method was developed for the assay of dephosphosynapsin I, but it has also proven suitable for the phosphorylation of other proteins. The patterns of phosphorylation of tissue samples phosphorylated using the new method are similar to those obtained using the conventional test tube assay. Once phosphorylated, the adsorbed proteins can be digested with proteases and subjected to phosphopeptide mapping. The phosphorylated blotted proteins can also be analyzed by overlay techniques for the immunological detection of polypeptides

  16. Protein immobilization strategies for protein biochips

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Rusmini, F.; Rusmini, Federica; Zhong, Zhiyuan; Feijen, Jan

    2007-01-01

    In the past few years, protein biochips have emerged as promising proteomic and diagnostic tools for obtaining information about protein functions and interactions. Important technological innovations have been made. However, considerable development is still required, especially regarding protein

  17. PatternLab for proteomics: a tool for differential shotgun proteomics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yates John R

    2008-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background A goal of proteomics is to distinguish between states of a biological system by identifying protein expression differences. Liu et al. demonstrated a method to perform semi-relative protein quantitation in shotgun proteomics data by correlating the number of tandem mass spectra obtained for each protein, or "spectral count", with its abundance in a mixture; however, two issues have remained open: how to normalize spectral counting data and how to efficiently pinpoint differences between profiles. Moreover, Chen et al. recently showed how to increase the number of identified proteins in shotgun proteomics by analyzing samples with different MS-compatible detergents while performing proteolytic digestion. The latter introduced new challenges as seen from the data analysis perspective, since replicate readings are not acquired. Results To address the open issues above, we present a program termed PatternLab for proteomics. This program implements existing strategies and adds two new methods to pinpoint differences in protein profiles. The first method, ACFold, addresses experiments with less than three replicates from each state or having assays acquired by different protocols as described by Chen et al. ACFold uses a combined criterion based on expression fold changes, the AC test, and the false-discovery rate, and can supply a "bird's-eye view" of differentially expressed proteins. The other method addresses experimental designs having multiple readings from each state and is referred to as nSVM (natural support vector machine because of its roots in evolutionary computing and in statistical learning theory. Our observations suggest that nSVM's niche comprises projects that select a minimum set of proteins for classification purposes; for example, the development of an early detection kit for a given pathology. We demonstrate the effectiveness of each method on experimental data and confront them with existing strategies

  18. Oligomeric protein structure networks: insights into protein-protein interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Brinda KV

    2005-12-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Protein-protein association is essential for a variety of cellular processes and hence a large number of investigations are being carried out to understand the principles of protein-protein interactions. In this study, oligomeric protein structures are viewed from a network perspective to obtain new insights into protein association. Structure graphs of proteins have been constructed from a non-redundant set of protein oligomer crystal structures by considering amino acid residues as nodes and the edges are based on the strength of the non-covalent interactions between the residues. The analysis of such networks has been carried out in terms of amino acid clusters and hubs (highly connected residues with special emphasis to protein interfaces. Results A variety of interactions such as hydrogen bond, salt bridges, aromatic and hydrophobic interactions, which occur at the interfaces are identified in a consolidated manner as amino acid clusters at the interface, from this study. Moreover, the characterization of the highly connected hub-forming residues at the interfaces and their comparison with the hubs from the non-interface regions and the non-hubs in the interface regions show that there is a predominance of charged interactions at the interfaces. Further, strong and weak interfaces are identified on the basis of the interaction strength between amino acid residues and the sizes of the interface clusters, which also show that many protein interfaces are stronger than their monomeric protein cores. The interface strengths evaluated based on the interface clusters and hubs also correlate well with experimentally determined dissociation constants for known complexes. Finally, the interface hubs identified using the present method correlate very well with experimentally determined hotspots in the interfaces of protein complexes obtained from the Alanine Scanning Energetics database (ASEdb. A few predictions of interface hot

  19. Identification of Ultramodified Proteins Using Top-Down Mass Spectra

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Liu, Xiaowen; Hengel, Shawna M.; Wu, Si; Tolic, Nikola; Pasa-Tolic, Ljiljana; Pevzner, Pavel A.

    2013-11-05

    Post-translational modifications (PTMs) play an important role in various biological processes through changing protein structure and function. Some ultramodified proteins (like histones) have multiple PTMs forming PTM patterns that define the functionality of a protein. While bottom-up mass spectrometry (MS) has been successful in identifying individual PTMs within short peptides, it is unable to identify PTM patterns spread along entire proteins in a coordinated fashion. In contrast, top-down MS analyzes intact proteins and reveals PTM patterns along the entire proteins. However, while recent advances in instrumentation have made top-down MS accessible to many laboratories, most computational tools for top-down MS focus on proteins with few PTMs and are unable to identify complex PTM patterns. We propose a new algorithm, MS-Align-E, that identifies both expected and unexpected PTMs in ultramodified proteins. We demonstrate that MS-Align-E identifies many protein forms of histone H4 and benchmark it against the currently accepted software tools.

  20. On the analysis of protein-protein interactions via knowledge-based potentials for the prediction of protein-protein docking

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Feliu, Elisenda; Aloy, Patrick; Oliva, Baldo

    2011-01-01

    Development of effective methods to screen binary interactions obtained by rigid-body protein-protein docking is key for structure prediction of complexes and for elucidating physicochemical principles of protein-protein binding. We have derived empirical knowledge-based potential functions for s...... and with independence of the partner. This information is encoded at the residue level and could be easily incorporated in the initial grid scoring for Fast Fourier Transform rigid-body docking methods.......Development of effective methods to screen binary interactions obtained by rigid-body protein-protein docking is key for structure prediction of complexes and for elucidating physicochemical principles of protein-protein binding. We have derived empirical knowledge-based potential functions...... for selecting rigid-body docking poses. These potentials include the energetic component that provides the residues with a particular secondary structure and surface accessibility. These scoring functions have been tested on a state-of-art benchmark dataset and on a decoy dataset of permanent interactions. Our...

  1. Insulin-like growth factor binding protein-2, 28 kDa an 24 kDa insulin-like growth factor binding protein levels are decreased in fluid of dominant follicles, obtained from normal and polycystic ovaries

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    A.G.P. Schuller (Alwin); D.J. Lindenbergh-Kortleve (Dicky); T.D. Pache; E.C. Zwarthoff (Ellen); B.C.J.M. Fauser (Bart); S.L.S. Drop (Stenvert)

    1993-01-01

    textabstractIn order to investigate potential changes in insulin-like growth factor binding proteins (IGFBPs) during human follicle maturation, we examined the IGFBP profiles in follicular fluid from follicles in different stages of maturation. Samples were obtained from ovaries of women with

  2. Endogenous contributions to egg protein formation in lesser scaup Aythya affinis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cutting, Kyle A.; Hobson, Keith A.; Rotella, Jay J.; Warren, Jeffrey M.; Wainwright-de la Cruz, Susan E.; Takekawa, John Y.

    2011-01-01

    Lesser scaup Aythya affinis populations have declined throughout the North American continent for the last three decades. It has been hypothesized that the loss and degradation of staging habitats has resulted in reduced female body condition on the breeding grounds and a concomitant decline in productivity. We explored the importance of body (endogenous) reserves obtained prior to arrival on the breeding ground in egg protein formation in southwestern Montana during 2006–2008 using stable-carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope analyses of scaup egg components, female tissue, and local prey items. From arrival on the breeding grounds through the egg-laying period, δ15N values of scaup red blood cells decreased while δ13C values became less variable; a pattern consistent with endogenous tissues equilibrating with local (freshwater) dietary sources. In 2006 and 2008, isotopic values for egg albumen and yolk protein indicated that most (>90%) protein used to produce these components was obtained on the breeding grounds. However, in 2007, a year with an exceptionally warm and dry spring, endogenous reserves contributed on average 41% of yolk and 29% of albumen. Results from this study suggest that female scaup can meet the protein needs of egg production largely from local dietary food sources. This highlights the importance of providing high-quality breeding habitats for scaup. Whether this pattern holds in areas with similar breeding season lengths but longer migration routes, such as those found in the western boreal forest, should be investigated.

  3. Patterns of FOS protein induction in singing female starlings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Riters, Lauren V.

    2013-01-01

    Females of many songbird species produce song, but information about the neural correlates of singing behavior is limited in this sex. Although well studied in males, activity in premotor song control regions and social behavior regions has not been examined in females during song production. Here, we examined the immediate early gene protein product FOS in both song control and social behavior brain regions after female starlings defending nest boxes responded to an unfamiliar female in a naturalistic setting. We found that females that sang in response to the intruder had much higher numbers of fos-immunoreactive neurons (fos-ir) in the vocal control regions HVC, the robust nucleus of the arcopallium (RA), and the dorsomedial part of the nucleus intercollicularis (DM of the ICo). In HVC, fos-ir correlated positively with song length. In RA, DM and Area X, fos-ir correlated positively with number of songs produced. In social behavior regions, singers showed higher fos-ir in the nucleus taeniae of the amygdala, the dorsal part of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and the ventromedial hypothalamus than non-singers. Overall, patterns of fos-ir in song control regions in females were similar to those reported for males, but differences in fos-ir were identified in social behavior regions. These differences may reflect a distinct role for brain regions involved in social behavior in female song, or they may reflect differences in the social function of female and male song. PMID:23022365

  4. Determination of the Median Lethal Dose and Electrophoretic Pattern of Hottentotta saulcyi (Scorpiones, Buthidae Scorpion Venom

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    ErsenAydın Yağmur

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Background: In this study, we investigated the lethal potency, electrophoretic protein pattern and in vivo effects of Hottentotta saulcyi scorpion venom in mice.Methods: Scorpions were collected at night, by using a UV lamp from Mardin Province, Turkey. Venom was obtained from mature H. saulcyi scorpions by electrical stimulation of the telson. The lethality of the venom was determined by i.v. injections using Swiss mice. In vivo effects of the venom were assessed by using the intraperitoneal route (ip injections into mice (20±1g and monitored for 24 h. The protein profiles of the scorpion venom were analyzed by NuPAGE® Novex® 4–12 % gradient Bis-Tris gel followed by Coomassie blue staining.Results: The lethal assay of the venom was 0.73 mg/kg in mice. We determined the electrophoretic protein pattern of this scorpion venom to be 4, 6, 9, 31, 35, 40, 46 and 69 kDa by SDS-PAGE. Analysis of electrophoresis indicated that H. saulcyi scorpion intoxicated mice exhibited autonomic nervous system symptoms (tachypnea, restlessness, hyperexcitability, convulsions, salivation, lacrimation, weakness.Conclusions: Hottentotta saulcyi scorpion venom includes short-chain neurotoxins and long-chain neurotoxins according to the electrophoretic protein patterns. The stings of H. saulcyi scorpion must be considered of risk for humans in the southeastern region, Turkey.

  5. Discovering approximate-associated sequence patterns for protein-DNA interactions

    KAUST Repository

    Chan, Tak Ming; Wong, Ka Chun; Lee, Kin Hong; Wong, Man Hon; Lau, Chi Kong; Tsui, Stephen Kwok Wing; Leung, Kwong Sak

    2010-01-01

    Motivation: The bindings between transcription factors (TFs) and transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) are fundamental protein-DNA interactions in transcriptional regulation. Extensive efforts have been made to better understand the protein

  6. Efficient extraction of protein-protein interactions from full-text articles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hakenberg, Jörg; Leaman, Robert; Vo, Nguyen Ha; Jonnalagadda, Siddhartha; Sullivan, Ryan; Miller, Christopher; Tari, Luis; Baral, Chitta; Gonzalez, Graciela

    2010-01-01

    Proteins and their interactions govern virtually all cellular processes, such as regulation, signaling, metabolism, and structure. Most experimental findings pertaining to such interactions are discussed in research papers, which, in turn, get curated by protein interaction databases. Authors, editors, and publishers benefit from efforts to alleviate the tasks of searching for relevant papers, evidence for physical interactions, and proper identifiers for each protein involved. The BioCreative II.5 community challenge addressed these tasks in a competition-style assessment to evaluate and compare different methodologies, to make aware of the increasing accuracy of automated methods, and to guide future implementations. In this paper, we present our approaches for protein-named entity recognition, including normalization, and for extraction of protein-protein interactions from full text. Our overall goal is to identify efficient individual components, and we compare various compositions to handle a single full-text article in between 10 seconds and 2 minutes. We propose strategies to transfer document-level annotations to the sentence-level, which allows for the creation of a more fine-grained training corpus; we use this corpus to automatically derive around 5,000 patterns. We rank sentences by relevance to the task of finding novel interactions with physical evidence, using a sentence classifier built from this training corpus. Heuristics for paraphrasing sentences help to further remove unnecessary information that might interfere with patterns, such as additional adjectives, clauses, or bracketed expressions. In BioCreative II.5, we achieved an f-score of 22 percent for finding protein interactions, and 43 percent for mapping proteins to UniProt IDs; disregarding species, f-scores are 30 percent and 55 percent, respectively. On average, our best-performing setup required around 2 minutes per full text. All data and pattern sets as well as Java classes that

  7. Protein-protein interaction site predictions with three-dimensional probability distributions of interacting atoms on protein surfaces.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ching-Tai Chen

    Full Text Available Protein-protein interactions are key to many biological processes. Computational methodologies devised to predict protein-protein interaction (PPI sites on protein surfaces are important tools in providing insights into the biological functions of proteins and in developing therapeutics targeting the protein-protein interaction sites. One of the general features of PPI sites is that the core regions from the two interacting protein surfaces are complementary to each other, similar to the interior of proteins in packing density and in the physicochemical nature of the amino acid composition. In this work, we simulated the physicochemical complementarities by constructing three-dimensional probability density maps of non-covalent interacting atoms on the protein surfaces. The interacting probabilities were derived from the interior of known structures. Machine learning algorithms were applied to learn the characteristic patterns of the probability density maps specific to the PPI sites. The trained predictors for PPI sites were cross-validated with the training cases (consisting of 432 proteins and were tested on an independent dataset (consisting of 142 proteins. The residue-based Matthews correlation coefficient for the independent test set was 0.423; the accuracy, precision, sensitivity, specificity were 0.753, 0.519, 0.677, and 0.779 respectively. The benchmark results indicate that the optimized machine learning models are among the best predictors in identifying PPI sites on protein surfaces. In particular, the PPI site prediction accuracy increases with increasing size of the PPI site and with increasing hydrophobicity in amino acid composition of the PPI interface; the core interface regions are more likely to be recognized with high prediction confidence. The results indicate that the physicochemical complementarity patterns on protein surfaces are important determinants in PPIs, and a substantial portion of the PPI sites can be predicted

  8. Protein-Protein Interaction Site Predictions with Three-Dimensional Probability Distributions of Interacting Atoms on Protein Surfaces

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Ching-Tai; Peng, Hung-Pin; Jian, Jhih-Wei; Tsai, Keng-Chang; Chang, Jeng-Yih; Yang, Ei-Wen; Chen, Jun-Bo; Ho, Shinn-Ying; Hsu, Wen-Lian; Yang, An-Suei

    2012-01-01

    Protein-protein interactions are key to many biological processes. Computational methodologies devised to predict protein-protein interaction (PPI) sites on protein surfaces are important tools in providing insights into the biological functions of proteins and in developing therapeutics targeting the protein-protein interaction sites. One of the general features of PPI sites is that the core regions from the two interacting protein surfaces are complementary to each other, similar to the interior of proteins in packing density and in the physicochemical nature of the amino acid composition. In this work, we simulated the physicochemical complementarities by constructing three-dimensional probability density maps of non-covalent interacting atoms on the protein surfaces. The interacting probabilities were derived from the interior of known structures. Machine learning algorithms were applied to learn the characteristic patterns of the probability density maps specific to the PPI sites. The trained predictors for PPI sites were cross-validated with the training cases (consisting of 432 proteins) and were tested on an independent dataset (consisting of 142 proteins). The residue-based Matthews correlation coefficient for the independent test set was 0.423; the accuracy, precision, sensitivity, specificity were 0.753, 0.519, 0.677, and 0.779 respectively. The benchmark results indicate that the optimized machine learning models are among the best predictors in identifying PPI sites on protein surfaces. In particular, the PPI site prediction accuracy increases with increasing size of the PPI site and with increasing hydrophobicity in amino acid composition of the PPI interface; the core interface regions are more likely to be recognized with high prediction confidence. The results indicate that the physicochemical complementarity patterns on protein surfaces are important determinants in PPIs, and a substantial portion of the PPI sites can be predicted correctly with

  9. Comparison of Yeast Cell Protein Solubilization Procedures for Two-dimensional Electrophoresis

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Harder, A; Wildgruber, R; Nawrocki, A

    1999-01-01

    Three different procedures for the solubilization of yeast (S. cerevisiae) cell proteins were compared on the basis of the obtained two-dimensional (2-D) polypeptide patterns. Major emphasis was laid on minimizing handling steps, protein modification or degradation, and quantitative loss of high...... with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) buffer, consisting of 1% SDS and 100 mM tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane (Tris)-HCl, pH 7.0, followed by dilution with "standard" lysis buffer, and (iii) boiling the sample with SDS during cell lysis, followed by dilution with thiourea/urea lysis buffer (2 M thiourea/ 7 M urea...

  10. Automatic annotation of protein motif function with Gene Ontology terms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  11. On studying protein phosphorylation patterns using bottom-up LC-MS/MS: the case of human alpha-casein

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kjeldsen, Frank; Savitski, Mikhail M; Nielsen, Michael L

    2007-01-01

    -LC-MS/MS. The occupancy rates of phosphosites in proteins may differ by orders of magnitude, and thus the occupancy rate must be reported for each occupied phosphosite. To highlight potential pitfalls in quantifying the occupancy rates, alpha(s1)-casein from human milk was selected as a model molecule representing...... moderately phosphorylated proteins. For this purpose, human milk from one Caucasian woman in the eighth month of lactation was used. The phosphorylation level of caseins is believed to have major implications for the formation of micelles that are involved in delivering valuable calcium phosphate and other...... minerals to the new-born. Human alpha(s1)-casein has been reported to be much less phosphorylated than ruminant caseins, which may indicate a different function of caseins in humans. Revealing the phosphorylation pattern in human casein can thus shed light on its function. The current study found...

  12. Transcription of the var genes from a freshly-obtained field isolate of Plasmodium falciparum shows more variable switching patterns than long laboratory-adapted isolates.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ye, Run; Zhang, Dongmei; Chen, Biaobang; Zhu, Yongqiang; Zhang, Yilong; Wang, Shengyue; Pan, Weiqing

    2015-02-07

    Antigenic variation in Plasmodium falciparum involves switching among multicopy var gene family and is responsible for immune evasion and the maintenance of chronic infections. Current understanding of var gene expression and switching patterns comes from experiments conducted on long laboratory-adapted strains, with little known about their wild counterparts. Genome sequencing was used to obtain 50 var genes from a parasite isolated from the China-Myanmar border. Four clones with different dominant var genes were cultured in vitro in replicates for 50 generations. Transcription of the individual var gene was detected by real-time PCR and then the switching process was analysed. The expression of multicopy var genes is mutually exclusive in clones of a wild P. falciparum isolate. The activation of distinct primary dominant var genes leads to different and favoured switching patterns in the four clones. The on/off rates of individual var genes are variable and the choice of subsequent dominant var genes are random, which results in the different switching patterns among replicates of each clonal wild P. falciparum isolate with near identical initial transcription profiles. This study suggests that the switching patterns of var genes are abundant, which consist of both conserved and random parts.

  13. Evidence of the protein content of bovine and human dental pulps by the action of endodontic irrigation solutions through electrophoretic patterns

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    María E López

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis let to show the protein content of different tissues. Dental pulp contains connective tissue which is removed during the endodontic treatment. Many studies consider bovine rather than human pulp tissue because of its size. Aim: To evidence the protein content of bovine and human dental pulps and the action of endodontic irrigation solutions through electrophoretic patterns. Materials and Methods: Extracts of human and bovine dental pulps were prepared. Sodium hypochlorite, calcium hydroxide, chlorhexidine and ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid were used as irrigating solutions. Results: Bovine and human pulps have a small difference in two bands of proteins present between 74 kDa and 80 kDa. The denaturizing capacity of sodium hypochlorite and the washing action of calcium hydroxide and chlorhexidine were evidenced. Ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid solution was shown to contain proteins continuously during the endodontic root canal washing. Conclusions: Differences in pulp tissues and the action of irrigating solutions on their protein content would help on the understanding of the biological process of the endodontic treatment.

  14. Distinct patterns of gene and protein expression elicited by organophosphorus pesticides in Caenorhabditis elegans

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dennis William E

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The wide use of organophosphorus (OP pesticides makes them an important public health concern. Persistent effects of exposure and the mechanism of neuronal degeneration are continuing issues in OP toxicology. To elucidate early steps in the mechanisms of OP toxicity, we studied alterations in global gene and protein expression in Caenorhabditis elegans exposed to OPs using microarrays and mass spectrometry. We tested two structurally distinct OPs (dichlorvos and fenamiphos and employed a mechanistically different third neurotoxicant, mefloquine, as an out-group for analysis. Treatment levels used concentrations of chemical sufficient to prevent the development of 10%, 50% or 90% of mid-vulval L4 larvae into early gravid adults (EGA at 24 h after exposure in a defined, bacteria-free medium. Results After 8 h of exposure, the expression of 87 genes responded specifically to OP treatment. The abundance of 34 proteins also changed in OP-exposed worms. Many of the genes and proteins affected by the OPs are expressed in neuronal and muscle tissues and are involved in lipid metabolism, cell adhesion, apoptosis/cell death, and detoxification. Twenty-two genes were differentially affected by the two OPs; a large proportion of these genes encode cytochrome P450s, UDP-glucuronosyl/UDP-glucosyltransferases, or P-glycoproteins. The abundance of transcripts and the proteins they encode were well correlated. Conclusion Exposure to OPs elicits a pattern of changes in gene expression in exposed worms distinct from that of the unrelated neurotoxicant, mefloquine. The functional roles and the tissue location of the genes and proteins whose expression is modulated in response to exposure is consistent with the known effects of OPs, including damage to muscle due to persistent hypercontraction, neuronal cell death, and phase I and phase II detoxification. Further, the two different OPs evoked distinguishable changes in gene expression; about half

  15. Crystallization and preliminary electron diffraction study to 3. 7 A of DNA helix-destabilizing protein gp32*I

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Chiu, W; Hosoda, J

    1978-01-01

    A two-dimensionally large and thin crystal has been obtained from gp32*I, a proteolytically digested product of a DNA helix-destabilizing protein coded by gene 32 in bacteriophage T4. High-resolution electron diffraction patterns (approx. 3.7 A) are recorded from both unstained and stained protein crystals embedded in glucose. The crystal is of orthorhombic space group with a = 62.9 A and b = 47.3 A.

  16. Enhanced protein adsorption and patterning on nanostructured latex-coated paper.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Juvonen, Helka; Määttänen, Anni; Ihalainen, Petri; Viitala, Tapani; Sarfraz, Jawad; Peltonen, Jouko

    2014-06-01

    Specific interactions of extracellular matrix proteins with cells and their adhesion to the substrate are important for cell growth. A nanopatterned latex-coated paper substrate previously shown to be an excellent substrate for cell adhesion and 2D growth was studied for directed immobilization of proteins. The nanostructured latex surface was formed by short-wavelength IR irradiation of a two-component latex coating consisting of a hydrophilic film-forming styrene butadiene acrylonitrile copolymer and hydrophobic polystyrene particles. The hydrophobic regions of the IR-treated latex coating showed strong adhesion of bovine serum albumin (cell repelling protein), fibronectin (cell adhesive protein) and streptavidin. Opposite to the IR-treated surface, fibronectin and streptavidin had a poor affinity toward the untreated pristine latex coating. Detailed characterization of the physicochemical surface properties of the latex-coated substrates revealed that the observed differences in protein affinity were mainly due to the presence or absence of the protein repelling polar and charged surface groups. The protein adsorption was assisted by hydrophobic (dehydration) interactions. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. Modification of DNA radiolysis by DNA-binding proteins: Structural aspects

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Davidkova, M.; Stisova, V.; Goffinont, S.; Gillard, N.; Castaing, B.; Spotheim-Maurizot, M.

    2006-01-01

    Formation of specific complexes between proteins and their cognate DNA modulates the yields and the location of radiation damage on both partners of the complex. The radiolysis of DNA-protein complexes is studied for: (1) the Escherichia coli lactose operator-repressor complex, (2) the complex between DNA bearing an analogue of an abasic site and the repair protein Fpg of Lactococcus lactis. Experimental patterns of DNA damages are presented and compared to predicted damage distribution obtained using an improved version of the stochastic model RADACK. The same method is used for predicting the location of damages on the proteins. At doses lower than a threshold that depends on the system, proteins protect their specific binding site on DNA while at high doses, the studied complexes are disrupted mainly through protein damage. The loss of binding ability is the functional consequence of the amino-acids modification by OH . radicals. Many of the most probably damaged amino acids are essential for the DNA-protein interaction and within a complex are protected by DNA. (authors)

  18. Evaluation of Physical Properties of Wax Mixtures Obtained From Recycling of Patterns Used in Precision Casting

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Biernacki R.

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available The study investigated the properties of selected certified mixtures used to make wax patterns for the production of precision castings for the aerospace industry. In addition, an assessment of the recycled mixtures consisting of certified wax materials recovered during autoclaving was carried out. Hardness was tested via a proposed method based on penetration, creep related deformation, bending strength and linear contraction. The hardness was studied on laboratory specimens and patterns made with the use of injection molding equipment. For these patterns, linear contraction was estimated at variable pressure and for different temperature injection parameters. Deformations connected with creep and resistance were evaluated on cylindrical specimens. Differences in creep resistance in relation to the hardness were observed depending on the type of pattern mixtures. Recycled mixture has a greater resistance and smaller linear contraction than certified mixtures used for making sprue, raisers and other parts of filler system.

  19. Temporal protein expression pattern in intracellular signalling ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Supplementary figure 1. Protein expression dynamics observed in Experiment, Synchronous and. Asynchronous simulation. .... molecular basis for T cell suppression by IL-10: CD28-asso- ciated IL-10 receptor inhibits CD28 tyrosine ...

  20. Sources, instrumentation and detectors for protein crystallography

    CERN Document Server

    Nave, C

    2001-01-01

    Some of the requirements for protein crystallography experiments on a synchrotron are described. Although data from different types of crystal are often collected without changing the X-ray beam properties, there are benefits if the incident beam is matched to a particular crystal and its diffraction pattern. These benefits are described with some examples. Radiation damage and other effects impose limits on the dose and dose rate on a protein crystal if the maximum amount of data is to be obtained. These limitations have possible consequences for the X-ray source required. Presently available commercial detector systems provide excellent data for protein crystallography but do not quite reach the specifications of the 'ideal' detector. In order to collect the most accurate data (e.g. for very weak anomalous scattering applications) detectors that produce near photon counting statistics over a wide dynamic range are required. It is possible that developments in 'pixel' detectors will allow these demanding exp...

  1. Amino Acid Composition, Molecular Weight Distribution and Gel Electrophoresis of Walnut (Juglans regia L. Proteins and Protein Fractionations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiaoying Mao

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available As a by-product of oil production, walnut proteins are considered as an additional source of plant protein for human food. To make full use of the protein resource, a comprehensive understanding of composition and characteristics of walnut proteins are required. Walnut proteins have been fractionated and characterized in this study. Amino acid composition, molecular weight distribution and gel electrophoresis of walnut proteins and protein fractionations were analyzed. The proteins were sequentially separated into four fractions according to their solubility. Glutelin was the main component of the protein extract. The content of glutelin, albumin, globulin and prolamin was about 72.06%, 7.54%, 15.67% and 4.73% respectively. Glutelin, albumin and globulin have a balanced content of essential amino acids, except for methionine, with respect to the FAO pattern recommended for adults. SDS-PAGE patterns of albumin, globulin and glutelin showed several polypeptides with molecular weights 14.4 to 66.2 kDa. The pattern of walnut proteins in two-dimension electrophoresis (2-DE showed that the isoelectric point was mainly in the range of 4.8–6.8. The results of size exclusion chromatogram indicated molecular weight of the major components of walnut proteins were between 3.54 and 81.76 kDa.

  2. [Comparative investigation of the non-histone proteins of chromatin from pigeon erythroblasts and erythrocytes].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fedina, A B; Gazarian, G G

    1976-01-01

    Chromosomal non-histone proteins are obtained from nuclei of two types of pigeon erythroid cells: erythroblasts (cells active in RNA synthesis) and erythrocytes (cells with repressed RNA synthesis). They are well soluble in solutions of low ionic strength. Electrophoretic separation of the obtained non-histone proteins in polyacrylamide gels with urea and SDS shows the presence of qualitative differences in the pattern of non-histone proteins of chromatine from erythroblasts and erythrocytes. By electrophoresis in urea some protein bands of non-histone proteins of chromatine from erythroblasts were found which disappear with the aging of cells. At the same time two protein fractions were observed in chromatine from erythrocytes which were absent in that of erythroblasts. Disappearance of some high molecular weight protein fractions from erythrocyte chromatine as compared to erythroblasts was observed by separation of the non-histone proteins in the presence of SDS. These fractions of the non-histone proteins disappearing during aging of cells are well extractable from erythroblast chromatine by 0.35 M NaCl solution. In the in vitro system with E. coli RNA polymerase addition of non-histone proteins of chromatine from erythroblasts to chromatine from erythrocytes increases RNA synthesis 2--3 times. At the same time addition of non-histone proteins from erythrocytes is either without any influence on this process or somewhat inhibiting.

  3. Large-scale identification of odorant-binding proteins and chemosensory proteins from expressed sequence tags in insects

    Science.gov (United States)

    2009-01-01

    Background Insect odorant binding proteins (OBPs) and chemosensory proteins (CSPs) play an important role in chemical communication of insects. Gene discovery of these proteins is a time-consuming task. In recent years, expressed sequence tags (ESTs) of many insect species have accumulated, thus providing a useful resource for gene discovery. Results We have developed a computational pipeline to identify OBP and CSP genes from insect ESTs. In total, 752,841 insect ESTs were examined from 54 species covering eight Orders of Insecta. From these ESTs, 142 OBPs and 177 CSPs were identified, of which 117 OBPs and 129 CSPs are new. The complete open reading frames (ORFs) of 88 OBPs and 123 CSPs were obtained by electronic elongation. We randomly chose 26 OBPs from eight species of insects, and 21 CSPs from four species for RT-PCR validation. Twenty two OBPs and 16 CSPs were confirmed by RT-PCR, proving the efficiency and reliability of the algorithm. Together with all family members obtained from the NCBI (OBPs) or the UniProtKB (CSPs), 850 OBPs and 237 CSPs were analyzed for their structural characteristics and evolutionary relationship. Conclusions A large number of new OBPs and CSPs were found, providing the basis for deeper understanding of these proteins. In addition, the conserved motif and evolutionary analysis provide some new insights into the evolution of insect OBPs and CSPs. Motif pattern fine-tune the functions of OBPs and CSPs, leading to the minor difference in binding sex pheromone or plant volatiles in different insect Orders. PMID:20034407

  4. Application of SAIL phenylalanine and tyrosine with alternative isotope-labeling patterns for protein structure determination

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Takeda, Mitsuhiro [Nagoya University, Structural Biology Research Center, Graduate School of Science (Japan); Ono, Akira M.; Terauchi, Tsutomu [SAIL Technologies Co., Inc. (Japan); Kainosho, Masatsune, E-mail: kainosho@nmr.chem.metro-u.ac.j [Nagoya University, Structural Biology Research Center, Graduate School of Science (Japan)

    2010-01-15

    The extensive collection of NOE constraint data involving the aromatic ring signals is essential for accurate protein structure determination, although it is often hampered in practice by the pervasive signal overlapping and tight spin couplings for aromatic rings. We have prepared various types of stereo-array isotope labeled phenylalanines ({epsilon}- and {zeta}-SAIL Phe) and tyrosine ({epsilon}-SAIL Tyr) to overcome these problems (Torizawa et al. 2005), and proven that these SAIL amino acids provide dramatic spectral simplification and sensitivity enhancement for the aromatic ring NMR signals. In addition to these SAIL aromatic amino acids, we recently synthesized {delta}-SAIL Phe and {delta}-SAIL Tyr, which allow us to observe and assign {delta}-{sup 13}C/{sup 1}H signals very efficiently. Each of the various types of SAIL Phe and SAIL Tyr yields well-resolved resonances for the {delta}-, {epsilon}- or {zeta}-{sup 13}C/{sup 1}H signals, respectively, which can readily be assigned by simple and robust pulse sequences. Since the {delta}-, {epsilon}-, and {zeta}-proton signals of Phe/Tyr residues give rise to complementary NOE constraints, the concomitant use of various types of SAIL-Phe and SAIL-Tyr would generate more accurate protein structures, as compared to those obtained by using conventional uniformly {sup 13}C, {sup 15}N-double labeled proteins. We illustrated this with the case of an 18.2 kDa protein, Escherichia coli peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase b (EPPIb), and concluded that the combined use of {zeta}-SAIL Phe and {epsilon}-SAIL Tyr would be practically the best choice for protein structural determinations.

  5. Application of SAIL phenylalanine and tyrosine with alternative isotope-labeling patterns for protein structure determination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Takeda, Mitsuhiro; Ono, Akira M; Terauchi, Tsutomu; Kainosho, Masatsune

    2010-01-01

    The extensive collection of NOE constraint data involving the aromatic ring signals is essential for accurate protein structure determination, although it is often hampered in practice by the pervasive signal overlapping and tight spin couplings for aromatic rings. We have prepared various types of stereo-array isotope labeled phenylalanines (epsilon- and zeta-SAIL Phe) and tyrosine (epsilon-SAIL Tyr) to overcome these problems (Torizawa et al. 2005), and proven that these SAIL amino acids provide dramatic spectral simplification and sensitivity enhancement for the aromatic ring NMR signals. In addition to these SAIL aromatic amino acids, we recently synthesized delta-SAIL Phe and delta-SAIL Tyr, which allow us to observe and assign delta-(13)C/(1)H signals very efficiently. Each of the various types of SAIL Phe and SAIL Tyr yields well-resolved resonances for the delta-, epsilon- or zeta-(13)C/(1)H signals, respectively, which can readily be assigned by simple and robust pulse sequences. Since the delta-, epsilon-, and zeta-proton signals of Phe/Tyr residues give rise to complementary NOE constraints, the concomitant use of various types of SAIL-Phe and SAIL-Tyr would generate more accurate protein structures, as compared to those obtained by using conventional uniformly (13)C, (15)N-double labeled proteins. We illustrated this with the case of an 18.2 kDa protein, Escherichia coli peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase b (EPPIb), and concluded that the combined use of zeta-SAIL Phe and epsilon-SAIL Tyr would be practically the best choice for protein structural determinations.

  6. Application of SAIL phenylalanine and tyrosine with alternative isotope-labeling patterns for protein structure determination

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Takeda, Mitsuhiro; Ono, Akira M.; Terauchi, Tsutomu; Kainosho, Masatsune

    2010-01-01

    The extensive collection of NOE constraint data involving the aromatic ring signals is essential for accurate protein structure determination, although it is often hampered in practice by the pervasive signal overlapping and tight spin couplings for aromatic rings. We have prepared various types of stereo-array isotope labeled phenylalanines (ε- and ζ-SAIL Phe) and tyrosine (ε-SAIL Tyr) to overcome these problems (Torizawa et al. 2005), and proven that these SAIL amino acids provide dramatic spectral simplification and sensitivity enhancement for the aromatic ring NMR signals. In addition to these SAIL aromatic amino acids, we recently synthesized δ-SAIL Phe and δ-SAIL Tyr, which allow us to observe and assign δ- 13 C/ 1 H signals very efficiently. Each of the various types of SAIL Phe and SAIL Tyr yields well-resolved resonances for the δ-, ε- or ζ- 13 C/ 1 H signals, respectively, which can readily be assigned by simple and robust pulse sequences. Since the δ-, ε-, and ζ-proton signals of Phe/Tyr residues give rise to complementary NOE constraints, the concomitant use of various types of SAIL-Phe and SAIL-Tyr would generate more accurate protein structures, as compared to those obtained by using conventional uniformly 13 C, 15 N-double labeled proteins. We illustrated this with the case of an 18.2 kDa protein, Escherichia coli peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase b (EPPIb), and concluded that the combined use of ζ-SAIL Phe and ε-SAIL Tyr would be practically the best choice for protein structural determinations.

  7. Iron-Binding Protein Degradation by Cysteine Proteases of Naegleria fowleri

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Moisés Martínez-Castillo

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Naegleria fowleri causes acute and fulminant primary amoebic meningoencephalitis. This microorganism invades its host by penetrating the olfactory mucosa and then traveling up the mesaxonal spaces and crossing the cribriform plate; finally, the trophozoites invade the olfactory bulbs. During its invasion, the protozoan obtains nutrients such as proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and cationic ions (e.g., iron, calcium, and sodium from the host. However, the mechanism by which these ions are obtained, particularly iron, is poorly understood. In the present study, we evaluated the ability of N. fowleri to degrade iron-binding proteins, including hololactoferrin, transferrin, ferritin, and hemoglobin. Zymography assays were performed for each substrate under physiological conditions (pH 7 at 37°C employing conditioned medium (CM and total crude extracts (TCEs of N. fowleri. Different degradation patterns with CM were observed for hololactoferrin, transferrin, and hemoglobin; however, CM did not cause ferritin degradation. In contrast, the TCEs degraded only hololactoferrin and transferrin. Inhibition assays revealed that cysteine proteases were involved in this process. Based on these results, we suggest that CM and TCEs of N. fowleri degrade iron-binding proteins by employing cysteine proteases, which enables the parasite to obtain iron to survive while invading the central nervous system.

  8. Changes in the protein patterns in pea (Pisum sativum L.) roots under the influence of long- and short-term chilling stress and post-stress recovery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Badowiec, Anna; Swigonska, Sylwia; Weidner, Stanisław

    2013-10-01

    Amongst many factors restricting geographical distribution of plants and crop productivity, low temperature is one of the most important. To gain better understanding of the molecular response of germinating pea (Pisum sativum L.) to low temperature, we investigated the influence of long and short chilling stress as well as post-stress recovery on the alterations in the root proteomes. The impact of long stress was examined on the pea seeds germinating in the continuous chilling conditions of 10 °C for 8 days (LS). To examine the impact of short stress, pea seeds germinating for 72 h in the optimal temperature of 20 °C were subjected to 24-h chilling (SS). Additionally, both stress treatments were followed by 24 h of recovery in the optimal conditions (accordingly LSR and SR). Using the 2D gel electrophoresis and MALDI-TOF MS protein identification, it was revealed, that most of the proteins undergoing regulation under the applied conditions were implicated in metabolism, protection against stress, cell cycle regulation, cell structure maintenance and hormone synthesis, which altogether may influence root growth and development in the early stages of plant life. The obtained results have shown that most of detected alterations in the proteome patterns of pea roots are dependent on stress duration. However, there are some analogical response pathways which are triggered regardless of stress length. The functions of proteins which accumulation has been changed by chilling stress and post-stress recovery are discussed here in relation to their impact on pea roots development. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  9. Fringe patterns generated by micro-optical sensors for pattern recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tamee, Kreangsak; Chaiwong, Khomyuth; Yothapakdee, Kriengsak; Yupapin, Preecha P

    2015-01-01

    We present a new result of pattern recognition generation scheme using a small-scale optical muscle sensing system, which consisted of an optical add-drop filter incorporating two nonlinear optical side ring resonators. When light from laser source enters into the system, the device is stimulated by an external physical parameter that introduces a change in the phase of light propagation within the sensing device, which can be formed by the interference fringe patterns. Results obtained have shown that the fringe patterns can be used to form the relationship between signal patterns and fringe pattern recognitions.

  10. Changes in protein composition and protein phosphorylation during ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Changes in protein profiles and protein phosphorylation were studied in various stages of germinating somatic and zygotic embryos. Many proteins, which were expressed in cotyledonary stage somatic embryos, were also present in the zygotic embryos obtained from mature dry seed. The intensity of 22 kDa protein was ...

  11. Selectivity in protein degradation during sporulation of Bacillus subtilis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mitani, Takahiko; Kadota, Hajime

    1976-01-01

    The breakdown of cellular protein was investigated in Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6051 labeled with glycine-2- 3 H or L-phenylalanine-U- 14 C at the different stages of vegetative growth and sporulation. The growth of the culture was determined by measuring optical density at 660 nm. The heat-resistant spores were scored by plating after heating at 80 deg C for 10 minutes. A question whether the turnover of glycine-labeled protein is similar to that of phenylalanine-labeled protein was experimentally studied. The patterns obtained with the glycine-labeled protein were different from those of phenylalanine-labeled protein. This was not multiple turnover. The cellular protein which was labeled with glycine at an early stage of sporulation showed rapid degradation, but the degradation of the protein labeled with glycine at later stages did not occur at all. Another question whether the labeled glycine incorporated into cells at the different stages of growth and sporulation was present in the spore coat fraction of matured spores was studied. Experiment demonstrated that the glycine incorporated into cells at the late sporulation stage was mainly utilized for the biosynthesis of the spore coat protein. These data suggest that the spore coat protein which contains relatively large amount of glycine is rarely subject to further degradation. (Iwakiri, K.)

  12. Wnt/Yes-Associated Protein Interactions During Neural Tissue Patterning of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bejoy, Julie; Song, Liqing; Zhou, Yi; Li, Yan

    2018-04-01

    Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have special ability to self-assemble into neural spheroids or mini-brain-like structures. During the self-assembly process, Wnt signaling plays an important role in regional patterning and establishing positional identity of hiPSC-derived neural progenitors. Recently, the role of Wnt signaling in regulating Yes-associated protein (YAP) expression (nuclear or cytoplasmic), the pivotal regulator during organ growth and tissue generation, has attracted increasing interests. However, the interactions between Wnt and YAP expression for neural lineage commitment of hiPSCs remain poorly explored. The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of Wnt signaling and YAP expression on the cellular population in three-dimensional (3D) neural spheroids derived from hiPSCs. In this study, Wnt signaling was activated using CHIR99021 for 3D neural spheroids derived from human iPSK3 cells through embryoid body formation. Our results indicate that Wnt activation induces nuclear localization of YAP and upregulates the expression of HOXB4, the marker for hindbrain/spinal cord. By contrast, the cells exhibit more rostral forebrain neural identity (expression of TBR1) without Wnt activation. Cytochalasin D was then used to induce cytoplasmic YAP and the results showed the decreased HOXB4 expression. In addition, the incorporation of microparticles in the neural spheroids was investigated for the perturbation of neural patterning. This study may indicate the bidirectional interactions of Wnt signaling and YAP expression during neural tissue patterning, which have the significance in neurological disease modeling, drug screening, and neural tissue regeneration.

  13. An antiviral disulfide compound blocks interaction between arenavirus Z protein and cellular promyelocytic leukemia protein

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Garcia, C.C.; Topisirovic, I.; Djavani, M.; Borden, K.L.B.; Damonte, E.B.; Salvato, M.S.

    2010-01-01

    The promyelocytic leukemia protein (PML) forms nuclear bodies (NB) that can be redistributed by virus infection. In particular, lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) influences disruption of PML NB through the interaction of PML with the arenaviral Z protein. In a previous report, we have shown that the disulfide compound NSC20625 has antiviral and virucidal properties against arenaviruses, inducing unfolding and oligomerization of Z without affecting cellular RING-containing proteins such as the PML. Here, we further studied the effect of the zinc-finger-reactive disulfide NSC20625 on PML-Z interaction. In HepG2 cells infected with LCMV or transiently transfected with Z protein constructs, treatment with NSC20625 restored PML distribution from a diffuse-cytoplasmic pattern to punctate, discrete NB which appeared identical to NB found in control, uninfected cells. Similar results were obtained in cells transfected with a construct expressing a Z mutant in zinc-binding site 2 of the RING domain, confirming that this Z-PML interaction requires the integrity of only one zinc-binding site. Altogether, these results show that the compound NSC20625 suppressed Z-mediated PML NB disruption and may be used as a tool for designing novel antiviral strategies against arenavirus infection.

  14. Truncated States Obtained by Iteration

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cardoso, W. B.; Almeida, N. G. de

    2008-01-01

    We introduce the concept of truncated states obtained via iterative processes (TSI) and study its statistical features, making an analogy with dynamical systems theory (DST). As a specific example, we have studied TSI for the doubling and the logistic functions, which are standard functions in studying chaos. TSI for both the doubling and logistic functions exhibit certain similar patterns when their statistical features are compared from the point of view of DST

  15. Heat shock proteins of higher plants

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Key, J.L.; Lin, C.Y.; Chen, Y.M.

    1981-01-01

    The pattern of protein synthesis changes rapidly and dramatically when the growth temperture of soybean seedling tissue is increased from 28 0 C (normal) to about 40 0 C (heat shock). The synthesis of normal proteins is greatly decreased and a new set of proteins, heat shock proteins, is induced. The heat shock proteins of soybean consist of 10 new bands on one-dimensional NaDodSO 4 gels; a more complex pattern is observed on two-dimensional gels. when the tissue is returned to 28 0 C after 4 hr at 40 0 C, there is progressive decline in the synthesis of heat shock proteins and reappearance of a normal pattern of synthesis by 3 or 4 hr. In vitro translation of poly(A) + RNAs isolated from tissued grown at 28 and 40 0 C shows that the heat shock proteins are translated from a ndw set of mRNAs induced at 40 0 C; furthermore, the abundant class mRNAs for many of the normal proteins persist even though they are translated weakly (or not at all) in vivo at 40 or 42.5 0 C. The heat shock response in soybean appears similar to the much-studied heat shock phenomenon in Drosophila

  16. Dietary Protein Intake and Distribution Patterns of Well-Trained Dutch Athletes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gillen, Jenna B; Trommelen, Jorn; Wardenaar, Floris C; Brinkmans, Naomi Y J; Versteegen, Joline J; Jonvik, Kristin L; Kapp, Christoph; de Vries, Jeanne; van den Borne, Joost J G C; Gibala, Martin J; van Loon, Luc J C

    2017-04-01

    Dietary protein intake should be optimized in all athletes to ensure proper recovery and enhance the skeletal muscle adaptive response to exercise training. In addition to total protein intake, the use of specific proteincontaining food sources and the distribution of protein throughout the day are relevant for optimizing protein intake in athletes. In the present study, we examined the daily intake and distribution of various proteincontaining food sources in a large cohort of strength, endurance and team-sport athletes. Well-trained male (n=327) and female (n=226) athletes completed multiple web-based 24-hr dietary recalls over a 2-4 wk period. Total energy intake, the contribution of animal- and plant-based proteins to daily protein intake, and protein intake at six eating moments were determined. Daily protein intake averaged 108±33 and 90±24 g in men and women, respectively, which corresponded to relative intakes of 1.5±0.4 and 1.4±0.4 g/kg. Dietary protein intake was correlated with total energy intake in strength (r=0.71, p sport (r=0.77, p protein intake was 57% and 43%, respectively. The distribution of protein intake was 19% (19±8 g) at breakfast, 24% (25±13 g) at lunch and 38% (38±15 g) at dinner. Protein intake was below the recommended 20 g for 58% of athletes at breakfast, 36% at lunch and 8% at dinner. In summary, this survey of athletes revealed they habitually consume > 1.2 g protein/kg/d, but the distribution throughout the day may be suboptimal to maximize the skeletal muscle adaptive response to training.

  17. Main Strategies of Plant Expression System Glycoengineering for Producing Humanized Recombinant Pharmaceutical Proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rozov, S M; Permyakova, N V; Deineko, E V

    2018-03-01

    Most the pharmaceutical proteins are derived not from their natural sources, rather their recombinant analogs are synthesized in various expression systems. Plant expression systems, unlike mammalian cell cultures, combine simplicity and low cost of procaryotic systems and the ability for posttranslational modifications inherent in eucaryotes. More than 50% of all human proteins and more than 40% of the currently used pharmaceutical proteins are glycosylated, that is, they are glycoproteins, and their biological activity, pharmacodynamics, and immunogenicity depend on the correct glycosylation pattern. This review examines in detail the similarities and differences between N- and O-glycosylation in plant and mammalian cells, as well as the effect of plant glycans on the activity, pharmacokinetics, immunity, and intensity of biosynthesis of pharmaceutical proteins. The main current strategies of glycoengineering of plant expression systems aimed at obtaining fully humanized proteins for pharmaceutical application are summarized.

  18. Chronic Maternal Low-Protein Diet in Mice Affects Anxiety, Night-Time Energy Expenditure and Sleep Patterns, but Not Circadian Rhythm in Male Offspring.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Randy F Crossland

    Full Text Available Offspring of murine dams chronically fed a protein-restricted diet have an increased risk for metabolic and neurobehavioral disorders. Previously we showed that adult offspring, developmentally exposed to a chronic maternal low-protein (MLP diet, had lower body and hind-leg muscle weights and decreased liver enzyme serum levels. We conducted energy expenditure, neurobehavioral and circadian rhythm assays in male offspring to examine mechanisms for the body-weight phenotype and assess neurodevelopmental implications of MLP exposure. C57BL/6J dams were fed a protein restricted (8%protein, MLP or a control protein (20% protein, C diet from four weeks before mating until weaning of offspring. Male offspring were weaned to standard rodent diet (20% protein and single-housed until 8-12 weeks of age. We examined body composition, food intake, energy expenditure, spontaneous rearing activity and sleep patterns and performed behavioral assays for anxiety (open field activity, elevated plus maze [EPM], light/dark exploration, depression (tail suspension and forced swim test, sociability (three-chamber, repetitive (marble burying, learning and memory (fear conditioning, and circadian behavior (wheel-running activity during light-dark and constant dark cycles. We also measured circadian gene expression in hypothalamus and liver at different Zeitgeber times (ZT. Male offspring from separate MLP exposed dams had significantly greater body fat (P = 0.03, less energy expenditure (P = 0.004, less rearing activity (P = 0.04 and a greater number of night-time rest/sleep bouts (P = 0.03 compared to control. MLP offspring displayed greater anxiety-like behavior in the EPM (P<0.01 but had no learning and memory deficit in fear-conditioning assay (P = 0.02. There was an effect of time on Per1, Per 2 and Clock circadian gene expression in the hypothalamus but not on circadian behavior. Thus, transplacental and early developmental exposure of dams to chronic MLP reduces

  19. Combinatorial pattern discovery approach for the folding trajectory analysis of a beta-hairpin.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laxmi Parida

    2005-06-01

    Full Text Available The study of protein folding mechanisms continues to be one of the most challenging problems in computational biology. Currently, the protein folding mechanism is often characterized by calculating the free energy landscape versus various reaction coordinates, such as the fraction of native contacts, the radius of gyration, RMSD from the native structure, and so on. In this paper, we present a combinatorial pattern discovery approach toward understanding the global state changes during the folding process. This is a first step toward an unsupervised (and perhaps eventually automated approach toward identification of global states. The approach is based on computing biclusters (or patterned clusters-each cluster is a combination of various reaction coordinates, and its signature pattern facilitates the computation of the Z-score for the cluster. For this discovery process, we present an algorithm of time complexity c in RO((N + nm log n, where N is the size of the output patterns and (n x m is the size of the input with n time frames and m reaction coordinates. To date, this is the best time complexity for this problem. We next apply this to a beta-hairpin folding trajectory and demonstrate that this approach extracts crucial information about protein folding intermediate states and mechanism. We make three observations about the approach: (1 The method recovers states previously obtained by visually analyzing free energy surfaces. (2 It also succeeds in extracting meaningful patterns and structures that had been overlooked in previous works, which provides a better understanding of the folding mechanism of the beta-hairpin. These new patterns also interconnect various states in existing free energy surfaces versus different reaction coordinates. (3 The approach does not require calculating the free energy values, yet it offers an analysis comparable to, and sometimes better than, the methods that use free energy landscapes, thus validating the

  20. Combinatorial Pattern Discovery Approach for the Folding Trajectory Analysis of a beta-Hairpin.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    2005-06-01

    Full Text Available The study of protein folding mechanisms continues to be one of the most challenging problems in computational biology. Currently, the protein folding mechanism is often characterized by calculating the free energy landscape versus various reaction coordinates, such as the fraction of native contacts, the radius of gyration, RMSD from the native structure, and so on. In this paper, we present a combinatorial pattern discovery approach toward understanding the global state changes during the folding process. This is a first step toward an unsupervised (and perhaps eventually automated approach toward identification of global states. The approach is based on computing biclusters (or patterned clusters-each cluster is a combination of various reaction coordinates, and its signature pattern facilitates the computation of the Z-score for the cluster. For this discovery process, we present an algorithm of time complexity cinRO((N + nm log n, where N is the size of the output patterns and (n x m is the size of the input with n time frames and m reaction coordinates. To date, this is the best time complexity for this problem. We next apply this to a beta-hairpin folding trajectory and demonstrate that this approach extracts crucial information about protein folding intermediate states and mechanism. We make three observations about the approach: (1 The method recovers states previously obtained by visually analyzing free energy surfaces. (2 It also succeeds in extracting meaningful patterns and structures that had been overlooked in previous works, which provides a better understanding of the folding mechanism of the beta-hairpin. These new patterns also interconnect various states in existing free energy surfaces versus different reaction coordinates. (3 The approach does not require calculating the free energy values, yet it offers an analysis comparable to, and sometimes better than, the methods that use free energy landscapes, thus validating the

  1. Different expression patterns of renal Na+/K+-ATPase α-isoform-like proteins between tilapia and milkfish following salinity challenges.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Wen-Kai; Chung, Chang-Hung; Cheng, Hui Chen; Tang, Cheng-Hao; Lee, Tsung-Han

    2016-12-01

    Euryhaline teleosts can survive in a broad range of salinity via alteration of the molecular mechanisms in certain osmoregulatory organs, including in the gill and kidney. Among these mechanisms, Na + /K + -ATPase (NKA) plays a crucial role in triggering ion-transporting systems. The switch of NKA isoforms in euryhaline fish gills substantially contributes to salinity adaptation. However, there is little information about switches in the kidneys of euryhaline teleosts. Therefore, the responses of the renal NKA α-isoform protein switch to salinity challenge in euryhaline tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) and milkfish (Chanos chanos) with different salinity preferences were examined and compared in this study. Immunohistochemical staining in tilapia kidneys revealed the localization of NKA in renal tubules rather than in the glomeruli, similar to our previous findings in milkfish kidneys. Protein abundance in the renal NKA pan α-subunit-like, α1-, and α3-isoform-like proteins in seawater-acclimated tilapia was significantly higher than in the freshwater group, whereas the α2-isoform-like protein exhibited the opposite pattern of expression. In the milkfish, higher protein abundance in the renal NKA pan α-subunit-like and α1-isoform-like proteins was found in freshwater-acclimated fish, whereas no difference was found in the protein abundance of α2- and α3-isoform-like proteins between groups. These findings suggested that switches for renal NKA α-isoforms, especially the α1-isoform, were involved in renal osmoregulatory mechanisms of euryhaline teleosts. Moreover, differences in regulatory responses of the renal NKA α-subunit to salinity acclimation between tilapia and milkfish revealed that divergent mechanisms for maintaining osmotic balance might be employed by euryhaline teleosts with different salinity preferences. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. Directed assembly of functional light harvesting antenna complexes onto chemically patterned surfaces

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Escalante, Maryana; Maury, Pascale; Bruinink, Christiaan M; Werf, Kees van der; Olsen, John D; Timney, John A; Huskens, Jurriaan; Hunter, C Neil; Subramaniam, Vinod; Otto, Cees

    2008-01-01

    We report the directed assembly of the photosynthetic membrane proteins LH1 and LH2 isolated from the purple bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides onto chemically patterned substrates. Nanoimprint lithography was used to pattern discrete regions of amino- and fluoro-terminated or poly(ethylene glycol) self-assembled monolayers onto a glass substrate. Densely packed layers of assembled protein complexes were observed with atomic force microscopy. The protein complexes attached selectively to the amino-terminated regions by electrostatic interactions. Spectral images generated with a hybrid scanning probe and fluorescence microscope confirmed that the patterned proteins retained their native optical signatures

  3. Directed assembly of functional light harvesting antenna complexes onto chemically patterned surfaces

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Escalante, Maryana [Biophysical Engineering Group, MESA and Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede (Netherlands); Maury, Pascale [Molecular Nanofabrication Group, MESA and Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede (Netherlands); Bruinink, Christiaan M [Molecular Nanofabrication Group, MESA and Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede (Netherlands); Werf, Kees van der [Biophysical Engineering Group, MESA and Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede (Netherlands); Olsen, John D [Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN (United Kingdom); Timney, John A [Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN (United Kingdom); Huskens, Jurriaan [Molecular Nanofabrication Group, MESA and Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede (Netherlands); Hunter, C Neil [Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN (United Kingdom); Subramaniam, Vinod [Biophysical Engineering Group, MESA and Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede (Netherlands); Otto, Cees [Biophysical Engineering Group, MESA and Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede (Netherlands)

    2008-01-16

    We report the directed assembly of the photosynthetic membrane proteins LH1 and LH2 isolated from the purple bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides onto chemically patterned substrates. Nanoimprint lithography was used to pattern discrete regions of amino- and fluoro-terminated or poly(ethylene glycol) self-assembled monolayers onto a glass substrate. Densely packed layers of assembled protein complexes were observed with atomic force microscopy. The protein complexes attached selectively to the amino-terminated regions by electrostatic interactions. Spectral images generated with a hybrid scanning probe and fluorescence microscope confirmed that the patterned proteins retained their native optical signatures.

  4. Femtosecond Laser Direct Write Integration of Multi-Protein Patterns and 3D Microstructures into 3D Glass Microfluidic Devices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniela Serien

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Microfluidic devices and biochips offer miniaturized laboratories for the separation, reaction, and analysis of biochemical materials with high sensitivity and low reagent consumption. The integration of functional or biomimetic elements further functionalizes microfluidic devices for more complex biological studies. The recently proposed ship-in-a-bottle integration based on laser direct writing allows the construction of microcomponents made of photosensitive polymer inside closed microfluidic structures. Here, we expand this technology to integrate proteinaceous two-dimensional (2D and three-dimensional (3D microstructures with the aid of photo-induced cross-linking into glass microchannels. The concept is demonstrated with bovine serum albumin and enhanced green fluorescent protein, each mixed with photoinitiator (Sodium 4-[2-(4-Morpholino benzoyl-2-dimethylamino] butylbenzenesulfonate. Unlike the polymer integration, fabrication over the entire channel cross-section is challenging. Two proteins are integrated into the same channel to demonstrate multi-protein patterning. Using 50% w/w glycerol solvent instead of 100% water achieves almost the same fabrication resolution for in-channel fabrication as on-surface fabrication due to the improved refractive index matching, enabling the fabrication of 3D microstructures. A glycerol-water solvent also reduces the risk of drying samples. We believe this technology can integrate diverse proteins to contribute to the versatility of microfluidics.

  5. Bioinformatical Analysis of Organ-Related (Heart, Brain, Liver, and Kidney and Serum Proteomic Data to Identify Protein Regulation Patterns and Potential Sepsis Biomarkers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andreas Hohn

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available During the last years, proteomic studies have revealed several interesting findings in experimental sepsis models and septic patients. However, most studies investigated protein alterations only in single organs or in whole blood. To identify possible sepsis biomarkers and to evaluate the relationship between protein alteration in sepsis affected organs and blood, proteomics data from the heart, brain, liver, kidney, and serum were analysed. Using functional network analyses in combination with hierarchical cluster analysis, we found that protein regulation patterns in organ tissues as well as in serum are highly dynamic. In the tissue proteome, the main functions and pathways affected were the oxidoreductive activity, cell energy generation, or metabolism, whereas in the serum proteome, functions were associated with lipoproteins metabolism and, to a minor extent, with coagulation, inflammatory response, and organ regeneration. Proteins from network analyses of organ tissue did not correlate with statistically significantly regulated serum proteins or with predicted proteins of serum functions. In this study, the combination of proteomic network analyses with cluster analyses is introduced as an approach to deal with high-throughput proteomics data to evaluate the dynamics of protein regulation during sepsis.

  6. Egg-yolk protein by-product as a source of ACE-inhibitory peptides obtained with using unconventional proteinase from Asian pumpkin (Cucurbita ficifolia).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eckert, Ewelina; Zambrowicz, Aleksandra; Pokora, Marta; Setner, Bartosz; Dąbrowska, Anna; Szołtysik, Marek; Szewczuk, Zbigniew; Polanowski, Antoni; Trziszka, Tadeusz; Chrzanowska, Józefa

    2014-10-14

    In the present study angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory peptides were isolated from egg-yolk protein preparation (YP). Enzymatic hydrolysis conducted using unconventional enzyme from Cucurbita ficifolia (dose: 1000 U/mg of hydrolyzed YP (E/S (w/w)=1:7.52)) was employed to obtain protein hydrolysates. The 4-h hydrolysate exhibited a significant (IC₅₀=482.5 μg/mL) ACE inhibitory activity. Moreover, hydrolysate showed no cytotoxic activity on human and animal cell lines which makes it a very useful multifunctional method for peptide preparation. The compiled isolation procedure (ultrafiltration, size-exclusion chromatography and RP-HPLC) of bioactive peptides from YP hydrolysate resulted in obtaining peptides with the strong ACE inhibitory activity. One homogeneous and three heterogeneous peptide fractions were identified. The peptides were composed of 9-18 amino-acid residues, including mainly arginine and leucine at the N-terminal positions. To confirm the selected bioactive peptide sequences their analogs were chemically synthesized and tested. Peptide LAPSLPGKPKPD showed the strongest ACE inhibitory activity, with IC₅₀ value of 1.97 μmol/L. Peptides with specific biological activity can be used in pharmaceutical, cosmetic or food industries. Because of their potential role as physiological modulators, as well as theirhigh safety profile, they can be used as natural pharmacological compounds or functional food ingredients. The development of biotechnological solutions to obtain peptides with desired biological activity is already in progress. Studies in this area are focused on using unconventional highly specific enzymes and more efficient methods developed to conduct food process technologies. Natural peptides have many advantages. They are mainly toxicologically safe, have wide spectra of therapeutic actions, exhibit less side effects compared to synthetic drugs and are more efficiently absorbed in the intestinal tract. The complexity of

  7. Obtaining of interspecific hybrids for pea introgressive breeding

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sergey Vasilevich Bobkov

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Background. Overcoming of reproductive isolation, identification and transfer of agronomic value genes from wild relatives into cultivated pea genomes is an important task for pea introgressive breeding. Materials and methods. Reciprocal hybridization of cultivated pea with wide set of P. fulvum accessions was conducted. Identification of hybrids was carried out with use of biochemical and morphological markers. Identification of unique protein was conducted with use of electrophoretic spectra of mature seeds. Results. Pea interspecific hybrids were obtained in two reciprocal directions of crosses. Cross efficiency in Р. sativum × P. fulvum and P. fulvum × Р. sativum combinations was 36 % and 7 %, respectively. All tested seeds in crosses Р. sativum × P. fulvum were hybrids. Crosses in direction P. fulvum × Р. sativum led to formation of puny seeds restricted in embryo growth. Protein markers of one seed derived in cross P. fulvum × Р. sativum proved its hybrid nature. Morphological markers demonstrated that plant derived from another cross was also a hybrid. Culture of immature embryos was developed for recovering plants in interspecific crosses. Morphogenic calli and regenerated plants were obtained in culture of immature embryos P. fulvum (И592589 × Р. sativum (Aest. Identification of unique protein 7 of P. fulvum was conducted. Inheritance of that protein was proved as monogenic dominant. Conclusion. Efficiency of hybridization in combination P. fulvum × Р. sativum was significantly less in compare to reciprocal one. All products of that cross combination were tested as hybrids. Unique protein 7 of P. fulvum was revealed as a result of mature seed electrophoretic spectra analysis. Inheritance of that protein was determined as monogenic dominant.

  8. Nutritional potential of green banana flour obtained by drying in spouted bed

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carolina Vieira Bezerra

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available This study evaluated the chemical composition of peeled and unpeeled green banana Cavendish (AAA flour obtained by drying in spouted bed, aiming at adding nutritional value to food products. The bananas were sliced and crushed to obtain a paste and fed to the spouted bed dryer (12 cm height and T = 80 ºC in order to obtain flour. The flours obtained were subjected to analysis of moisture, protein, ash, carbohydrates, total starch, resistant starch, fiber. The green banana flours, mainly unpeeled, are good sources of fiber and resistant starch with an average of 21.91g/100g and 68.02g/100g respectively. The protein content was found in an average of 4.76g/100g, being classified as a low biological value protein with lysine as the first limiting amino acid. The results showed that unpeeled green banana flour obtained by spouted bed drying can be a valuable tool to add nutritional value to products in order to increase their non-digestible fraction.

  9. Angiotensin I-Converting Enzyme (ACE Inhibitory Activity and ACE Inhibitory Peptides of Salmon (Salmo salar Protein Hydrolysates Obtained by Human and Porcine Gastrointestinal Enzymes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Małgorzata Darewicz

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available The objectives of the present study were two-fold: first, to detect whether salmon protein fractions possess angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE inhibitory properties and whether salmon proteins can release ACE inhibitory peptides during a sequential in vitro hydrolysis (with commercial porcine enzymes and ex vivo digestion (with human gastrointestinal enzymes. Secondly, to evaluate the ACE inhibitory activity of generated hydrolysates. A two-step ex vivo and in vitro model digestion was performed to simulate the human digestion process. Salmon proteins were degraded more efficiently by porcine enzymes than by human gastrointestinal juices and sarcoplasmic proteins were digested/hydrolyzed more easily than myofibrillar proteins. The ex vivo digested myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic duodenal samples showed IC50 values (concentration required to decrease the ACE activity by 50% of 1.06 and 2.16 mg/mL, respectively. The in vitro hydrolyzed myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic samples showed IC50 values of 0.91 and 1.04 mg/mL, respectively. Based on the results of in silico studies, it was possible to identify 9 peptides of the ex vivo hydrolysates and 7 peptides of the in vitro hydrolysates of salmon proteins of 11 selected peptides. In both types of salmon hydrolysates, ACE-inhibitory peptides IW, IY, TVY and VW were identified. In the in vitro salmon protein hydrolysates an ACE-inhibitory peptides VPW and VY were also detected, while ACE-inhibitory peptides ALPHA, IVY and IWHHT were identified in the hydrolysates generated with ex vivo digestion. In our studies, we documented ACE inhibitory in vitro effects of salmon protein hydrolysates obtained by human and as well as porcine gastrointestinal enzymes.

  10. Seed coat color, weight and eye pattern inheritance in gamma-rays induced cowpea M2-mutant line

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Reda M. Gaafar

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Gamma radiation is a very effective tool for inducing genetic variation in characters of many plants. Black seeds of M2 mutant were obtained after exposure of an Egyptian cowpea cultivar (Kaha 1 to a low dose of gamma rays. Segregation of seed coat color, weight of 100 seeds and seed eye pattern of the black seeds of this mutant line were further examined in this study. Four colors were observed for seed coat in the M3 plants ranging from cream to reddish brown and three eye patterns were distinguished from each other. SDS–PAGE of the seed storage proteins showed 18 protein bands; five of these bands disappeared in the seeds of M3 plants compared to M2 and M0 controls while other 5 protein bands were specifically observed in seeds of M3 plants. PCR analysis using twelve ISSR primers showed 47 polymorphic and 8 unique amplicons. The eight unique amplicons were characteristic of the cream coat color and brown wide eye pattern (M03-G10 while the polymorphic bands were shared by 6 coat-color groups. A PCR fragment of 850 bp was amplified, using primer HB-12, in M3-G04 which showed high-100 seed weight. These results demonstrated the mutagenic effects of gamma rays on seed coat color, weight of 100 seeds and eye pattern of cowpea M3 mutant plants.

  11. A simple biosynthetic method for stereospecific resonance assignment of prochiral methyl groups in proteins

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Plevin, Michael J.; Hamelin, Olivier; Boisbouvier, Jérôme; Gans, Pierre

    2011-01-01

    A new method for stereospecific assignment of prochiral methyl groups in proteins is presented in which protein samples are produced using U-[ 13 C]glucose and subsaturating amounts of 2-[ 13 C]methyl-acetolactate. The resulting non-uniform labeling pattern allows proR and proS methyl groups to be easily distinguished by their different phases in a constant-time two-dimensional 1 H- 13 C correlation spectra. Protein samples are conveniently prepared using the same media composition as the main uniformly-labeled sample and contain higher levels of isotope-enrichment than fractional labeling approaches. This new strategy thus represents an economically-attractive, robust alternative for obtaining isotopically-encoded stereospecific NMR assignments of prochiral methyl groups.

  12. Emergence of modularity and disassortativity in protein-protein interaction networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wan, Xi; Cai, Shuiming; Zhou, Jin; Liu, Zengrong

    2010-12-01

    In this paper, we present a simple evolution model of protein-protein interaction networks by introducing a rule of small-preference duplication of a node, meaning that the probability of a node chosen to duplicate is inversely proportional to its degree, and subsequent divergence plus nonuniform heterodimerization based on some plausible mechanisms in biology. We show that our model cannot only reproduce scale-free connectivity and small-world pattern, but also exhibit hierarchical modularity and disassortativity. After comparing the features of our model with those of real protein-protein interaction networks, we believe that our model can provide relevant insights into the mechanism underlying the evolution of protein-protein interaction networks. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.

  13. Impact of homogenization and protein extraction conditions on the obtained tobacco pollen proteomic patterns

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Fíla, Jan; Čapková, Věra; Feciková, Jana; Honys, David

    2011-01-01

    Roč. 55, č. 3 (2011), s. 499-506 ISSN 0006-3134 R&D Projects: GA MŠk OC08011; GA ČR(CZ) GAP501/11/1462 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z50380511 Keywords : proteomics * Roche MagNA Lyser Instrument * ARABIDOPSIS-THALIANA Subject RIV: ED - Physiology Impact factor: 1.974, year: 2011

  14. Heat Shock Proteins: A Review of the Molecular Chaperones for Plant Immunity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Chang-Jin; Seo, Young-Su

    2015-12-01

    As sessile organisms, plants are exposed to persistently changing stresses and have to be able to interpret and respond to them. The stresses, drought, salinity, chemicals, cold and hot temperatures, and various pathogen attacks have interconnected effects on plants, resulting in the disruption of protein homeostasis. Maintenance of proteins in their functional native conformations and preventing aggregation of non-native proteins are important for cell survival under stress. Heat shock proteins (HSPs) functioning as molecular chaperones are the key components responsible for protein folding, assembly, translocation, and degradation under stress conditions and in many normal cellular processes. Plants respond to pathogen invasion using two different innate immune responses mediated by pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) or resistance (R) proteins. HSPs play an indispensable role as molecular chaperones in the quality control of plasma membrane-resident PRRs and intracellular R proteins against potential invaders. Here, we specifically discuss the functional involvement of cytosolic and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) HSPs/chaperones in plant immunity to obtain an integrated understanding of the immune responses in plant cells.

  15. Heat Shock Proteins: A Review of the Molecular Chaperones for Plant Immunity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chang-Jin Park

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available As sessile organisms, plants are exposed to persistently changing stresses and have to be able to interpret and respond to them. The stresses, drought, salinity, chemicals, cold and hot temperatures, and various pathogen attacks have interconnected effects on plants, resulting in the disruption of protein homeostasis. Maintenance of proteins in their functional native conformations and preventing aggregation of non-native proteins are important for cell survival under stress. Heat shock proteins (HSPs functioning as molecular chaperones are the key components responsible for protein folding, assembly, translocation, and degradation under stress conditions and in many normal cellular processes. Plants respond to pathogen invasion using two different innate immune responses mediated by pattern recognition receptors (PRRs or resistance (R proteins. HSPs play an indispensable role as molecular chaperones in the quality control of plasma membrane-resident PRRs and intracellular R proteins against potential invaders. Here, we specifically discuss the functional involvement of cytosolic and endoplasmic reticulum (ER HSPs/chaperones in plant immunity to obtain an integrated understanding of the immune responses in plant cells.

  16. Protein Molecular Structures, Protein SubFractions, and Protein Availability Affected by Heat Processing: A Review

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yu, P.

    2007-01-01

    The utilization and availability of protein depended on the types of protein and their specific susceptibility to enzymatic hydrolysis (inhibitory activities) in the gastrointestine and was highly associated with protein molecular structures. Studying internal protein structure and protein subfraction profiles leaded to an understanding of the components that make up a whole protein. An understanding of the molecular structure of the whole protein was often vital to understanding its digestive behavior and nutritive value in animals. In this review, recently obtained information on protein molecular structural effects of heat processing was reviewed, in relation to protein characteristics affecting digestive behavior and nutrient utilization and availability. The emphasis of this review was on (1) using the newly advanced synchrotron technology (S-FTIR) as a novel approach to reveal protein molecular chemistry affected by heat processing within intact plant tissues; (2) revealing the effects of heat processing on the profile changes of protein subfractions associated with digestive behaviors and kinetics manipulated by heat processing; (3) prediction of the changes of protein availability and supply after heat processing, using the advanced DVE/OEB and NRC-2001 models, and (4) obtaining information on optimal processing conditions of protein as intestinal protein source to achieve target values for potential high net absorbable protein in the small intestine. The information described in this article may give better insight in the mechanisms involved and the intrinsic protein molecular structural changes occurring upon processing.

  17. Sequence-specific 1H NMR resonance assignments of Bacillus subtilis HPr: Use of spectra obtained from mutants to resolve spectral overlap

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wittekind, M.; Klevit, R.E.; Reizer, J.

    1990-01-01

    On the basis of an analysis of two-dimensional 1 H NMR spectra, the complete sequence-specific 1 H NMR assignments are presented for the phosphocarrier protein HPr from the Gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis. During the assignment procedure, extensive use was made of spectra obtained from point mutants of HPr in order to resolve spectral overlap and to provide verification of assignments. Regions of regular secondary structure were identified by characteristic patterns of sequential backbone proton NOEs and slowly exchanging amide protons. B subtilis HPr contains four β-strands that form a single antiparallel β-sheet and two well-defined α-helices. There are two stretches of extended backbone structure, one of which contains the active site His 15 . The overall fold of the protein is very similar to that of Escherichia coli HPr determined by NMR studies

  18. Prediction of Protein-Protein Interactions Related to Protein Complexes Based on Protein Interaction Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peng Liu

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available A method for predicting protein-protein interactions based on detected protein complexes is proposed to repair deficient interactions derived from high-throughput biological experiments. Protein complexes are pruned and decomposed into small parts based on the adaptive k-cores method to predict protein-protein interactions associated with the complexes. The proposed method is adaptive to protein complexes with different structure, number, and size of nodes in a protein-protein interaction network. Based on different complex sets detected by various algorithms, we can obtain different prediction sets of protein-protein interactions. The reliability of the predicted interaction sets is proved by using estimations with statistical tests and direct confirmation of the biological data. In comparison with the approaches which predict the interactions based on the cliques, the overlap of the predictions is small. Similarly, the overlaps among the predicted sets of interactions derived from various complex sets are also small. Thus, every predicted set of interactions may complement and improve the quality of the original network data. Meanwhile, the predictions from the proposed method replenish protein-protein interactions associated with protein complexes using only the network topology.

  19. Craniopharyngioma: identification of different semiological patterns by magnetic resonance

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Molla, E.; Marti-Bonmati, L.; Casillas, C.; Poyatos, C.; Menor, F.; Arana, E.

    1998-01-01

    To study craniopharyngiomas using different MR sequences to detect semiological patterns that aid in the characterization of the different components. We performed a retrospective MR study of 17 patients with confirmed craniopharyngioma. T1-weighted spin-echo, proton density-weighted, T2-weighted gradient-echo, T1-weighted (after administration of gadolinium), T1-weighted inversion recovery and phase and opposed-phase gradient echo sequences were employed to distinguish the different patterns. The semiologic patterns considered in MR were: solid-tissue, blood, protein, fat and fluid. A solid pole was detected in all the patients. There was a cystic component in 88.2% of cases; the protein pattern was observed in 52.9%, blood in 29.4%, fluid in 23.5% and fat in 11.7%. The coexistence of three patterns was detected in 29.4% and of two patterns in 58.8%. The calcium pattern was viewed in 75% of the patients studied with CT, with four patterns coexisting in 25%, three patterns in 41.6% and two patterns in 25%. MR detects different semiologic components in craniopharyngiomas, although it is necessary to employ certain unusual sequences in order to distinguish some patterns from others. (Author) 22 refs

  20. Production of tissue microarrays, immunohistochemistry staining and digitalization within the human protein atlas.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kampf, Caroline; Olsson, Ingmarie; Ryberg, Urban; Sjöstedt, Evelina; Pontén, Fredrik

    2012-05-31

    The tissue microarray (TMA) technology provides the means for high-throughput analysis of multiple tissues and cells. The technique is used within the Human Protein Atlas project for global analysis of protein expression patterns in normal human tissues, cancer and cell lines. Here we present the assembly of 1 mm cores, retrieved from microscopically selected representative tissues, into a single recipient TMA block. The number and size of cores in a TMA block can be varied from approximately forty 2 mm cores to hundreds of 0.6 mm cores. The advantage of using TMA technology is that large amount of data can rapidly be obtained using a single immunostaining protocol to avoid experimental variability. Importantly, only limited amount of scarce tissue is needed, which allows for the analysis of large patient cohorts (1 2). Approximately 250 consecutive sections (4 μm thick) can be cut from a TMA block and used for immunohistochemical staining to determine specific protein expression patterns for 250 different antibodies. In the Human Protein Atlas project, antibodies are generated towards all human proteins and used to acquire corresponding protein profiles in both normal human tissues from 144 individuals and cancer tissues from 216 different patients, representing the 20 most common forms of human cancer. Immunohistochemically stained TMA sections on glass slides are scanned to create high-resolution images from which pathologists can interpret and annotate the outcome of immunohistochemistry. Images together with corresponding pathology-based annotation data are made publically available for the research community through the Human Protein Atlas portal (www.proteinatlas.org) (Figure 1) (3 4). The Human Protein Atlas provides a map showing the distribution and relative abundance of proteins in the human body. The current version contains over 11 million images with protein expression data for 12.238 unique proteins, corresponding to more than 61% of all proteins

  1. In silico analysis of candidate proteins sharing homology with Streptococcus agalactiae proteins and their role in male infertility.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parida, Rajeshwari; Samanta, Luna

    2017-02-01

    Leukocytospermia is a physiologic condition defined as human semen with a leukocyte count of >1 x 10 6 cells/ml that is often correlated with male infertility. Moreover, bacteriospermia has been associated with leukocytospermia ultimately leading to male infertility. We have found that semen samples with >1 x 10 6 /ml leukocytes and/or bacteriospermia have oxidative predominance as evidenced by augmented protein carbonyl and lipid peroxidation status of the semen which is implicated in sperm dysfunction. It has been reported that Streptococcus agalactiae is present in bacteriospermic samples. Previous research has shown that human leukocyte antigen beta chain paralog (HLA-DRB) alleles interact best with the infected sperm cells rather than the non-infected cells. Little is known about the interaction of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) present on leukocytes with the sperm upon bacterial infection and how it induces an immunological response which we have addressed by epitope mapping. Therefore, we examined MHC class II derived bacterial peptides which might have human sperm-related functional aspects. Twenty-two S. agalactiae proteins were obtained from PUBMED protein database for our study. Protein sequences with more than two accession numbers were aligned using CLUSTAL Omega to check their conservation pattern. Each protein sequence was then analyzed for T-cell epitope prediction against HLA-DRB alleles using the immune epitope database (IEDB) analysis tool. Out of a plethora of peptides obtained from this analysis, peptides corresponding to proteins of interest such as DNA binding response regulator, hyaluronate lyase and laminin binding protein were screened against the human proteome using Blastp. Interestingly, we have found bacterial peptides sharing homology with human peptides deciphering some of the important sperm functions. Antibodies raised against these probable bacterial antigens of fertility will not only help us understand the mechanism of

  2. Dietary protein intake and distribution patterns of well-trained Dutch athletes

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gillen, Jenna B.; Trommelen, Jorn; Wardenaar, Floris C.; Brinkmans, Naomi Y.J.; Versteegen, Joline J.; Jonvik, Kristin L.; Kapp, Christoph; Vries, de Jeanne; Borne, van den Joost J.G.C.; Gibala, Martin J.; Loon, van Luc J.C.

    2017-01-01

    Dietary protein intake should be optimized in all athletes to ensure proper recovery and enhance the skeletal muscle adaptive response to exercise training. In addition to total protein intake, the use of specific proteincontaining food sources and the distribution of protein throughout the day

  3. Insights into the role of hydration in protein structure and stability obtained through hydrostatic pressure studies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    C.A. Royer

    2005-08-01

    Full Text Available A thorough understanding of protein structure and stability requires that we elucidate the molecular basis for the effects of both temperature and pressure on protein conformational transitions. While temperature effects are relatively well understood and the change in heat capacity upon unfolding has been reasonably well parameterized, the state of understanding of pressure effects is much less advanced. Ultimately, a quantitative parameterization of the volume changes (at the basis of pressure effects accompanying protein conformational transitions will be required. The present report introduces a qualitative hypothesis based on available model compound data for the molecular basis of volume change upon protein unfolding and its dependence on temperature.

  4. Translational regulation of ribosomal protein S15 drives characteristic patterns of protein-mRNA epistasis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mallik, Saurav; Basu, Sudipto; Hait, Suman; Kundu, Sudip

    2018-04-21

    Do coding and regulatory segments of a gene co-evolve with each-other? Seeking answers to this question, here we analyze the case of Escherichia coli ribosomal protein S15, that represses its own translation by specifically binding its messenger RNA (rpsO mRNA) and stabilizing a pseudoknot structure at the upstream untranslated region, thus trapping the ribosome into an incomplete translation initiation complex. In the absence of S15, ribosomal protein S1 recognizes rpsO and promotes translation by melting this very pseudoknot. We employ a robust statistical method to detect signatures of positive epistasis between residue site pairs and find that biophysical constraints of translational regulation (S15-rpsO and S1-rpsO recognition, S15-mediated rpsO structural rearrangement, and S1-mediated melting) are strong predictors of positive epistasis. Transforming the epistatic pairs into a network, we find that signatures of two different, but interconnected regulatory cascades are imprinted in the sequence-space and can be captured in terms of two dense network modules that are sparsely connected to each other. This network topology further reflects a general principle of how functionally coupled components of biological networks are interconnected. These results depict a model case, where translational regulation drives characteristic residue-level epistasis-not only between a protein and its own mRNA but also between a protein and the mRNA of an entirely different protein. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  5. AMYPdb: A database dedicated to amyloid precursor proteins

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Delamarche Christian

    2008-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Misfolding and aggregation of proteins into ordered fibrillar structures is associated with a number of severe pathologies, including Alzheimer's disease, prion diseases, and type II diabetes. The rapid accumulation of knowledge about the sequences and structures of these proteins allows using of in silico methods to investigate the molecular mechanisms of their abnormal conformational changes and assembly. However, such an approach requires the collection of accurate data, which are inconveniently dispersed among several generalist databases. Results We therefore created a free online knowledge database (AMYPdb dedicated to amyloid precursor proteins and we have performed large scale sequence analysis of the included data. Currently, AMYPdb integrates data on 31 families, including 1,705 proteins from nearly 600 organisms. It displays links to more than 2,300 bibliographic references and 1,200 3D-structures. A Wiki system is available to insert data into the database, providing a sharing and collaboration environment. We generated and analyzed 3,621 amino acid sequence patterns, reporting highly specific patterns for each amyloid family, along with patterns likely to be involved in protein misfolding and aggregation. Conclusion AMYPdb is a comprehensive online database aiming at the centralization of bioinformatic data regarding all amyloid proteins and their precursors. Our sequence pattern discovery and analysis approach unveiled protein regions of significant interest. AMYPdb is freely accessible 1.

  6. Two Nucleolar Proteins, GDP1 and OLI2, Function As Ribosome Biogenesis Factors and Are Preferentially Involved in Promotion of Leaf Cell Proliferation without Strongly Affecting Leaf Adaxial–Abaxial Patterning in Arabidopsis thaliana

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Koji Kojima

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Leaf abaxial–adaxial patterning is dependent on the mutual repression of leaf polarity genes expressed either adaxially or abaxially. In Arabidopsis thaliana, this process is strongly affected by mutations in ribosomal protein genes and in ribosome biogenesis genes in a sensitized genetic background, such as asymmetric leaves2 (as2. Most ribosome-related mutants by themselves do not show leaf abaxialization, and one of their typical phenotypes is the formation of pointed rather than rounded leaves. In this study, we characterized two ribosome-related mutants to understand how ribosome biogenesis is linked to several aspects of leaf development. Previously, we isolated oligocellula2 (oli2 which exhibits the pointed-leaf phenotype and has a cell proliferation defect. OLI2 encodes a homolog of Nop2 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a ribosome biogenesis factor involved in pre-60S subunit maturation. In this study, we found another pointed-leaf mutant that carries a mutation in a gene encoding an uncharacterized protein with a G-patch domain. Similar to oli2, this mutant, named g-patch domain protein1 (gdp1, has a reduced number of leaf cells. In addition, gdp1 oli2 double mutants showed a strong genetic interaction such that they synergistically impaired cell proliferation in leaves and produced markedly larger cells. On the other hand, they showed additive phenotypes when combined with several known ribosomal protein mutants. Furthermore, these mutants have a defect in pre-rRNA processing. GDP1 and OLI2 are strongly expressed in tissues with high cell proliferation activity, and GDP1-GFP and GFP-OLI2 are localized in the nucleolus. These results suggest that OLI2 and GDP1 are involved in ribosome biogenesis. We then examined the effects of gdp1 and oli2 on adaxial–abaxial patterning by crossing them with as2. Interestingly, neither gdp1 nor oli2 strongly enhanced the leaf polarity defect of as2. Similar results were obtained with as2 gdp1 oli2

  7. Simulation of small-angle scattering patterns using a CPU-efficient algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anitas, E. M.

    2017-12-01

    Small-angle scattering (of neutrons, x-ray or light; SAS) is a well-established experimental technique for structural analysis of disordered systems at nano and micro scales. For complex systems, such as super-molecular assemblies or protein molecules, analytic solutions of SAS intensity are generally not available. Thus, a frequent approach to simulate the corresponding patterns is to use a CPU-efficient version of the Debye formula. For this purpose, in this paper we implement the well-known DALAI algorithm in Mathematica software. We present calculations for a series of 2D Sierpinski gaskets and respectively of pentaflakes, obtained from chaos game representation.

  8. Tumour auto-antibody screening: performance of protein microarrays using SEREX derived antigens

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Stempfer, René; Weinhäusel, Andreas; Syed, Parvez; Vierlinger, Klemens; Pichler, Rudolf; Meese, Eckart; Leidinger, Petra; Ludwig, Nicole; Kriegner, Albert; Nöhammer, Christa

    2010-01-01

    The simplicity and potential of minimal invasive testing using serum from patients make auto-antibody based biomarkers a very promising tool for use in diagnostics of cancer and auto-immune disease. Although several methods exist for elucidating candidate-protein markers, immobilizing these onto membranes and generating so called macroarrays is of limited use for marker validation. Especially when several hundred samples have to be analysed, microarrays could serve as a good alternative since processing macro membranes is cumbersome and reproducibility of results is moderate. Candidate markers identified by SEREX (serological identification of antigens by recombinant expression cloning) screenings of brain and lung tumour were used for macroarray and microarray production. For microarray production recombinant proteins were expressed in E. coli by autoinduction and purified His-tag (histidine-tagged) proteins were then used for the production of protein microarrays. Protein arrays were hybridized with the serum samples from brain and lung tumour patients. Methods for the generation of microarrays were successfully established when using antigens derived from membrane-based selection. Signal patterns obtained by microarrays analysis of brain and lung tumour patients' sera were highly reproducible (R = 0.92-0.96). This provides the technical foundation for diagnostic applications on the basis of auto-antibody patterns. In this limited test set, the assay provided high reproducibility and a broad dynamic range to classify all brain and lung samples correctly. Protein microarray is an efficient means for auto-antibody-based detection when using SEREX-derived clones expressing antigenic proteins. Protein microarrays are preferred to macroarrays due to the easier handling and the high reproducibility of auto-antibody testing. Especially when using only a few microliters of patient samples protein microarrays are ideally suited for validation of auto

  9. Opposite Regulation of Ghrelin and Glucagon-like Peptide-1 by Metabolite G-Protein-Coupled Receptors

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Engelstoft, M S; Schwartz, T W

    2016-01-01

    Gut hormones send information about incoming nutrients to the rest of the body and thereby control many aspects of metabolism. The secretion of ghrelin and glucagon-like protein (GLP)-1, two hormones with opposite secretory patterns and opposite actions on multiple targets, is controlled by a lim......Gut hormones send information about incoming nutrients to the rest of the body and thereby control many aspects of metabolism. The secretion of ghrelin and glucagon-like protein (GLP)-1, two hormones with opposite secretory patterns and opposite actions on multiple targets, is controlled...... by a limited number of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs); half of which recognize and bind dietary nutrient metabolites, metabolites generated by gut microbiota, and metabolites of the host's intermediary metabolism. Most metabolite GPCRs controlling ghrelin secretion are inhibitory, whereas all metabolite...... receptors controlling GLP-1 secretion are stimulatory. This dichotomy in metabolite sensor function, which is obtained through a combination of differential expression and cell-dependent signaling bias, offers pharmacological targets to stimulate GLP-1 and inhibit ghrelin through the same mechanism....

  10. Cyclic AMP-receptor proteins in heart muscle of rats flown on Cosmos 1887

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mednieks, Maija I.; Popova, Irina A.; Grindeland, Richard E.

    1991-01-01

    The cellular compartmentalization of the cyclic AMP-receptor proteins in heart ventricular tissue obtained from rats flown on the Cosmos 1887 is determined. Photoaffinity labeling of soluble and particular cell fractions with a (32P)-8-azido analog of cyclic AMP is followed by electrophoretic separation of the proteins and by autoradiographic identification of the labeled isoforms of cAPK R subunits. It is shown that RII in the particulate subcellular fraction was significantly decreased in heart cells from rats in the flight group when compared to controls. Protein banding patterns in both the cytoplasmic fraction and in a fraction enriched in chromatin-bound proteins exhibited some variability in tissues of individual animals, but showed no changes that could be directly attributed to flight conditions. No significant change was apparent in the distribution of RI or RII cyclic AMP binding in the soluble fractions. It is inferred that the cardiac cell integrity or its protein content is not compromised under flight conditions.

  11. Aligning protein sequence and analysing substitution pattern using ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Prakash

    Aligning protein sequences using a score matrix has became a routine but valuable method in modern biological ..... the amino acids according to their substitution behaviour ...... which may cause great change (e.g. prolonging the helix) in.

  12. TheInfluence of Extruded Feed with a high Protein Level Upon the Bioproductive Performances Obtained on the Rainbow Trout Females (Oncorhynchus mykiss

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mihaela Ancuta Boaru

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available The succes ofartificial reproduction in the rainbow trout(Oncorhynchus mykiss, the development of gonads and the results obtained at incubation are significantly affected by the feeding of the breeders. The use of quality sexual  products is decisive for the assurance of the production of viable larvae and further of the estimated fish production, so that in addition to the assurance of optimal environmental parameters, the proper feeding of the breeders is required. Starting from the current stage of knowledge in the field,the main objective of the working paperwas to highlight the way the differentiatedfeeding of the rainbow trout females (Oncorhynchus mykiss influences their growth and development. The extruded peeled feed with a high protein level upon theegg weightand the gonosomatic index were followed. The extruded peeled feed with 53% protein proved to be highly effective, materialized trough high growth performances, a better conversion and the growth of gonadal  weight.

  13. In silico pattern-based analysis of the human cytomegalovirus genome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rigoutsos, Isidore; Novotny, Jiri; Huynh, Tien; Chin-Bow, Stephen T; Parida, Laxmi; Platt, Daniel; Coleman, David; Shenk, Thomas

    2003-04-01

    More than 200 open reading frames (ORFs) from the human cytomegalovirus genome have been reported as potentially coding for proteins. We have used two pattern-based in silico approaches to analyze this set of putative viral genes. With the help of an objective annotation method that is based on the Bio-Dictionary, a comprehensive collection of amino acid patterns that describes the currently known natural sequence space of proteins, we have reannotated all of the previously reported putative genes of the human cytomegalovirus. Also, with the help of MUSCA, a pattern-based multiple sequence alignment algorithm, we have reexamined the original human cytomegalovirus gene family definitions. Our analysis of the genome shows that many of the coded proteins comprise amino acid combinations that are unique to either the human cytomegalovirus or the larger group of herpesviruses. We have confirmed that a surprisingly large portion of the analyzed ORFs encode membrane proteins, and we have discovered a significant number of previously uncharacterized proteins that are predicted to be G-protein-coupled receptor homologues. The analysis also indicates that many of the encoded proteins undergo posttranslational modifications such as hydroxylation, phosphorylation, and glycosylation. ORFs encoding proteins with similar functional behavior appear in neighboring regions of the human cytomegalovirus genome. All of the results of the present study can be found and interactively explored online (http://cbcsrv.watson.ibm.com/virus/).

  14. Minimum Information Loss Based Multi-kernel Learning for Flagellar Protein Recognition in Trypanosoma Brucei

    KAUST Repository

    Wang, Jim Jing-Yan

    2014-12-01

    Trypanosma brucei (T. Brucei) is an important pathogen agent of African trypanosomiasis. The flagellum is an essential and multifunctional organelle of T. Brucei, thus it is very important to recognize the flagellar proteins from T. Brucei proteins for the purposes of both biological research and drug design. In this paper, we investigate computationally recognizing flagellar proteins in T. Brucei by pattern recognition methods. It is argued that an optimal decision function can be obtained as the difference of probability functions of flagella protein and the non-flagellar protein for the purpose of flagella protein recognition. We propose to learn a multi-kernel classification function to approximate this optimal decision function, by minimizing the information loss of such approximation which is measured by the Kull back-Leibler (KL) divergence. An iterative multi-kernel classifier learning algorithm is developed to minimize the KL divergence for the problem of T. Brucei flagella protein recognition, experiments show its advantage over other T. Brucei flagellar protein recognition and multi-kernel learning methods. © 2014 IEEE.

  15. Effect of initial protein concentration and pH on in vitro gastric digestion of heated whey proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Sha; Vardhanabhuti, Bongkosh

    2014-02-15

    The in vitro digestion of heated whey protein aggregates having different structure and physicochemical properties was evaluated under simulated gastric conditions. Aggregates were formed by heating whey protein isolates (WPI) at 3-9% w/w initial protein concentration and pH 3.0-7.0. Results showed that high protein concentration led to formation of larger WPI aggregates with fewer remaining monomers. Aggregates formed at high protein concentrations showed slower degradation rate compared to those formed at low protein concentration. The effect of initial protein concentration on peptide release pattern was not apparent. Heating pH was a significant factor affecting digestion pattern. At pH above the isoelectric point, the majority of the proteins involved in the aggregation, and aggregates formed at pH 6.0 were more susceptible to pepsin digestion than at pH 7.0. At acidic conditions, only small amount of proteins was involved in the aggregation and heated aggregates were easily digested by pepsin, while the remaining unaggregated proteins were very resistant to gastric digestion. The potential physiological implication of these results on satiety was discussed. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Contrasting evolutionary patterns of spore coat proteins in two Bacillus species groups are linked to a difference in cellular structure

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-01-01

    Background The Bacillus subtilis-group and the Bacillus cereus-group are two well-studied groups of species in the genus Bacillus. Bacteria in this genus can produce a highly resistant cell type, the spore, which is encased in a complex protective protein shell called the coat. Spores in the B. cereus-group contain an additional outer layer, the exosporium, which encircles the coat. The coat in B. subtilis spores possesses inner and outer layers. The aim of this study is to investigate whether differences in the spore structures influenced the divergence of the coat protein genes during the evolution of these two Bacillus species groups. Results We designed and implemented a computational framework to compare the evolutionary histories of coat proteins. We curated a list of B. subtilis coat proteins and identified their orthologs in 11 Bacillus species based on phylogenetic congruence. Phylogenetic profiles of these coat proteins show that they can be divided into conserved and labile ones. Coat proteins comprising the B. subtilis inner coat are significantly more conserved than those comprising the outer coat. We then performed genome-wide comparisons of the nonsynonymous/synonymous substitution rate ratio, dN/dS, and found contrasting patterns: Coat proteins have significantly higher dN/dS in the B. subtilis-group genomes, but not in the B. cereus-group genomes. We further corroborated this contrast by examining changes of dN/dS within gene trees, and found that some coat protein gene trees have significantly different dN/dS between the B subtilis-clade and the B. cereus-clade. Conclusions Coat proteins in the B. subtilis- and B. cereus-group species are under contrasting selective pressures. We speculate that the absence of the exosporium in the B. subtilis spore coat effectively lifted a structural constraint that has led to relaxed negative selection pressure on the outer coat. PMID:24283940

  17. Inflammatory dietary pattern and risk of depression among women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lucas, Michel; Chocano-Bedoya, Patricia; Schulze, Matthias B; Shulze, Mathias B; Mirzaei, Fariba; O'Reilly, Éilis J; Okereke, Olivia I; Hu, Frank B; Willett, Walter C; Ascherio, Alberto

    2014-02-01

    Inflammation is considered as a mechanism leading to depression, but the association between inflammatory dietary pattern and depression risk is unknown. Using reduced-rank regression, we identified a dietary pattern that was related to plasma levels of inflammatory markers (C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor α receptor 2), and we conducted a prospective analysis of the relationship of this pattern and depression risk among participants in the Nurses' Health Study. A total of 43,685 women (aged 50-77) without depression at baseline (1996) were included and followed up until 2008. Diet information was obtained from food frequency questionnaires completed between 1984 through 2002 and computed as cumulative average of dietary intakes with a 2-year latency applied. We used a strict definition of depression that required both self-reported physician-diagnosed depression and use of antidepressants, and a broader definition that included women who reported either clinical diagnosis or antidepressant use. During the 12-year follow-up, we documented 2594 incident cases of depression using the stricter definition and 6446 using the broader definition. After adjustment for body mass index and other potential confounders, relative risks comparing extreme quintiles of the inflammatory dietary pattern were 1.41 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.22, 1.63; P-trenddietary pattern is associated with a higher depression risk. This finding suggests that chronic inflammation may underlie the association between diet and depression. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. Membrane Proteins Are Dramatically Less Conserved than Water-Soluble Proteins across the Tree of Life.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sojo, Victor; Dessimoz, Christophe; Pomiankowski, Andrew; Lane, Nick

    2016-11-01

    Membrane proteins are crucial in transport, signaling, bioenergetics, catalysis, and as drug targets. Here, we show that membrane proteins have dramatically fewer detectable orthologs than water-soluble proteins, less than half in most species analyzed. This sparse distribution could reflect rapid divergence or gene loss. We find that both mechanisms operate. First, membrane proteins evolve faster than water-soluble proteins, particularly in their exterior-facing portions. Second, we demonstrate that predicted ancestral membrane proteins are preferentially lost compared with water-soluble proteins in closely related species of archaea and bacteria. These patterns are consistent across the whole tree of life, and in each of the three domains of archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes. Our findings point to a fundamental evolutionary principle: membrane proteins evolve faster due to stronger adaptive selection in changing environments, whereas cytosolic proteins are under more stringent purifying selection in the homeostatic interior of the cell. This effect should be strongest in prokaryotes, weaker in unicellular eukaryotes (with intracellular membranes), and weakest in multicellular eukaryotes (with extracellular homeostasis). We demonstrate that this is indeed the case. Similarly, we show that extracellular water-soluble proteins exhibit an even stronger pattern of low homology than membrane proteins. These striking differences in conservation of membrane proteins versus water-soluble proteins have important implications for evolution and medicine. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.

  19. Patscanui: an intuitive web interface for searching patterns in DNA and protein data

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Blin, Kai; Wohlleben, Wolfgang; Weber, Tilmann

    2018-01-01

    Patterns in biological sequences frequently signify interesting features in the underlying molecule. Many tools exist to search for well-known patterns. Less support is available for exploratory analysis, where no well-defined patterns are known yet. PatScanUI (https://patscan.secondarymetabolite......Patterns in biological sequences frequently signify interesting features in the underlying molecule. Many tools exist to search for well-known patterns. Less support is available for exploratory analysis, where no well-defined patterns are known yet. PatScanUI (https......://patscan.secondarymetabolites.org/) provides a highly interactive web interface to the powerful generic pattern search tool PatScan. The complex PatScan-patterns are created in a drag-and-drop aware interface allowing researchers to do rapid prototyping of the often complicated patterns useful to identifying features of interest....

  20. A rapid alternative technique for obtaining silver-positive patterns in chromosomes

    OpenAIRE

    Kavalco,Karine Frehner; Pazza,Rubens

    2004-01-01

    Silver nitrate chromosome staining to evidence nucleolar organizer regions (NORs) is a widely adopted methodology. The aim of the present work was to improve this technique, reducing the preparation time without decreasing the quality of the results. Microwave irradiation proved to be quite efficient and reliable for this purpose, as it allowed to identify Ag-NORs equivalent to those obtained by the conventional procedure and also to reduce the concentration of the employed reagents, as well ...

  1. Frustration in Condensed Matter and Protein Folding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Z.; Tanner, S.; Conroy, B.; Owens, F.; Tran, M. M.; Boekema, C.

    2014-03-01

    By means of computer modeling, we are studying frustration in condensed matter and protein folding, including the influence of temperature and Thomson-figure formation. Frustration is due to competing interactions in a disordered state. The key issue is how the particles interact to reach the lowest frustration. The relaxation for frustration is mostly a power function (randomly assigned pattern) or an exponential function (regular patterns like Thomson figures). For the atomic Thomson model, frustration is predicted to decrease with the formation of Thomson figures at zero kelvin. We attempt to apply our frustration modeling to protein folding and dynamics. We investigate the homogeneous protein frustration that would cause the speed of the protein folding to increase. Increase of protein frustration (where frustration and hydrophobicity interplay with protein folding) may lead to a protein mutation. Research is supported by WiSE@SJSU and AFC San Jose.

  2. Structural classification of proteins using texture descriptors extracted from the cellular automata image.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kavianpour, Hamidreza; Vasighi, Mahdi

    2017-02-01

    Nowadays, having knowledge about cellular attributes of proteins has an important role in pharmacy, medical science and molecular biology. These attributes are closely correlated with the function and three-dimensional structure of proteins. Knowledge of protein structural class is used by various methods for better understanding the protein functionality and folding patterns. Computational methods and intelligence systems can have an important role in performing structural classification of proteins. Most of protein sequences are saved in databanks as characters and strings and a numerical representation is essential for applying machine learning methods. In this work, a binary representation of protein sequences is introduced based on reduced amino acids alphabets according to surrounding hydrophobicity index. Many important features which are hidden in these long binary sequences can be clearly displayed through their cellular automata images. The extracted features from these images are used to build a classification model by support vector machine. Comparing to previous studies on the several benchmark datasets, the promising classification rates obtained by tenfold cross-validation imply that the current approach can help in revealing some inherent features deeply hidden in protein sequences and improve the quality of predicting protein structural class.

  3. [Dietary patterns in college freshmen and its relation to bone mineral density].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Sufang; Mu, Min; Zhao, Yan; Wang, Xiaoqin; Shu, Long; Li, Qingyan; Li, Yingchun

    2012-07-01

    In order to investigate the bone density of freshmen, and to analyze the association between dietary pattern and bone mineral density (BMD). A questionnaire survey on the situation of dietary pattern was conducted in 1414 freshmen. Effective dietary survey questionnaires and bone mineral density measurements were completed for 1319 participants. Bone mass was assessed by using an Ultrasound Bone Densitometer on the right calcaneus (CM-200, Furuno Electric Corporation, Japan), and the speed of sound (SOS, m/s) was used as an indicator for bone density. Factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to identify the dietary patterns. After adjusting for confounders, covariance with Bonferroni's was used to further examine the associations between dietary patterns and bone mineral density (BMD). (1) Four major dietary patterns were noticed. Western food pattern (high consumption in hamburger, fried food, nuts, biscuit, chocolate, cola, coffee, sugars). Animal protein pattern (high consumption in pork, mutton, beef, poultry meat, animal liver). Calcium pattern (high consumption in fresh fruits, eggs, fish and shrimps, kelp laver and sea fish, milk and dairy products, beans and bean products). Traditional Chinese pattern (high consumption in rice and grain, fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, pork). (2) No association was observed between the western food pattern and bone mineral density. High animal protein pattern showed lower SOS value compared with low animal protein pattern. High calcium pattern showed higher SOS value compared with low calcium pattern. High traditional Chinese pattern showed higher SOS value compared with the low traditional Chinese pattern. Dietary patterns are closely related with bone mineral density (BMD) of freshmen.

  4. The pattern of protein retention in pigs from 2 to 120 kg live weight

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Chwalibog, André; Jakobsen, K; Thorbek, G

    1996-01-01

    of metabolizable energy and oxidation of nutrients and a total of 152 measurements in the live weight (LW) range from 2 to 120 kg complied with the criterions. 3. The selected material were used in a quadratic function of RP on metabolic weight (kg0.75) to describe the curve for maximum RP. 4. The function...... obtained was: RP, g/d = 11.55 x kg0.75 - 0.185 x kg1.50 with a maximum of 180 g/d at 98 kg LW. 5. The RP-values were compared with data from the literature with other races and the function seems well established to describe maximum protein retention in non-hormone treated or specific selected pigs....

  5. Stromal serine protein kinase activity in spinach chloroplasts

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cortez, N.; Lucero, H.A.; Vallejos, R.H.

    1987-01-01

    At least twelve 32 P-labeled stromal proteins were detected by electrophoresis under denaturing conditions when intact chloroplasts were incubated with 32 Pi, in the light but only three were detected in the presence of 3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethylurea (DCMU) or in the dark. Incubation of isolated stroma with [gamma- 32 P]ATP resulted in the preferential phosphorylation of one of them, a 70-kDa polypeptide, in serine residues. Thylakoid membranes in the dark promoted the phosphorylation of two additional stromal polypeptides of 55 and 40 kDa. Illumination during the phosphorylation of stroma in the presence of thylakoids stimulated severalfold the labeling of the 40-kDa polypeptide but not when DCMU was added. The protein kinase activity present in isolated stroma phosphorylated exogenous substrates like histone III, phosvitin, histone II, and casein with specific activities of 3, 1.8, 0.7, and 0.2 pmol X mg-1 X min-1. Histone III polypeptides were phosphorylated differently by stroma and by thylakoids in the dark. Moreover, histone III phosphorylated by thylakoids in the dark yielded a pattern of phosphopeptides after V8 protease treatment that was different from the pattern obtained when histone III was phosphorylated by stroma

  6. Optimization of amino acid type-specific 13C and 15N labeling for the backbone assignment of membrane proteins by solution- and solid-state NMR with the UPLABEL algorithm

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hefke, Frederik; Bagaria, Anurag; Reckel, Sina; Ullrich, Sandra Johanna; Dötsch, Volker; Glaubitz, Clemens; Güntert, Peter

    2011-01-01

    We present a computational method for finding optimal labeling patterns for the backbone assignment of membrane proteins and other large proteins that cannot be assigned by conventional strategies. Following the approach of Kainosho and Tsuji (Biochemistry 21:6273–6279 (1982)), types of amino acids are labeled with 13 C or/and 15 N such that cross peaks between 13 CO(i – 1) and 15 NH(i) result only for pairs of sequentially adjacent amino acids of which the first is labeled with 13 C and the second with 15 N. In this way, unambiguous sequence-specific assignments can be obtained for unique pairs of amino acids that occur exactly once in the sequence of the protein. To be practical, it is crucial to limit the number of differently labeled protein samples that have to be prepared while obtaining an optimal extent of labeled unique amino acid pairs. Our computer algorithm UPLABEL for optimal unique pair labeling, implemented in the program CYANA and in a standalone program, and also available through a web portal, uses combinatorial optimization to find for a given amino acid sequence labeling patterns that maximize the number of unique pair assignments with a minimal number of differently labeled protein samples. Various auxiliary conditions, including labeled amino acid availability and price, previously known partial assignments, and sequence regions of particular interest can be taken into account when determining optimal amino acid type-specific labeling patterns. The method is illustrated for the assignment of the human G-protein coupled receptor bradykinin B2 (B 2 R) and applied as a starting point for the backbone assignment of the membrane protein proteorhodopsin.

  7. The Study of Effect of Surimi Production Steps on Chemical Composition and Electrophoresis Pattern of Myofibrillar Proteins of Mechanically Deboned poultry meat (MDPM

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sh Haji BagherNaeeni

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available Mechanically deboning poultry meat (MDPM is widely used due to its suitable technological properties as well as low lipids and saturated fatty acids contents. Besides, production processes applied during the surimi production can improve the technological properties of MDPM. That is to say, the production steps of surimi can change chemical composition and concentration of myofibrillar proteins and improve functional properties of MDPM. In this study, MDPM was prepared from the poultry meat. The production process consisted of 2 washing steps with sodium bicarbonate solution followed by another washing step with 4°C water. Afterwards, chemical properties of MDPM and surimi (moisture content, protein, lipid, and ash content as well as electrophoresis pattern were evaluated. Result showed that surimi production steps could significantly decrease protein, lipid and ash contents; however, moisture content of MDPM increased significantly. The result of electrophoresis indicated a significant increase in heavy chain myosin with 200 KDa and actin with 45 KDa molecular weights. It was concluded that the production steps improved the chemical properties and increased the concentration of MDPM myofibrillar proteins.

  8. The Role of Hexon Protein as a Molecular Mold in Patterning the Protein IX Organization in Human Adenoviruses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reddy, Vijay S

    2017-09-01

    Adenoviruses are respiratory, ocular and enteric pathogens that form complex capsids, which are assembled from seven different structural proteins and composed of several core proteins that closely interact with the packaged dsDNA genome. The recent near-atomic resolution structures revealed that the interlacing continuous hexagonal network formed by the protein IX molecules is conserved among different human adenoviruses (HAdVs), but not in non-HAdVs. In this report, we propose a distinct role for the hexon protein as a "molecular mold" in enabling the formation of such hexagonal protein IX network that has been shown to preserve the stability and infectivity of HAdVs. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Protein Analysis by Mass Spectrometry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cindic, M.

    2008-04-01

    mass spectrometry (collision-induced dissociation, CID or post-source decay, PSD. Different types of fragments and main fragmentation paths are shown in Figs. 6 and 8. Fragmentation pathway of a doubly charged tryptic pentapeptide to b- and y-ions by collision-induced dissociation inside the mass spectrometer is described more in details in Fig. 7. All types of fragment ions are summarized in table 3. Since the any of the peptide bonds can be broken in several ways, the MS/MS spectra are complex, and quite difficult to interpret. Chemical derivatization is used to obtain only or predominantly one type of fragment ions. Sulfonation of N-terminal amino group enhance PSD sequencing, producing mainly y-type fragment ions. The mass difference of two consecutive y-ions corresponds to an amino acid mass, so the peptide sequence can be obtained with minimal or no assistance from genomic data, e. g. de novo protein sequencing is possible. Fig. 9 represents the strategy for the protein identification by mass spectrometry. Various chemical modifications on the peptide fragmentation patterns are shown in Fig. 10.

  10. A rapid alternative technique for obtaining silver-positive patterns in chromosomes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Karine Frehner Kavalco

    2004-01-01

    Full Text Available Silver nitrate chromosome staining to evidence nucleolar organizer regions (NORs is a widely adopted methodology. The aim of the present work was to improve this technique, reducing the preparation time without decreasing the quality of the results. Microwave irradiation proved to be quite efficient and reliable for this purpose, as it allowed to identify Ag-NORs equivalent to those obtained by the conventional procedure and also to reduce the concentration of the employed reagents, as well as the precipitation of debris on the preparation.

  11. Addressing the challenges of obtaining functional outcomes in traumatic brain injury research: missing data patterns, timing of follow-up, and three prognostic models.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zelnick, Leila R; Morrison, Laurie J; Devlin, Sean M; Bulger, Eileen M; Brasel, Karen J; Sheehan, Kellie; Minei, Joseph P; Kerby, Jeffrey D; Tisherman, Samuel A; Rizoli, Sandro; Karmy-Jones, Riyad; van Heest, Rardi; Newgard, Craig D

    2014-06-01

    Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is common and debilitating. Randomized trials of interventions for TBI ideally assess effectiveness by using long-term functional neurological outcomes, but such outcomes are difficult to obtain and costly. If there is little change between functional status at hospital discharge versus 6 months, then shorter-term outcomes may be adequate for use in future clinical trials. Using data from a previously published multi-center, randomized, placebo-controlled TBI clinical trial, we evaluated patterns of missing outcome data, changes in functional status between hospital discharge and 6 months, and three prognostic models to predict long-term functional outcome from covariates available at hospital discharge (functional measures, demographics, and injury characteristics). The Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium Hypertonic Saline trial enrolled 1282 TBI patients, obtaining the primary outcome of 6-month Glasgow Outcome Score Extended (GOSE) for 85% of patients, but missing the primary outcome for the remaining 15%. Patients with missing outcomes had less-severe injuries, higher neurological function at discharge (GOSE), and shorter hospital stays than patients whose GOSE was obtained. Of 1066 (83%) patients whose GOSE was obtained both at hospital discharge and at 6-months, 71% of patients had the same dichotomized functional status (severe disability/death vs. moderate/no disability) after 6 months as at discharge, 28% had an improved functional status, and 1% had worsened. Performance was excellent (C-statistic between 0.88 and 0.91) for all three prognostic models and calibration adequate for two models (p values, 0.22 and 0.85). Our results suggest that multiple imputation of the standard 6-month GOSE may be reasonable in TBI research when the primary outcome cannot be obtained through other means.

  12. Analysis of Stomatal Patterning in Selected Mutants of MAPK Pathways

    KAUST Repository

    Felemban, Abrar

    2016-05-01

    Stomata are cellular valves in plants that play an essential role in the regulation of gas exchange and are distributed in the epidermis of aerial organs. In Arabidopsis thaliana, stomatal production and development are coordinated by the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signalling pathway, which modulates a variety of other processes, including cell proliferation, regulation of cytokinesis, programed cell death, and response to abiotic and biotic stress. The environment also plays a role in stomatal development, by influencing the frequency at which stomata develop in leaves. This thesis presents an analysis of stomatal development in Arabidopsis mutants in two MAPK pathways: MEKK1-MKK1/MKK2-MPK4, and MAP3K17/18-MKK3. Obtained results demonstrate the effect of stress conditions on stomatal development and specify the involvement of analysed MAPK in stomatal patterning. First, both analysed pathways modulate stomatal patterning in Arabidopsis cotyledons. Second, plant growth-promoting bacteria tested enhance stomatal density and affect guard cell morphology. Third, the sucrose or mannitol treatment increases defects in stomatal patterning. Finally, salt stress or high temperature can suppress stomatal defects in mutants of the MEKK1-MKK1/MKK2-MPK4 pathway.

  13. Protein nanocrystallography: growth mechanism and atomic structure of crystals induced by nanotemplates.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pechkova, E; Vasile, F; Spera, R; Fiordoro, S; Nicolini, C

    2005-11-01

    Protein nanocrystallography, a new technology for crystal growth based on protein nanotemplates, has recently been shown to produce diffracting, stable and radiation-resistant lysozyme crystals. This article, by computing these lysozyme crystals' atomic structures, obtained by the diffraction patterns of microfocused synchrotron radiation, provides a possible mechanism for this increased stability, namely a significant decrease in water content accompanied by a minor but significant alpha-helix increase. These data are shown to be compatible with the circular dichroism and two-dimensional Fourier transform spectra of high-resolution H NMR of proteins dissolved from the same nanotemplate-based crystal versus those from a classical crystal. Finally, evidence for protein direct transfer from the nanotemplate to the drop and the participation of the template proteins in crystal nucleation and growth is provided by high-resolution NMR spectrometry and mass spectrometry. Furthermore, the lysozyme nanotemplate appears stable up to 523 K, as confirmed by a thermal denaturation study using spectropolarimetry. The overall data suggest that heat-proof lysozyme presence in the crystal provides a possible explanation of the crystal's resistance to synchrotron radiation.

  14. The TALE face of Hox proteins in animal evolution.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Merabet, Samir; Galliot, Brigitte

    2015-01-01

    Hox genes are major regulators of embryonic development. One of their most conserved functions is to coordinate the formation of specific body structures along the anterior-posterior (AP) axis in Bilateria. This architectural role was at the basis of several morphological innovations across bilaterian evolution. In this review, we traced the origin of the Hox patterning system by considering the partnership with PBC and Meis proteins. PBC and Meis belong to the TALE-class of homeodomain-containing transcription factors and act as generic cofactors of Hox proteins for AP axis patterning in Bilateria. Recent data indicate that Hox proteins acquired the ability to interact with their TALE partners in the last common ancestor of Bilateria and Cnidaria. These interactions relied initially on a short peptide motif called hexapeptide (HX), which is present in Hox and non-Hox protein families. Remarkably, Hox proteins can also recruit the TALE cofactors by using specific PBC Interaction Motifs (SPIMs). We describe how a functional Hox/TALE patterning system emerged in eumetazoans through the acquisition of SPIMs. We anticipate that interaction flexibility could be found in other patterning systems, being at the heart of the astonishing morphological diversity observed in the animal kingdom.

  15. Protein carbonylation and metal-catalyzed protein oxidation in a cellular perspective

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Møller, Ian Max; Rogowska-Wrzesinska, Adelina; Rao, R S P

    2011-01-01

    Proteins can become oxidatively modified in many different ways, either by direct oxidation of amino acid side chains and protein backbone or indirectly by conjugation with oxidation products of polyunsaturated fatty acids and carbohydrates. While reversible oxidative modifications are thought...... to be relevant in physiological processes, irreversible oxidative modifications are known to contribute to cellular damage and disease. The most well-studied irreversible protein oxidation is carbonylation. In this work we first examine how protein carbonylation occurs via metal-catalyzed oxidation (MCO) in vivo...... and in vitro with an emphasis on cellular metal ion homeostasis and metal binding. We then review proteomic methods currently used for identifying carbonylated proteins and their sites of modification. Finally, we discuss the identified carbonylated proteins and the pattern of carbonylation sites in relation...

  16. Porous materials based on foaming solutions obtained from industrial waste

    Science.gov (United States)

    Starostina, I. V.; Antipova, A. N.; Ovcharova, I. V.; Starostina, Yu L.

    2018-03-01

    This study analyzes foam concrete production efficiency. Research has shown the possibility of using a newly-designed protein-based foaming agent to produce porous materials using gypsum and cement binders. The protein foaming agent is obtained by alkaline hydrolysis of a raw mixture consisting of industrial waste in an electromagnetic field. The mixture consists of spent biomass of the Aspergillus niger fungus and dust from burning furnaces used in cement production. Varying the content of the foaming agent allows obtaining gypsum binder-based foam concretes with the density of 200-500 kg/m3 and compressive strength of 0.1-1.0 MPa, which can be used for thermal and sound insulation of building interiors. Cement binders were used to obtain structural and thermal insulation materials with the density of 300-950 kg/m3 and compressive strength of 0.9-9.0 MPa. The maximum operating temperature of cement-based foam concretes is 500°C because it provides the shrinkage of less than 2%.

  17. Protein restriction does not affect body temperature pattern in female mice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kato, Goro A; Shichijo, Hiroki; Takahashi, Toshihiro; Shinohara, Akio; Morita, Tetsuo; Koshimoto, Chihiro

    2017-10-30

    Daily torpor is a physiological adaptation in mammals and birds characterized by a controlled reduction of metabolic rate and body temperature during the resting phase of circadian rhythms. In laboratory mice, daily torpor is induced by dietary caloric restriction. However, it is not known which nutrients are related to daily torpor expression. To determine whether dietary protein is a key factor in inducing daily torpor in mice, we fed mice a protein-restricted (PR) diet that included only one-quarter of the amount of protein but the same caloric level as a control (C) diet. We assigned six non-pregnant female ICR mice to each group and recorded their body weights and core body temperatures for 4 weeks. Body weights in the C group increased, but those in the PR group remained steady or decreased. Mice in both groups did not show daily torpor, but most mice in a food-restricted group (n=6) supplied with 80% of the calories given to the C group exhibited decreased body weights and frequently displayed daily torpor. This suggests that protein restriction is not a trigger of daily torpor; torpid animals can conserve their internal energy, but torpor may not play a significant role in conserving internal protein. Thus, opportunistic daily torpor in mice may function in energy conservation rather than protein saving.

  18. Serum proteomic patterns of patients with non-small cell lung cancer treated by radiochemotherapy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li Xianglan; You Qingshan; Yang Yanmei; Ma Yuyan; Tang Yali; Cai Huilong

    2007-01-01

    Objective:To detect the serum proteomic patterns of patients with non-small cell lung (NSCLC) treated with radiochemotherapy by surface enhanced laser desorption ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF-MS) protein chip array techniques, and to screen differential expression protein and observe the changes between the patterns before and after the treatment. Methods: SELDI-TOF-MS and CM-10 protein chips were used to detect the serum proteomic patterns of 35 healthy persons (normal control) and 35 patients with NSCLC before radiochemotherapy. Twenty-six out of the 35 patients after the treatment were also studied. BioMarker Wizard 3.01 and BioMarker Pattern System 5. 01 were used in combination to analyze the data and to develop diagnostic models. Results: Sixteen differential expression protein peaks from a total of 251 protein peaks were automatically chosen, including 8 high expressions and 8 low expressions in patients with NSCLC. Of the 16 protein peaks, 6 protein peak patterns ( M 2 572.1, M 2 885.8, M 3 870.4, M 4 161.4, M 5 739.7 and M 8 164.3 mass/charge ratio [ m/z] ) were observed in model that could be used to distinguish lung cancer' from non-cancer diseases. The sensitivity and specificity results were 91% (32/35)and 83% (29/35). When the SELDI marker pattern was tested with the blinded test set, the sensitivity and specificity were 80% (28/35) and 71% (25/35). The 16 differential expression protein peaks of patients before and after the treatment were obviously different. But the peaks of patients after the treatment trended to those of the normal control. Of the 16 protein peaks, M 2 572.1, M 2 885.8, M 4 664.78, M 9 228.39 and M 9 396.42 were significantly changed. Conclusions: SELDI-TOF-MS is possibly significant for screening differential expression proteins and assessing the treatment efficacy and prognosis of patients, which needs to be demonstrated by further study. (authors)

  19. Protein remote homology detection based on bidirectional long short-term memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Shumin; Chen, Junjie; Liu, Bin

    2017-10-10

    Protein remote homology detection plays a vital role in studies of protein structures and functions. Almost all of the traditional machine leaning methods require fixed length features to represent the protein sequences. However, it is never an easy task to extract the discriminative features with limited knowledge of proteins. On the other hand, deep learning technique has demonstrated its advantage in automatically learning representations. It is worthwhile to explore the applications of deep learning techniques to the protein remote homology detection. In this study, we employ the Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BLSTM) to learn effective features from pseudo proteins, also propose a predictor called ProDec-BLSTM: it includes input layer, bidirectional LSTM, time distributed dense layer and output layer. This neural network can automatically extract the discriminative features by using bidirectional LSTM and the time distributed dense layer. Experimental results on a widely-used benchmark dataset show that ProDec-BLSTM outperforms other related methods in terms of both the mean ROC and mean ROC50 scores. This promising result shows that ProDec-BLSTM is a useful tool for protein remote homology detection. Furthermore, the hidden patterns learnt by ProDec-BLSTM can be interpreted and visualized, and therefore, additional useful information can be obtained.

  20. Generation of 3D templates of active sites of proteins with rigid prosthetic groups

    OpenAIRE

    Nebel, Jean-Christophe

    2006-01-01

    MOTIVATION: With the increasing availability of protein structures, the generation of biologically meaningful 3D patterns from the simultaneous alignment of several protein structures is an exciting prospect: active sites could be better understood, protein functions and protein 3D structures could be predicted more accurately. Although patterns can already be generated at the fold and topological levels, no system produces high-resolution 3D patterns including atom and cavity positions. To a...

  1. Kangaroo – A pattern-matching program for biological sequences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Betel Doron

    2002-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Biologists are often interested in performing a simple database search to identify proteins or genes that contain a well-defined sequence pattern. Many databases do not provide straightforward or readily available query tools to perform simple searches, such as identifying transcription binding sites, protein motifs, or repetitive DNA sequences. However, in many cases simple pattern-matching searches can reveal a wealth of information. We present in this paper a regular expression pattern-matching tool that was used to identify short repetitive DNA sequences in human coding regions for the purpose of identifying potential mutation sites in mismatch repair deficient cells. Results Kangaroo is a web-based regular expression pattern-matching program that can search for patterns in DNA, protein, or coding region sequences in ten different organisms. The program is implemented to facilitate a wide range of queries with no restriction on the length or complexity of the query expression. The program is accessible on the web at http://bioinfo.mshri.on.ca/kangaroo/ and the source code is freely distributed at http://sourceforge.net/projects/slritools/. Conclusion A low-level simple pattern-matching application can prove to be a useful tool in many research settings. For example, Kangaroo was used to identify potential genetic targets in a human colorectal cancer variant that is characterized by a high frequency of mutations in coding regions containing mononucleotide repeats.

  2. Patterns of nutrient utilization. Implications for nitrogen metabolism

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Oldham, J.D.

    1983-01-01

    Nutrients react within both the rumen and the ruminant body, and the patterns of availability of different nutrients greatly influence their net utilization. In the rumen, microbial capture of N substrates, especially ammonia, depends on the degree of synchronization between rates of production of N substrates and of ATP to drive microbial protein synthesis. The form of dietary carbohydrate and of dietary N and the frequency of feeding can all affect the efficiency of microbial growth and digestion. The pattern of supply of nutrients to the body will also influence nutrient utilization. Disparities between diurnal patterns of supply of volatile fatty acids from the rumen and amino acids from the intestines will result in changes in balance of metabolic pathways. The balance between supply of glucogenic and lipogenic nutrients will influence efficiency of fattening. A major factor determining the pattern of utilization/metabolism of amino acids is the metabolic demand for protein synthesis, which varies with physiological state. (author)

  3. Transcriptional analysis of the conidiation pattern shift of the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium acridum in response to different nutrients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Zhenglong; Jin, Kai; Xia, Yuxian

    2016-08-09

    Most fungi, including entomopathogenic fungi, have two different conidiation patterns, normal and microcycle conidiation, under different culture conditions, eg, in media containing different nutrients. However, the mechanisms underlying the conidiation pattern shift are poorly understood. In this study, Metarhizium acridum undergoing microcycle conidiation on sucrose yeast extract agar (SYA) medium shifted to normal conidiation when the medium was supplemented with sucrose, nitrate, or phosphate. By linking changes in nutrients with the conidiation pattern shift and transcriptional changes, we obtained conidiation pattern shift libraries by Solexa/Illumina deep-sequencing technology. A comparative analysis demonstrated that the expression of 137 genes was up-regulated during the shift to normal conidiation, while the expression of 436 genes was up-regulated at the microcycle conidiation stage. A comparison of subtractive libraries revealed that 83, 216, and 168 genes were related to sucrose-induced, nitrate-induced, and phosphate-induced conidiation pattern shifts, respectively. The expression of 217 genes whose expression was specific to microcycle conidiation was further analyzed by the gene expression profiling via multigene concatemers method using mRNA isolated from M. acridum grown on SYA and the four normal conidiation media. The expression of 142 genes was confirmed to be up-regulated on standard SYA medium. Of these 142 genes, 101 encode hypothetical proteins or proteins of unknown function, and only 41 genes encode proteins with putative functions. Of these 41 genes, 18 are related to cell growth, 10 are related to cell proliferation, three are related to the cell cycle, three are related to cell differentiation, two are related to cell wall synthesis, two are related to cell division, and seven have other functions. These results indicate that the conidiation pattern shift in M. acridum mainly results from changes in cell growth and proliferation. The

  4. Surface Patterning and Nanowire Biosensor Construction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Iversen, Lars

    2008-01-01

    surface. A central limitation to this biosensor principle is the screening of analyte charge by mobile ions in electrolytes with physiological ionic strength. To overcome this problem, we propose to use as capture agents proteins which undergo large conformational changes. Using structure based protein...... charge prediction, we show how ligand induced changes in conformation of two model proteins, both being ligand binding domains from glutamate receptors, can lead to changes in electrostatic potential predicted to be sufficient for NW sensing. Finally we, demonstrate how InAs nanowires can....... In part I - “Surface Patterning” - glass and gold surfaces serve as spatially encoded immobilization supports for patterning of recombinant proteins and organic monolayers. First, we combine micro-contact printing with a reactive SNAP-tag protein to establish a general platform for templated protein...

  5. Pressure cryocooling protein crystals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Chae Un [Ithaca, NY; Gruner, Sol M [Ithaca, NY

    2011-10-04

    Preparation of cryocooled protein crystal is provided by use of helium pressurizing and cryocooling to obtain cryocooled protein crystal allowing collection of high resolution data and by heavier noble gas (krypton or xenon) binding followed by helium pressurizing and cryocooling to obtain cryocooled protein crystal for collection of high resolution data and SAD phasing simultaneously. The helium pressurizing is carried out on crystal coated to prevent dehydration or on crystal grown in aqueous solution in a capillary.

  6. Automatic classification of thermal patterns in diabetic foot based on morphological pattern spectrum

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hernandez-Contreras, D.; Peregrina-Barreto, H.; Rangel-Magdaleno, J.; Ramirez-Cortes, J.; Renero-Carrillo, F.

    2015-11-01

    This paper presents a novel approach to characterize and identify patterns of temperature in thermographic images of the human foot plant in support of early diagnosis and follow-up of diabetic patients. Composed feature vectors based on 3D morphological pattern spectrum (pecstrum) and relative position, allow the system to quantitatively characterize and discriminate non-diabetic (control) and diabetic (DM) groups. Non-linear classification using neural networks is used for that purpose. A classification rate of 94.33% in average was obtained with the composed feature extraction process proposed in this paper. Performance evaluation and obtained results are presented.

  7. Characterization of hydrogen bonding motifs in proteins: hydrogen elimination monitoring by ultraviolet photodissociation mass spectrometry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morrison, Lindsay J; Chai, Wenrui; Rosenberg, Jake A; Henkelman, Graeme; Brodbelt, Jennifer S

    2017-08-02

    Determination of structure and folding of certain classes of proteins remains intractable by conventional structural characterization strategies and has spurred the development of alternative methodologies. Mass spectrometry-based approaches have a unique capacity to differentiate protein heterogeneity due to the ability to discriminate populations, whether minor or major, featuring modifications or complexation with non-covalent ligands on the basis of m/z. Cleavage of the peptide backbone can be further utilized to obtain residue-specific structural information. Here, hydrogen elimination monitoring (HEM) upon ultraviolet photodissociation (UVPD) of proteins transferred to the gas phase via nativespray ionization is introduced as an innovative approach to deduce backbone hydrogen bonding patterns. Using well-characterized peptides and a series of proteins, prediction of the engagement of the amide carbonyl oxygen of the protein backbone in hydrogen bonding using UVPD-HEM is demonstrated to show significant agreement with the hydrogen-bonding motifs derived from molecular dynamics simulations and X-ray crystal structures.

  8. A methodology for obtaining the control rod patterns in a BWR using genetic algorithms

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ortiz S, J.J.; Montes T, J.L.; Requena R, I.

    2003-01-01

    In this work the GACRP system based on the genetic algorithms technique for the obtaining of the drivers of control bars in a BWR reactor is presented. This methodology was applied to a transition cycle and a one of balance of the Laguna Verde nuclear power station (CNLV). For each one of the studied cycles, it was executed the methodology with a fixed length of the cycle and it was compared the effective multiplication factor of neutrons at the end of the cycle that it is obtained with the proposed drivers of control bars and the multiplication factor of neutrons obtained by means of a Haling calculation. It was found that it is possible to extend several days the length of both cycles with regard to the one Haling calculation. (Author)

  9. PROCOV: maximum likelihood estimation of protein phylogeny under covarion models and site-specific covarion pattern analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wang Huai-Chun

    2009-09-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The covarion hypothesis of molecular evolution holds that selective pressures on a given amino acid or nucleotide site are dependent on the identity of other sites in the molecule that change throughout time, resulting in changes of evolutionary rates of sites along the branches of a phylogenetic tree. At the sequence level, covarion-like evolution at a site manifests as conservation of nucleotide or amino acid states among some homologs where the states are not conserved in other homologs (or groups of homologs. Covarion-like evolution has been shown to relate to changes in functions at sites in different clades, and, if ignored, can adversely affect the accuracy of phylogenetic inference. Results PROCOV (protein covarion analysis is a software tool that implements a number of previously proposed covarion models of protein evolution for phylogenetic inference in a maximum likelihood framework. Several algorithmic and implementation improvements in this tool over previous versions make computationally expensive tree searches with covarion models more efficient and analyses of large phylogenomic data sets tractable. PROCOV can be used to identify covarion sites by comparing the site likelihoods under the covarion process to the corresponding site likelihoods under a rates-across-sites (RAS process. Those sites with the greatest log-likelihood difference between a 'covarion' and an RAS process were found to be of functional or structural significance in a dataset of bacterial and eukaryotic elongation factors. Conclusion Covarion models implemented in PROCOV may be especially useful for phylogenetic estimation when ancient divergences between sequences have occurred and rates of evolution at sites are likely to have changed over the tree. It can also be used to study lineage-specific functional shifts in protein families that result in changes in the patterns of site variability among subtrees.

  10. The ventralizing activity of Radar, a maternally expressed bone morphogenetic protein, reveals complex bone morphogenetic protein interactions controlling dorso-ventral patterning in zebrafish.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goutel, C; Kishimoto, Y; Schulte-Merker, S; Rosa, F

    2000-12-01

    In Xenopus and zebrafish, BMP2, 4 and 7 have been implicated, after the onset of zygotic expression, in inducing and maintaining ventro-lateral cell fate during early development. We provide evidence here that a maternally expressed bone morphogenetic protein (BMP), Radar, may control early ventral specification in zebrafish. We show that Radar ventralizes zebrafish embryos and induces the early expression of bmp2b and bmp4. The analysis of Radar overexpression in both swirl/bmp2b mutants and embryos expressing truncated BMP receptors shows that Radar-induced ventralization is dependent on functional BMP2/4 pathways, and may initially rely on an Alk6-related signaling pathway. Finally, we show that while radar-injected swirl embryos still exhibit a strongly dorsalized phenotype, the overexpression of Radar into swirl/bmp2b mutant embryos restores ventral marker expression, including bmp4 expression. Our results suggest that a complex regulation of different BMP pathways controls dorso-ventral (DV) patterning from early cleavage stages until somitogenesis.

  11. Protein-protein interaction network-based detection of functionally similar proteins within species.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, Baoxing; Wang, Fen; Guo, Yang; Sang, Qing; Liu, Min; Li, Dengyun; Fang, Wei; Zhang, Deli

    2012-07-01

    Although functionally similar proteins across species have been widely studied, functionally similar proteins within species showing low sequence similarity have not been examined in detail. Identification of these proteins is of significant importance for understanding biological functions, evolution of protein families, progression of co-evolution, and convergent evolution and others which cannot be obtained by detection of functionally similar proteins across species. Here, we explored a method of detecting functionally similar proteins within species based on graph theory. After denoting protein-protein interaction networks using graphs, we split the graphs into subgraphs using the 1-hop method. Proteins with functional similarities in a species were detected using a method of modified shortest path to compare these subgraphs and to find the eligible optimal results. Using seven protein-protein interaction networks and this method, some functionally similar proteins with low sequence similarity that cannot detected by sequence alignment were identified. By analyzing the results, we found that, sometimes, it is difficult to separate homologous from convergent evolution. Evaluation of the performance of our method by gene ontology term overlap showed that the precision of our method was excellent. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  12. Amino acids and proteins

    Science.gov (United States)

    A balanced, safe diet with proteins is important to meet nutritional requirements. Proteins occur in animal as well as vegetable products in important quantities. In some countries, many people obtain much of their protein from animal products. In other regions, the major portion of dietary protein ...

  13. Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase-PEST and β8 Integrin Regulate Spatiotemporal Patterns of RhoGDI1 Activation in Migrating Cells

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Hye Shin; Cheerathodi, Mujeeburahiman; Chaki, Sankar P.; Reyes, Steve B.; Zheng, Yanhua; Lu, Zhimin; Paidassi, Helena; DerMardirossian, Celine; Lacy-Hulbert, Adam; Rivera, Gonzalo M.

    2015-01-01

    Directional cell motility is essential for normal development and physiology, although how motile cells spatiotemporally activate signaling events remains largely unknown. Here, we have characterized an adhesion and signaling unit comprised of protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTP)-PEST and the extracellular matrix (ECM) adhesion receptor β8 integrin that plays essential roles in directional cell motility. β8 integrin and PTP-PEST form protein complexes at the leading edge of migrating cells and balance patterns of Rac1 and Cdc42 signaling by controlling the subcellular localization and phosphorylation status of Rho GDP dissociation inhibitor 1 (RhoGDI1). Translocation of Src-phosphorylated RhoGDI1 to the cell's leading edge promotes local activation of Rac1 and Cdc42, whereas dephosphorylation of RhoGDI1 by integrin-bound PTP-PEST promotes RhoGDI1 release from the membrane and sequestration of inactive Rac1/Cdc42 in the cytoplasm. Collectively, these data reveal a finely tuned regulatory mechanism for controlling signaling events at the leading edge of directionally migrating cells. PMID:25666508

  14. Identification of Lactobacillus proteins with different recognition patterns between immune rabbit sera and nonimmune mice or human sera.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Górska, Sabina; Buda, Barbara; Brzozowska, Ewa; Schwarzer, Martin; Srutkova, Dagmar; Kozakova, Hana; Gamian, Andrzej

    2016-02-09

    The genus Lactobacillus belongs to a large heterogeneous group of low G + C Gram-positive anaerobic bacteria, which are frequently used as probiotics. The health-beneficial effects, in particular the immunomodulation effect, of probiotics depend on the strain and dose used. Strain variations may be related to diversity of the cell surface architecture of bacteria and the ability to express specific antigens or secrete compounds. The use of Lactobacillus as probiotic requires a comprehensive understanding of its effect on host immune system. To evaluate the potential immunoreactive properties of proteins isolated from four Lactobacillus strains: L. johnsonii 142 and L. johnsonii 151, L. rhamnosus LOCK 0900 and L. casei LOCK 0919, the polyclonal sera obtained from mouse and human have been tested as well as with sera from rabbits immunized with whole lactobacilli cells. The reactivity of isolated proteins detected by SDS-PAGE and Western blotting was heterogeneous and varied between different serum samples. The proteins with the highest immunoreactivity were isolated, purified and sequenced, in particular the fractions were identified as phosphoglycerate kinase (L. johnsonii 142), glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (L. johnosnii 142, L. rhamnosus LOCK 0900), hypothetic protein JDM1_1307 (L. johnsonii 151) and fructose/tagatose-bisphosphate-aldolase (L. casei LOCK 0919). The different prevalence of reactions against tested antigens in rabbit, mouse and human sera may indicate significant differences in immune system and commensal cross-talk in these groups. The identification of immunoreactive lactobacilli proteins opens the possibility to use them as an antigens for development of vaccines.

  15. A constant albumin factor for the calculation of the percentage composition of the serum-protein fraction obtained by elution of paper electrophoresis strips : the azocarmine staining of strips

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Meulemans, O.

    A new method of calculating the percentages of serum protein is discussed. This method has a smaller distribution curve than the factor that is generally used for the correction of the extinction of the albumin fraction obtained with the elution method. The magnitude of the new factor is 1.22 ±

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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

  17. Protein raftophilicity. How bioinformatics can help membranologists

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Henrik; Sperotto, Maria Maddalena

    )-based bioinformatics approach. The ANN was trained to recognize feature-based patterns in proteins that are considered to be associated with lipid rafts. The trained ANN was then used to predict protein raftophilicity. We found that, in the case of α-helical membrane proteins, their hydrophobic length does not affect...

  18. Microheterogeneity of alpha 1-acid glycoprotein in healthy elderly subjects: patterns obtained by crossed affino-immunoelectrophoresis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kawerk, N; Succari-Aderschlag, M; Foglietti, M J

    1991-10-14

    Total serum alpha 1-acid glycoprotein (AGP) concentration and concanavalin A-dependent microheterogeneity were studied in 31 healthy elderly subjects (18 men, 13 women, 71 to 76 yr old). Crossed affino-immunoelectrophoresis (CAIE) revealed three microheterogeneity variants of AGP: non-reactive, weakly reactive and strongly reactive with ConA. Two patterns were found in both elderly men and women, i.e. a normal pattern and one with an increase in the non-reactive form. Mean serum AGP levels in the elderly subjects with slightly higher than in a reference group of younger subjects. The Con A non-reactive form of AGP was increased in 42% of the elderly population. An increase in the non-reactive form of AGP in CAIE should be considered as general expression of chronic inflammation which is of no clinical relevance.

  19. Dynamic expression pattern of kinesin accessory protein in Drosophila

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Unknown

    terization of the function of the DmKAP gene, we studied its expression pattern at different stages of development using the mRNA in .... region of the developing brain. ..... Kido M and Hirokawa N 1998 Randomization of left-right asymmetry ...

  20. Correlation between protein sequence similarity and x-ray diffraction quality in the protein data bank.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Hui-Meng; Yin, Da-Chuan; Ye, Ya-Jing; Luo, Hui-Min; Geng, Li-Qiang; Li, Hai-Sheng; Guo, Wei-Hong; Shang, Peng

    2009-01-01

    As the most widely utilized technique to determine the 3-dimensional structure of protein molecules, X-ray crystallography can provide structure of the highest resolution among the developed techniques. The resolution obtained via X-ray crystallography is known to be influenced by many factors, such as the crystal quality, diffraction techniques, and X-ray sources, etc. In this paper, the authors found that the protein sequence could also be one of the factors. We extracted information of the resolution and the sequence of proteins from the Protein Data Bank (PDB), classified the proteins into different clusters according to the sequence similarity, and statistically analyzed the relationship between the sequence similarity and the best resolution obtained. The results showed that there was a pronounced correlation between the sequence similarity and the obtained resolution. These results indicate that protein structure itself is one variable that may affect resolution when X-ray crystallography is used.

  1. Transcriptome-wide patterns of divergence during allopatric evolution.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pereira, Ricardo J; Barreto, Felipe S; Pierce, N Tessa; Carneiro, Miguel; Burton, Ronald S

    2016-04-01

    Recent studies have revealed repeated patterns of genomic divergence associated with species formation. Such patterns suggest that natural selection tends to target a set of available genes, but is also indicative that closely related taxa share evolutionary constraints that limit genetic variability. Studying patterns of genomic divergence among populations within the same species may shed light on the underlying evolutionary processes. Here, we examine transcriptome-wide divergence and polymorphism in the marine copepod Tigriopus californicus, a species where allopatric evolution has led to replicate sets of populations with varying degrees of divergence and hybrid incompatibility. Our analyses suggest that relatively small effective population sizes have resulted in an exponential decline of shared polymorphisms during population divergence and also facilitated the fixation of slightly deleterious mutations within allopatric populations. Five interpopulation comparisons at three different stages of divergence show that nonsynonymous mutations tend to accumulate in a specific set of proteins. These include proteins with central roles in cellular metabolism, such as those encoded in mtDNA, but also include an additional set of proteins that repeatedly show signatures of positive selection during allopatric divergence. Although our results are consistent with a contribution of nonadaptive processes, such as genetic drift and gene expression levels, generating repeatable patterns of genomic divergence in closely related taxa, they also indicate that adaptive evolution targeting a specific set of genes contributes to this pattern. Our results yield insights into the predictability of evolution at the gene level. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  2. Spatial Mapping of Protein Abundances in the Mouse Brain by Voxelation Integrated with High-Throughput Liquid Chromatography ? Mass Spectrometry

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Petyuk, Vladislav A.; Qian, Weijun; Chin, Mark H.; Wang, Haixing H.; Livesay, Eric A.; Monroe, Matthew E.; Adkins, Joshua N.; Jaitly, Navdeep; Anderson, David J.; Camp, David G.; Smith, Desmond J.; Smith, Richard D.

    2007-01-01

    Temporally and spatially resolved mapping of protein abundance patterns within the mammalian brain is of significant interest for understanding brain function and molecular etiologies of neurodegenerative diseases; however, such imaging efforts have been greatly challenged by complexity of the proteome, throughput and sensitivity of applied analytical methodologies, and accurate quantitation of protein abundances across the brain. Here, we describe a methodology for comprehensive spatial proteome mapping that addresses these challenges by employing voxelation integrated with automated microscale sample processing, high-throughput LC system coupled with high resolution Fourier transform ion cyclotron mass spectrometer and a ''universal'' stable isotope labeled reference sample approach for robust quantitation. We applied this methodology as a proof-of-concept trial for the analysis of protein distribution within a single coronal slice of a C57BL/6J mouse brain. For relative quantitation of the protein abundances across the slice, an 18O-isotopically labeled reference sample, derived from a whole control coronal slice from another mouse, was spiked into each voxel sample and stable isotopic intensity ratios were used to obtain measures of relative protein abundances. In total, we generated maps of protein abundance patterns for 1,028 proteins. The significant agreement of the protein distributions with previously reported data supports the validity of this methodology, which opens new opportunities for studying the spatial brain proteome and its dynamics during the course of disease progression and other important biological and associated health aspects in a discovery-driven fashion

  3. [14C]mechlorethamine binding to proteins of the human keratinocyte

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Deaton, M.A.; Jones, G.P.; Bowman, P.D.

    1990-01-01

    Much mustard agent research has focused on mustard/DNA interactions. Mustard also interacts with proteins, however, and to reach the DNA any agent must first pass through the cytoplasm. We hypothesized that the cell's proteins would covalently bind mustard, and thereby limit its access to the DNA. Keratinocyte proteins were radiolabeled with [ 14 C]mechlorethamine and separated by electrophoresis. The banding patterns that resulted were made visible on x-ray films, then compared with control patterns. A correspondence of almost one-to-one was observed, which supports the hypothesis that many cellular proteins are susceptible to mustard alkylation. It follows that some mustard symptoms probably result from effects on existing proteins

  4. Cell patterning on poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate)-patterned fluoropolymer substrate

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kim, Wan-Joong [Advanced Radiation Technology Institute, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Jeongeup-si, Jeollabuk-do 580-185 (Korea, Republic of); Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Chungnam National University, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-764 (Korea, Republic of); Jung, Chang-Hee; Hwang, In-Tae [Advanced Radiation Technology Institute, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Jeongeup-si, Jeollabuk-do 580-185 (Korea, Republic of); Jung, Chan-Hee, E-mail: jch@kaeri.re.kr [Advanced Radiation Technology Institute, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Jeongeup-si, Jeollabuk-do 580-185 (Korea, Republic of); Choi, Jae-Hak, E-mail: jaehakchoi@cnu.ac.kr [Advanced Radiation Technology Institute, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Jeongeup-si, Jeollabuk-do 580-185 (Korea, Republic of); Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Chungnam National University, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-764 (Korea, Republic of); Hong, Sung-Kwon [Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Chungnam National University, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-764 (Korea, Republic of)

    2013-10-15

    Highlights: •PFA films were functionalized by ion-beam induced surface graft polymerization. •Poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) (PSS)-patterned PFA films were prepared. •Well-organized cell patterns were obtained on PSS-patterned PFA films. •This method is useful to fabricate bio-platforms for cell-based biodevices. -- Abstract: The surface functionalization of bio-inert fluoropolymer films through ion beam-induced surface graft polymerization was investigated to control the cellular behavior. The surface of poly(tetrafluoroethylene-co-perfluoropropl vinyl ether) (PFA) films was selectively activated by 150 keV H{sup +} ion implantation in the presence of a pattern mask and sodium 4-styrenesulfonate (SS) was then graft polymerized onto the implanted PFA films to form hydrophilic poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) (PSS)-patterned PFA films. The surface of the resulting PSS-patterned PFA films was investigated in terms of the degree of graft polymerization, chemical structure, chemical composition, wettability, and morphology. The analytical results revealed that PSS was selectively grafted onto the implanted regions of the PFA films. Furthermore, in vitro cell culture on the PSS-patterned PFA films exhibited a preferential adhesion and growth of cells onto the PSS-grafted regions, resulting in well-organized 100 μm cell patterns.

  5. Cell patterning on poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate)-patterned fluoropolymer substrate

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Wan-Joong; Jung, Chang-Hee; Hwang, In-Tae; Jung, Chan-Hee; Choi, Jae-Hak; Hong, Sung-Kwon

    2013-01-01

    Highlights: •PFA films were functionalized by ion-beam induced surface graft polymerization. •Poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) (PSS)-patterned PFA films were prepared. •Well-organized cell patterns were obtained on PSS-patterned PFA films. •This method is useful to fabricate bio-platforms for cell-based biodevices. -- Abstract: The surface functionalization of bio-inert fluoropolymer films through ion beam-induced surface graft polymerization was investigated to control the cellular behavior. The surface of poly(tetrafluoroethylene-co-perfluoropropl vinyl ether) (PFA) films was selectively activated by 150 keV H + ion implantation in the presence of a pattern mask and sodium 4-styrenesulfonate (SS) was then graft polymerized onto the implanted PFA films to form hydrophilic poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) (PSS)-patterned PFA films. The surface of the resulting PSS-patterned PFA films was investigated in terms of the degree of graft polymerization, chemical structure, chemical composition, wettability, and morphology. The analytical results revealed that PSS was selectively grafted onto the implanted regions of the PFA films. Furthermore, in vitro cell culture on the PSS-patterned PFA films exhibited a preferential adhesion and growth of cells onto the PSS-grafted regions, resulting in well-organized 100 μm cell patterns

  6. Pore size is a critical parameter for obtaining sustained protein release from electrochemically synthesized mesoporous silicon microparticles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ester L. Pastor

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Mesoporous silicon has become a material of high interest for drug delivery due to its outstanding internal surface area and inherent biodegradability. We have previously reported the preparation of mesoporous silicon microparticles (MS-MPs synthesized by an advantageous electrochemical method, and showed that due to their inner structure they can adsorb proteins in amounts exceeding the mass of the carrier itself. Protein release from these MS-MPs showed low burst effect and fast delivery kinetics with complete release in a few hours. In this work, we explored if tailoring the size of the inner pores of the particles would retard the protein release process. To address this hypothesis, three new MS-MPs prototypes were prepared by electrochemical synthesis, and the resulting carriers were characterized for morphology, particle size, and pore structure. All MS-MP prototypes had 90 µm mean particle size, but depending on the current density applied for synthesis, pore size changed between 5 and 13 nm. The model protein α-chymotrypsinogen was loaded into MS-MPs by adsorption and solvent evaporation. In the subsequent release experiments, no burst release of the protein was detected for any prototype. However, prototypes with larger pores (>10 nm reached 100% release in 24–48 h, whereas prototypes with small mesopores (<6 nm still retained most of their cargo after 96 h. MS-MPs with ∼6 nm pores were loaded with the osteogenic factor BMP7, and sustained release of this protein for up to two weeks was achieved. In conclusion, our results confirm that tailoring pore size can modify protein release from MS-MPs, and that prototypes with potential therapeutic utility for regional delivery of osteogenic factors can be prepared by convenient techniques.

  7. Protein patterns of wheat grains with phylogenetic inferences | El ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    I> separated earlier in evolutionary history, and can be recognized from the rest of the cultivars which belong to species T. durum. KEY WORDS: Triticum aestivum,Triticum durum, protein polymorphism, electrophoresis, SDS-PAGE, cladistic ...

  8. Alterations in the fatty acid profile, antioxidant enzymes and protein pattern of Biomphalaria alexandrina snails exposed to the pesticides diazinon and profenfos.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bakry, Fayez A; El-Hommossany, Karem; Abd El-Atti, Mahmoud; Ismail, Somaya M

    2016-04-01

    The use of pesticides is widespread in agricultural activities. These pesticides may contaminate the irrigation and drainage systems during agriculture activities and pests' control and then negatively affect the biotic and a biotic component of the polluted water courses. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of the pesticides diazinon and profenfos on some biological activities of Biomphalaria alexandrina snails such as fatty acid profile, some antioxidant enzymes (thioredoxin reductase (TrxR), sorbitol dehydrogenase (SDH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) as well as glutathione reductase (GR) and lipid peroxidation (LP)) and protein patterns in snails' tissues exposed for 4 weeks to LC10 of diazinon and profenfos. The results showed that the two pesticides caused considerable reduction in survival rates and egg production of treated snails. Identification of fatty acid composition in snail tissues treated with diazinon and profenfos pesticides was carried out using gas-liquid chromatography (GLC). The results declared alteration in fatty acid profile, fluctuation in percentage of long chain and short chain fatty acid contributions either saturated or unsaturated ones, and a decrease in total lipid content in tissues of snails treated with these pesticides. The data demonstrate that there was a significant inhibition in the activities of tissues SOD, CAT, glutathione reductase (GR), TrxR, and SDH in tissues of treated snails, while a significant elevation was detected in LP as compared to the normal control. On the other hand, the electrophoretic pattern of total protein showed differences in number and molecular weights of protein bands due to the treatment of snails. It was concluded that the residues of diazinon and profenfos pesticides in aquatic environments have toxic effects onB. alexandrina snails. © The Author(s) 2013.

  9. Pico- and femtosecond laser-induced crosslinking of protein microstructures: evaluation of processability and bioactivity

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Turunen, S; Kaepylae, E; Kellomaeki, M [Tampere University of Technology, Department of Biomedical Engineering, PO Box 692, 33101 Tampere (Finland); Terzaki, K; Fotakis, C; Farsari, M [Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL), Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH), N. Plastira 100, 70013, Heraklion, Crete (Greece); Viitanen, J, E-mail: elli.kapyla@tut.fi [VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, PO Box 1300, 33101 Tampere (Finland)

    2011-12-15

    This study reports the pico- and femtosecond laser-induced photocrosslinking of protein microstructures. The capabilities of a picosecond Nd:YAG laser to promote multiphoton excited crosslinking of proteins were evaluated by fabricating 2D and 3D microstructures of avidin, bovine serum albumin (BSA) and biotinylated bovine serum albumin (bBSA). The multiphoton absorption-induced photocrosslinking of proteins was demonstrated here for the first time with a non-toxic biomolecule flavin mononucleotide (FMN) as the photosensitizer. Sub-micrometer and micrometer scale structures were fabricated from several different compositions of protein and photosensitizer by varying the average laser power and scanning speed in order to determine the optimal process parameters for efficient photocrosslinking. In addition, the retention of ligand-binding ability of the crosslinked protein structures was shown by fluorescence imaging of immobilized biotin or streptavidin conjugated fluorescence labels. The surface topography and the resolution of the protein patterns fabricated with the Nd:YAG laser were compared to the results obtained with a femtosecond Ti:Sapphire laser. Quite similar grain characteristics and comparable feature sizes were achieved with both laser sources, which demonstrates the utility of the low-cost Nd:YAG microlaser for direct laser writing of protein microstructures.

  10. Pico- and femtosecond laser-induced crosslinking of protein microstructures: evaluation of processability and bioactivity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Turunen, S; Kaepylae, E; Kellomaeki, M; Terzaki, K; Fotakis, C; Farsari, M; Viitanen, J

    2011-01-01

    This study reports the pico- and femtosecond laser-induced photocrosslinking of protein microstructures. The capabilities of a picosecond Nd:YAG laser to promote multiphoton excited crosslinking of proteins were evaluated by fabricating 2D and 3D microstructures of avidin, bovine serum albumin (BSA) and biotinylated bovine serum albumin (bBSA). The multiphoton absorption-induced photocrosslinking of proteins was demonstrated here for the first time with a non-toxic biomolecule flavin mononucleotide (FMN) as the photosensitizer. Sub-micrometer and micrometer scale structures were fabricated from several different compositions of protein and photosensitizer by varying the average laser power and scanning speed in order to determine the optimal process parameters for efficient photocrosslinking. In addition, the retention of ligand-binding ability of the crosslinked protein structures was shown by fluorescence imaging of immobilized biotin or streptavidin conjugated fluorescence labels. The surface topography and the resolution of the protein patterns fabricated with the Nd:YAG laser were compared to the results obtained with a femtosecond Ti:Sapphire laser. Quite similar grain characteristics and comparable feature sizes were achieved with both laser sources, which demonstrates the utility of the low-cost Nd:YAG microlaser for direct laser writing of protein microstructures.

  11. Pepsin-Assisted Transglutaminase Modifi cation of Functional Properties of a Protein Isolate Obtained from Industrial Sunfl ower Meal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Petya Ivanova

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The utilization of industrial sunfl ower meal to produce protein-rich products for the food industry is an alternative approach for bett er and more effi cient use of this agricultural by-product. Sunfl ower meal proteins possess specifi c functional properties, which however need improvement to broaden their potential as supplements for delivering high-quality products for human nutrition. The aim of the study is to evaluate the combined infl uence of low-degree pepsin hydrolysis and transglutaminase (TG modifi cation on industrial sunfl ower meal protein isolate functionality at pH=2 to 10. Three TG-modifi ed pepsin hydrolysates with the degree of hydrolysis of 0.48, 0.71 and 1.72 % were produced and named TG-PH1, TG-PH2 and TG-PH3, respectively. All three TG-modifi ed pepsin hydrolysates exhibited improved solubility at pH between 3.5 and 5.5 as the highest was observed of TG-PH3 at protein isoelectric point (pI=4.5. Sunfl ower meal protein isolate and TG-modifi ed sunfl ower meal protein isolate had greater solubility than the three TG-modifi ed hydrolysates at pH7. Signifi cant improvement of foam making capacity (p<0.05 was achieved with all three TG-modifi ed pepsin hydrolysates in the entire pH area studied. Pepsin hydrolysis of the protein isolate with the three degrees of hydrolysis did not improve foam stability. Improved thermal stability was observed with TG-PH3 up to 80 °C compared to the protein isolate (pH=7. At 90 °C, TG modifi cation of the protein isolate alone resulted in the highest thermal stability. Pepsin hydrolysis followed by a treatment with TG could be used to produce sunfl ower protein isolates with improved solubility, foam making capacity and thermal stability for use in the food industry.

  12. Interaction of a non-histone chromatin protein (high-mobility group protein 2) with DNA

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Goodwin, G.H.; Shooter, K.V.; Johns, E.W.

    1975-01-01

    The interaction with DNA of the calf thymus chromatin non-histone protein termed the high-mobility group protein 2 has been studied by sedimentation analysis in the ultracentrifuge and by measuring the binding of the 125 I-labelled protein to DNA. The results have been compared with those obtained previously by us [Eur. J. Biochem. (1974) 47, 263-270] for the interaction of high-mobility group protein 1 with DNA. Although the binding parameters are similar for these two proteins, high-mobility group protein 2 differs from high-mobility group protein 1 in that the former appears to change the shape of the DNA to a more compact form. The molecular weight of high-mobility group protein 2 has been determined by equilibrium sedimentation and a mean value of 26,000 was obtained. A low level of nuclease activity detected in one preparation of high-mobility group protein 2 has been investigated. (orig.) [de

  13. Diversity of T cell epitopes in Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite protein likely due to protein-protein interactions.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nagesh R Aragam

    Full Text Available Circumsporozoite protein (CS is a leading vaccine antigen for falciparum malaria, but is highly polymorphic in natural parasite populations. The factors driving this diversity are unclear, but non-random assortment of the T cell epitopes TH2 and TH3 has been observed in a Kenyan parasite population. The recent publication of the crystal structure of the variable C terminal region of the protein allows the assessment of the impact of diversity on protein structure and T cell epitope assortment. Using data from the Gambia (55 isolates and Malawi (235 isolates, we evaluated the patterns of diversity within and between epitopes in these two distantly-separated populations. Only non-synonymous mutations were observed with the vast majority in both populations at similar frequencies suggesting strong selection on this region. A non-random pattern of T cell epitope assortment was seen in Malawi and in the Gambia, but structural analysis indicates no intramolecular spatial interactions. Using the information from these parasite populations, structural analysis reveals that polymorphic amino acids within TH2 and TH3 colocalize to one side of the protein, surround, but do not involve, the hydrophobic pocket in CS, and predominately involve charge switches. In addition, free energy analysis suggests residues forming and behind the novel pocket within CS are tightly constrained and well conserved in all alleles. In addition, free energy analysis shows polymorphic residues tend to be populated by energetically unfavorable amino acids. In combination, these findings suggest the diversity of T cell epitopes in CS may be primarily an evolutionary response to intermolecular interactions at the surface of the protein potentially counteracting antibody-mediated immune recognition or evolving host receptor diversity.

  14. Production of protein concentrate and isolate from cashew ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The protein isolates were obtained by an alkaline extraction-isoelectric precipitation method, which involved aqueous alkaline extraction of the proteins at low temperature, and isoelectric precipitation of the protein fractions; the protein concentrates were obtained using an alkaline extraction-methanol precipitation method, ...

  15. Almond (Prunus dulcis L.) protein quality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahrens, Susan; Venkatachalam, Mahesh; Mistry, Anahita M; Lapsley, Karen; Sathe, Shridhar K

    2005-09-01

    Three marketing varieties of almonds; Carmel, Mission, and Nonpareil; were analyzed for proximate composition and protein nutritive quality. Moisture, lipids, protein, ash, sugars, and tannins ranges were 3.05-4.33%, 43.37-47.50%, 20.68-23.30%, 3.74-4.56%, 5.35-7.45%, and 0.12-0.18%, respectively. No detectable hemagglutinating and trypsin inhibitory activities were present in Carmel, Mission, and Nonpareil almonds. Amino acid analyses indicated the sulfur amino acids (methionine + cysteine), lysine, and threonine to be the first, second, and third limiting amino acids in almonds when compared to the recommended amino acid pattern for children 2-5-year old. However, compared to the recommended amino acid pattern for adults, sulfur amino acids were the only limiting amino acids in almonds tested. True Protein Digestibility (% TPD) values for Carmel, Mission, and Nonpareil were 88.55 +/- 1.26, 92.25 +/- 1.05, and 82.62 +/- 1.47, respectively. Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Scoring (PDCAAS) values suggested almond proteins to be of poor nutritional quality.

  16. Effects of sources of protein and enzyme supplementation on protein digestibility and chyme characteristics in broilers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, B; Lee, T T T; Chiou, P W S

    2002-07-01

    1. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of protein source and enzyme supplementation on protein digestibility and chyme characteristics in broilers. 2. One hundred and twenty growing (13 d old) and 60 finishing (34 d old) Arbor Acre strain commercial male broilers were selected and placed into individual metabolic cages. 3. The experiment was a 5 x 2 factorial arrangement with 5 different sources of protein: casein, fish meal, soybean meal (SBM), soy protein concentrate (SPC), maize gluten meal (MGM) and two levels of protease (bromelain), 0 and 65 CDU/kg diets. 4. The diets were iso-nitrogenous and semi-purified, with Cr2O3 as an indicator for determination of ileal digestibility and chyme characteristics. 5. Apparent ileal protein digestibility (AIPD) in both growing and finishing chickens was highest on the casein diet, followed by fish meal, SBM, SPC and MGM. 6. Enzyme inclusion did not improve protein digestibility, but significantly decreased the digesta pH value in the gizzard and increased pH in the ileum in the 3-week-old broilers. 7. The digesta pH values in the gizzard and duodenum were significantly lower in the SBM and fish meal groups compared with the other protein groups. The molecular weight distribution pattern of the soluble protein in the chyme of the gastrointestinal (GI) segments showed a similar trend, regardless of the enzyme inclusion or the stage of growth. 8. The molecular weight profile of soluble protein changed dynamically in the casein fed broilers from the gizzard to ileum and the low molecular weight proteins, < 7 kDa, reached maximum levels at the ileum. The molecular weight profile of the soluble protein in the SBM and SPC changed between the jejunum and the ileum and in the intermediate molecular soluble protein weight (7 to 10 kDa) was significantly decreased. This indicated that the hydrolysis process began from the middle to the posterior end of the small intestine. 9. Similar profiles were also shown with

  17. Protein fraction heterogeneity in donkey’s milk analysed by proteomic methods

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    G. D'Urso

    2010-04-01

    Full Text Available Donkey’s milk is often well tolerate by patients affected by cow’s milk protein allergy, probably thanks to its protein composition. This empiric evidence, confirmed by some clinical trials, needs to be better investigated. A preliminary survey on the protein fraction of donkey’s milk was carried out: fifty-six individual milk samples have been collected and analysed by IEF and SDS-PAGE. Five different IEF patterns have been identified, showing a marked heterogeneity both in casein and whey protein fractions. A single IEF pattern showed an apparent reduced amount of casein fraction highlighted by SDS. Three of the five IEF patterns have been further investigated by Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS.

  18. Enhanced microcontact printing of proteins on nanoporous silica surface

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Blinka, Ellen; Hu Ye; Gopal, Ashwini; Hoshino, Kazunori; Lin, Kevin; Zhang, John X J [Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78758 (United States); Loeffler, Kathryn; Liu Xuewu; Ferrari, Mauro, E-mail: John.Zhang@engr.utexas.edu [Department of Nanomedicine and Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas Health Science Service, Houston, TX 77031 (United States)

    2010-10-15

    We demonstrate porous silica surface modification, combined with microcontact printing, as an effective method for enhanced protein patterning and adsorption on arbitrary surfaces. Compared to conventional chemical treatments, this approach offers scalability and long-term device stability without requiring complex chemical activation. Two chemical surface treatments using functionalization with the commonly used 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) and glutaraldehyde (GA) were compared with the nanoporous silica surface on the basis of protein adsorption. The deposited thickness and uniformity of porous silica films were evaluated for fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-labeled rabbit immunoglobulin G (R-IgG) protein printed onto the substrates via patterned polydimethlysiloxane (PDMS) stamps. A more complete transfer of proteins was observed on porous silica substrates compared to chemically functionalized substrates. A comparison of different pore sizes (4-6 nm) and porous silica thicknesses (96-200 nm) indicates that porous silica with 4 nm diameter, 57% porosity and a thickness of 96 nm provided a suitable environment for complete transfer of R-IgG proteins. Both fluorescence microscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used for protein layer characterizations. A porous silica layer is biocompatible, providing a favorable transfer medium with minimal damage to the proteins. A patterned immunoassay microchip was developed to demonstrate the retained protein function after printing on nanoporous surfaces, which enables printable and robust immunoassay detection for point-of-care applications.

  19. Interaction of Hepatitis C virus proteins with pattern recognition receptors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Imran Muhammad

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Hepatitis C virus (HCV is an important human pathogen that causes acute and chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma worldwide. This positive stranded RNA virus is extremely efficient in establishing persistent infection by escaping immune detection or hindering the host immune responses. Recent studies have discovered two important signaling pathways that activate the host innate immunity against viral infection. One of these pathways utilizes members of Toll-like receptor (TLR family and the other uses the RNA helicase retinoic acid inducible gene I (RIG-I as the receptors for intracellular viral double stranded RNA (dsRNA, and activation of transcription factors. In this review article, we summarize the interaction of HCV proteins with various host receptors/sensors through one of these two pathways or both, and how they exploit these interactions to escape from host defense mechanisms. For this purpose, we searched data from Pubmed and Google Scholar. We found that three HCV proteins; Core (C, non structural 3/4 A (NS3/4A and non structural 5A (NS5A have direct interactions with these two pathways. Core protein only in the monomeric form stimulates TLR2 pathway assisting the virus to evade from the innate immune system. NS3/4A disrupts TLR3 and RIG-1 signaling pathways by cleaving Toll/IL-1 receptor domain-containing adapter inducing IFN-beta (TRIF and Cardif, the two important adapter proteins of these signaling cascades respectively, thus halting the defense against HCV. NS5A downmodulates the expressions of NKG2D on natural killer cells (NK cells via TLR4 pathway and impairs the functional ability of these cells. TLRs and RIG-1 pathways have a central role in innate immunity and despite their opposing natures to HCV proteins, when exploited together, HCV as an ever developing virus against host immunity is able to accumulate these mechanisms for near unbeatable survival.

  20. Comprehensive microarray-based analysis for stage-specific larval camouflage pattern-associated genes in the swallowtail butterfly, Papilio xuthus

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Futahashi Ryo

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Body coloration is an ecologically important trait that is often involved in prey-predator interactions through mimicry and crypsis. Although this subject has attracted the interest of biologists and the general public, our scientific knowledge on the subject remains fragmentary. In the caterpillar of the swallowtail butterfly Papilio xuthus, spectacular changes in the color pattern are observed; the insect mimics bird droppings (mimetic pattern as a young larva, and switches to a green camouflage coloration (cryptic pattern in the final instar. Despite the wide variety and significance of larval color patterns, few studies have been conducted at a molecular level compared with the number of studies on adult butterfly wing patterns. Results To obtain a catalog of genes involved in larval mimetic and cryptic pattern formation, we constructed expressed sequence tag (EST libraries of larval epidermis for P. xuthus, and P. polytes that contained 20,736 and 5,376 clones, respectively, representing one of the largest collections available in butterflies. A comparison with silkworm epidermal EST information revealed the high expression of putative blue and yellow pigment-binding proteins in Papilio species. We also designed a microarray from the EST dataset information, analyzed more than five stages each for six markings, and confirmed spatial expression patterns by whole-mount in situ hybridization. Hence, we succeeded in elucidating many novel marking-specific genes for mimetic and cryptic pattern formation, including pigment-binding protein genes, the melanin-associated gene yellow-h3, the ecdysteroid synthesis enzyme gene 3-dehydroecdysone 3b-reductase, and Papilio-specific genes. We also found many cuticular protein genes with marking specificity that may be associated with the unique surface nanostructure of the markings. Furthermore, we identified two transcription factors, spalt and ecdysteroid signal-related E75, as genes

  1. Molecular chaperone assisted expression systems: obtaining pure soluble and active recombinant proteins for structural and therapeutic purposes

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Makhoba, XH

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available For many years recombinant protein production has been at the center of biosciences used for structural and therapeutic purposes. The production of recombinant proteins in foreign host system such as E. coli has been a biggest challenge. This has...

  2. Retinol-induced changes in the phosphorylation levels of histones and high mobility group proteins from Sertoli cells

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Moreira J.C.F.

    2000-01-01

    Full Text Available Chromatin proteins play a role in the organization and functions of DNA. Covalent modifications of nuclear proteins modulate their interactions with DNA sequences and are probably one of the multiple factors involved in the process of switch on/off transcriptionally active regions of DNA. Histones and high mobility group proteins (HMG are subject to many covalent modifications that may modulate their capacity to bind to DNA. We investigated the changes induced in the phosphorylation pattern of cultured Wistar rat Sertoli cell histones and high mobility group protein subfamilies exposed to 7 µM retinol for up to 48 h. In each experiment, 6 h before the end of the retinol treatment each culture flask received 370 KBq/ml [32P]-phosphate. The histone and HMGs were isolated as previously described [Moreira et al. Medical Science Research (1994 22: 783-784]. The total protein obtained by either method was quantified and electrophoresed as described by Spiker [Analytical Biochemistry (1980 108: 263-265]. The gels were stained with Coomassie brilliant blue R-250 and the stained bands were cut and dissolved in 0.5 ml 30% H2O2 at 60oC for 12 h. The vials were chilled and 5.0 ml scintillation liquid was added. The radioactivity in each vial was determined with a liquid scintillation counter. Retinol treatment significantly changed the pattern of each subfamily of histone and high mobility group proteins.

  3. Identifying potential survival strategies of HIV-1 through virus-host protein interaction networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Boucher Charles AB

    2010-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has launched the HIV-1 Human Protein Interaction Database in an effort to catalogue all published interactions between HIV-1 and human proteins. In order to systematically investigate these interactions functionally and dynamically, we have constructed an HIV-1 human protein interaction network. This network was analyzed for important proteins and processes that are specific for the HIV life-cycle. In order to expose viral strategies, network motif analysis was carried out showing reoccurring patterns in virus-host dynamics. Results Our analyses show that human proteins interacting with HIV form a densely connected and central sub-network within the total human protein interaction network. The evaluation of this sub-network for connectivity and centrality resulted in a set of proteins essential for the HIV life-cycle. Remarkably, we were able to associate proteins involved in RNA polymerase II transcription with hubs and proteasome formation with bottlenecks. Inferred network motifs show significant over-representation of positive and negative feedback patterns between virus and host. Strikingly, such patterns have never been reported in combined virus-host systems. Conclusions HIV infection results in a reprioritization of cellular processes reflected by an increase in the relative importance of transcriptional machinery and proteasome formation. We conclude that during the evolution of HIV, some patterns of interaction have been selected for resulting in a system where virus proteins preferably interact with central human proteins for direct control and with proteasomal proteins for indirect control over the cellular processes. Finally, the patterns described by network motifs illustrate how virus and host interact with one another.

  4. Design of multi-specificity in protein interfaces.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elisabeth L Humphris

    2007-08-01

    Full Text Available Interactions in protein networks may place constraints on protein interface sequences to maintain correct and avoid unwanted interactions. Here we describe a "multi-constraint" protein design protocol to predict sequences optimized for multiple criteria, such as maintaining sets of interactions, and apply it to characterize the mechanism and extent to which 20 multi-specific proteins are constrained by binding to multiple partners. We find that multi-specific binding is accommodated by at least two distinct patterns. In the simplest case, all partners share key interactions, and sequences optimized for binding to either single or multiple partners recover only a subset of native amino acid residues as optimal. More interestingly, for signaling interfaces functioning as network "hubs," we identify a different, "multi-faceted" mode, where each binding partner prefers its own subset of wild-type residues within the promiscuous binding site. Here, integration of preferences across all partners results in sequences much more "native-like" than seen in optimization for any single binding partner alone, suggesting these interfaces are substantially optimized for multi-specificity. The two strategies make distinct predictions for interface evolution and design. Shared interfaces may be better small molecule targets, whereas multi-faceted interactions may be more "designable" for altered specificity patterns. The computational methodology presented here is generalizable for examining how naturally occurring protein sequences have been selected to satisfy a variety of positive and negative constraints, as well as for rationally designing proteins to have desired patterns of altered specificity.

  5. Glycosylation patterns of kidney proteins differ in rat diabetic nephropathy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ravidà, Alessandra; Musante, Luca; Kreivi, Marjut; Miinalainen, Ilkka; Byrne, Barry; Saraswat, Mayank; Henry, Michael; Meleady, Paula; Clynes, Martin; Holthofer, Harry

    2015-05-01

    Diabetic nephropathy often progresses to end-stage kidney disease and, ultimately, to renal replacement therapy. Hyperglycemia per se is expected to have a direct impact on the biosynthesis of N- and O-linked glycoproteins. This study aims to establish the link between protein glycosylation and progression of experimental diabetic kidney disease using orthogonal methods. Kidneys of streptozotocin-diabetic and control rats were harvested at three different time points post streptozotocin injection. A panel of 12 plant lectins was used in the screening of lectin blots. The lectins UEAI, PHA-E, GSI, PNA, and RCA identified remarkable disease-associated differences in glycoprotein expression. Lectin affinity chromatography followed by mass spectrometric analyses led to the identification of several glycoproteins involved in salt-handling, angiogenesis, and extracellular matrix degradation. Our data confirm a substantial link between glycosylation signature and diabetes progression. Furthermore, as suggested by our findings on dipeptidyl peptidase-IV, altered protein glycosylation may reflect changes in biochemical properties such as enzymatic activity. Thus, our study demonstrates the unexplored potential of protein glycosylation analysis in the discovery of molecules linked to diabetic kidney disease.

  6. Mammary fibroadenoma: ductal pattern in pneumo-oncography

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pinto Pabon, I.; Garcia Alvarez, A.; Castello Camerlinck, J.

    1988-01-01

    The authors present 25 cases affected by mammary fibroadenoma which underwent pneumo-oncography; in all instances they obtained a characteristic pattern of air distribution, the ductal pattern, which allows fibroadenoma to be reliably diagnosed. No carcinoma demonstrated this type of air pattern. 9 refs.; 3 figs

  7. Detecting protein-protein interactions in the intact cell of Bacillus subtilis (ATCC 6633).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Winters, Michael S; Day, R A

    2003-07-01

    The salt bridge, paired group-specific reagent cyanogen (ethanedinitrile; C(2)N(2)) converts naturally occurring pairs of functional groups into covalently linked products. Cyanogen readily permeates cell walls and membranes. When the paired groups are shared between associated proteins, isolation of the covalently linked proteins allows their identity to be assigned. Examination of organisms of known genome sequence permits identification of the linked proteins by mass spectrometric techniques applied to peptides derived from them. The cyanogen-linked proteins were isolated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Digestion of the isolated proteins with proteases of known specificity afforded sets of peptides that could be analyzed by mass spectrometry. These data were compared with those derived theoretically from the Swiss Protein Database by computer-based comparisons (Protein Prospector; http://prospector.ucsf.edu). Identification of associated proteins in the ribosome of Bacillus subtilis strain ATCC 6633 showed that there is an association homology with the association patterns of the ribosomal proteins of Haloarcula marismortui and Thermus thermophilus. In addition, other proteins involved in protein biosynthesis were shown to be associated with ribosomal proteins.

  8. Effects of plant proteins on postprandial, free plasma amino acid concentrations in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Larsen, Bodil Katrine; Dalsgaard, Anne Johanne Tang; Pedersen, Per Bovbjerg

    2012-01-01

    proteins from wheat, peas, field beans, sunflower and soybean. Blood samples were obtained from the caudal vein of 7 fish in each dietary treatment group prior to feeding, as well as: 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24, 48 and 72 h after feeding (sampling 7 new fish at each time point), and plasma amino acid......Postprandial patterns in plasma free amino acid concentrations were investigated in juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) fed either a fish meal based diet (FM) or a diet (VEG) where 59% of fish meal protein (corresponding to 46% of total dietary protein) was replaced by a matrix of plant...... the two dietary treatment groups correlated largely with the amino acid content of the two diets except for methionine, lysine and arginine, where the differences were more extreme than what would be expected from differences in dietary concentrations. The apparent protein digestibility coefficient...

  9. Dietary, Nutrient Patterns and Blood Essential Elements in Chinese Children with ADHD

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fankun Zhou

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Dietary or nutrient patterns represent the combined effects of foods or nutrients, and elucidate efficaciously the impact of diet on diseases. Because the pharmacotherapy on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD was reported be associated with certain side effects, and the etiology of ADHD is multifactorial, this study investigated the association of dietary and nutrient patterns with the risk of ADHD. We conducted a case-control study with 592 Chinese children including ADHD (n = 296 and non-ADHD (n = 296 aged 6–14 years old, matched by age and sex. Dietary and nutrient patterns were identified using factor analysis and a food frequency questionnaire. Blood essential elements levels were measured using atomic absorption spectrometry. A fish-white meat dietary pattern rich in shellfish, deep water fish, white meat, freshwater fish, organ meat and fungi and algae was inversely associated with ADHD (p = 0.006. Further analysis found that a mineral-protein nutrient pattern rich in zinc, protein, phosphorus, selenium, calcium and riboflavin was inversely associated with ADHD (p = 0.014. Additionally, the blood zinc was also negatively related to ADHD (p = 0.003. In conclusion, the fish-white meat dietary pattern and mineral-protein nutrient pattern may have beneficial effects on ADHD in Chinese children, and blood zinc may be helpful in distinguishing ADHD in Chinese children.

  10. Dietary, Nutrient Patterns and Blood Essential Elements in Chinese Children with ADHD.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Fankun; Wu, Fengyun; Zou, Shipu; Chen, Ying; Feng, Chang; Fan, Guangqin

    2016-06-08

    Dietary or nutrient patterns represent the combined effects of foods or nutrients, and elucidate efficaciously the impact of diet on diseases. Because the pharmacotherapy on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was reported be associated with certain side effects, and the etiology of ADHD is multifactorial, this study investigated the association of dietary and nutrient patterns with the risk of ADHD. We conducted a case-control study with 592 Chinese children including ADHD (n = 296) and non-ADHD (n = 296) aged 6-14 years old, matched by age and sex. Dietary and nutrient patterns were identified using factor analysis and a food frequency questionnaire. Blood essential elements levels were measured using atomic absorption spectrometry. A fish-white meat dietary pattern rich in shellfish, deep water fish, white meat, freshwater fish, organ meat and fungi and algae was inversely associated with ADHD (p = 0.006). Further analysis found that a mineral-protein nutrient pattern rich in zinc, protein, phosphorus, selenium, calcium and riboflavin was inversely associated with ADHD (p = 0.014). Additionally, the blood zinc was also negatively related to ADHD (p = 0.003). In conclusion, the fish-white meat dietary pattern and mineral-protein nutrient pattern may have beneficial effects on ADHD in Chinese children, and blood zinc may be helpful in distinguishing ADHD in Chinese children.

  11. Plum pox virus capsid protein suppresses plant pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP)-triggered immunity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nicaise, Valerie; Candresse, Thierry

    2017-08-01

    The perception of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) by immune receptors launches defence mechanisms referred to as PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI). Successful pathogens must suppress PTI pathways via the action of effectors to efficiently colonize their hosts. So far, plant PTI has been reported to be active against most classes of pathogens, except viruses, although this defence layer has been hypothesized recently as an active part of antiviral immunity which needs to be suppressed by viruses for infection success. Here, we report that Arabidopsis PTI genes are regulated upon infection by viruses and contribute to plant resistance to Plum pox virus (PPV). Our experiments further show that PPV suppresses two early PTI responses, the oxidative burst and marker gene expression, during Arabidopsis infection. In planta expression of PPV capsid protein (CP) was found to strongly impair these responses in Nicotiana benthamiana and Arabidopsis, revealing its PTI suppressor activity. In summary, we provide the first clear evidence that plant viruses acquired the ability to suppress PTI mechanisms via the action of effectors, highlighting a novel strategy employed by viruses to escape plant defences. © 2016 BSPP AND JOHN WILEY & SONS LTD.

  12. Three-dimensional recurring patterns in excitable media

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Biton, Y.; Rabinovitch, A.; Braunstein, D.; Friedman, M.; Aviram, I.

    2011-01-01

    A new method to create three-dimensional periodic patterns in excitable media is presented. The method is demonstrated and the patterns are obtained with the help of two types of 3D 'spiral pairs' generators, which are respectively based on a 'corner effect' and a 'unidirectional propagation' processes. The results portray time-repeating patterns resembling fruits or potteries. The method is easy to implement and can be used to form other types of 3D patterns in excitable media. The question of periodicity of the patterns thus obtained is resolved by calculating the singular lines (filaments) around which they evolve and showing their unique reattachment property. Actual realizations could be conceived e.g. in chemical reactions such as Belousov-Zhabotinsky. Possible severe cardiac arrhythmias following the appearance of such patterns in the action potential of the heart are considered. -- Highlights: → New method to create three-dimensional periodic patterns in excitable media. → Singular lines (filaments) for the corner effect are presented. → Filaments are shown to exhibit periodic behavior.

  13. PATTERN BASED DETECTION OF POTENTIALLY DRUGGABLE BINDING SITES BY LIGAND SCREENING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Uttam Pal

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available This article describes an innovative way of finding the potentially druggable sites on a target protein, which can be used for orthosteric and allosteric lead detection in a single virtual screening setup. Druggability estimation for an alternate binding site other than the canonical ligand-binding pocket of an enzyme is rewarding for several inherent benefits. Allostery is a direct and efficient way of regulating biomacromolecule function. The allosteric modulators can fine-tune protein mechanics. Besides, allosteric sites are evolutionarily less conserved/more diverse even in very similarly related proteins, thus, provides high degree of specificity in targeting a particular protein. Therefore, targeting of allosteric sites is gaining attention as an emerging strategy in rational drug design. However, the experimental approaches provide a limited degree of characterization of new allosteric sites. Computational approaches are useful to analyze and select potential allosteric sites for drug discovery. Here, the use of molecular docking, which has become an integral part of the drug discovery process, has been discussed to predict the druggability of novel allosteric sites as well as the active site on target proteins by ligand screening. Genetic algorithm was used for docking and the whole protein was placed in the search space. For each ligand in the library of small molecules, the genetic algorithm was run for multiple times to populate all the druggable sites in the target protein, which was then translated into two dimensional density maps or “patterns”. High density clusters were observed for lead like molecules in these pattern diagrams. Each cluster in such a pattern diagram indicated a plausible binding site and the density gave its druggability score in terms of weighted probabilities. The patterns were filtered to find the leads for each of the druggable sites on the target protein. Such a novel pattern based analysis of the

  14. Evaluation of the Weevil-damaged Sweet Potato as Substrate for Microbial Protein Obtaining

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lic. Antonio Montes-de-Oca-Olivares

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available The production of microbial protein from agricultural and agroindustrial wastes is an important way to supply the demand of this essential nutritional principle. Sweet potato (Ipomea batata tubercles damaged by weevil (Cylas formicarius are considered a waste due to their unpleasant flavor. This research deal in the characterization of sweet potato damaged by weevil, as an alternative substratefor the culture of the fodder yeast Candida utilis. It was found that the damaged tubercle had a similar composition that the healthy one, concerning dry matter, total reducing sugars, nitrogen and minerals; the high content of reducing sugars (30-40 % dry weight recommends the use of this waste as a substrate for single cell protein production. Several fungal strains were assayed to enzymatic degradation of sweet potato polysaccharides; from these ones, Aspergillus oryzae H/28-1 and Neurospora sp. were the more actives to release reducing sugars to the culture medium, being the last one the more prominent. Theyeast Candida utilis showed a satisfactory growth in media formulated in basis to weevil-damaged sweet potato, reaching reducing sugar consumptions over 80 % and biomass yields of 37-58 %; addition of urea as nitrogen source improved both parameters of the growth. The fermentation’s end-product acquired a pleasant flavor, which suggests a better palatability.

  15. Different Cells Make Different Proteins: A Laboratory Exercise Illustrating Tissue-Specific Protein Expression in Animals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ibarguren, Izaskun; Villamarín, Antonio

    2017-01-01

    All the cells of higher organisms have the same DNA but not the same proteins. Each type of specialised cell that forms a tissue has its own pattern of gene expression and, consequently, it contains a particular set of proteins that determine its function. Here, we describe a laboratory exercise addressed to undergraduate students that aims to…

  16. Genetic characterization of early maturing maize hybrids (Zea mays L. obtained by protein and RAPD markers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bauer Iva

    2005-01-01

    Full Text Available Knowledge of maize germplasm genetic diversity is important for planning breeding programmes, germplasm conservation per se etc. Genetic variability of maize hybrids grown in the fields is also very important because genetic uniformity implies risks of genetic vulnerability to stress factors and can cause great losts in yield. Early maturing maize hybrids are characterized by shorter vegetation period and they are grown in areas with shorter vegetation season. Because of different climatic conditions in these areas lines and hybrids are developed with different features in respect to drought resistance and disease resistance. The objective of our study was to characterize set of early maturing maize hybrids with protein and RAPD markers and to compare this clasification with their pedigree information. RAPD markers gave significantly higher rate of polymorphism than protein markers. Better corelation was found among pedigree information and protein markers.

  17. Heterogeneous genetic diversity pattern in Plasmodium vivax genes encoding merozoite surface proteins (MSP) -7E, -7F and -7L.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garzón-Ospina, Diego; Forero-Rodríguez, Johanna; Patarroyo, Manuel A

    2014-12-13

    The msp-7 gene has become differentially expanded in the Plasmodium genus; Plasmodium vivax has the highest copy number of this gene, several of which encode antigenic proteins in merozoites. DNA sequences from thirty-six Colombian clinical isolates from P. vivax (pv) msp-7E, -7F and -7L genes were analysed for characterizing and studying the genetic diversity of these pvmsp-7 members which are expressed during the intra-erythrocyte stage; natural selection signals producing the variation pattern so observed were evaluated. The pvmsp-7E gene was highly polymorphic compared to pvmsp-7F and pvmsp-7L which were seen to have limited genetic diversity; pvmsp-7E polymorphism was seen to have been maintained by different types of positive selection. Even though these copies seemed to be species-specific duplications, a search in the Plasmodium cynomolgi genome (P. vivax sister taxon) showed that both species shared the whole msp-7 repertoire. This led to exploring the long-term effect of natural selection by comparing the orthologous sequences which led to finding signatures for lineage-specific positive selection. The results confirmed that the P. vivax msp-7 family has a heterogeneous genetic diversity pattern; some members are highly conserved whilst others are highly diverse. The results suggested that the 3'-end of these genes encode MSP-7 proteins' functional region whilst the central region of pvmsp-7E has evolved rapidly. The lineage-specific positive selection signals found suggested that mutations occurring in msp-7s genes during host switch may have succeeded in adapting the ancestral P. vivax parasite population to humans.

  18. Multicomponent patterned ultrathin carbon nanomembranes by laser ablation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frese, Natalie; Scherr, Julian; Beyer, André; Terfort, Andreas; Gölzhäuser, Armin; Hampp, Norbert; Rhinow, Daniel

    2018-01-01

    Carbon nanomembranes (CNMs) are a class of two-dimensional materials, which are obtained by electron beam-induced crosslinking of aromatic self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on solid substrates. CNMs made from a single type of precursor molecule are uniform with homogeneous chemical and physical properties. We have developed a method for the fabrication of internally patterned CNMs resembling a key feature of biological membranes. Direct laser patterning is used to obtain multicomponent patterned SAMs on gold, which are subsequently crosslinked by electron irradiation. We demonstrate that the structure of internally patterned CNMs is preserved upon transfer to different substrates. The method enables rapid fabrication of patterned 2D materials with local variations in chemical and physical properties on the micrometer to centimeter scale.

  19. Distribution of gluten proteins in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) grain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tosi, Paola; Gritsch, Cristina Sanchis; He, Jibin; Shewry, Peter R

    2011-07-01

    Gluten proteins are the major storage protein fraction in the mature wheat grain. They are restricted to the starchy endosperm, which forms white flour on milling, and interact during grain development to form large polymers which form a continuous proteinaceous network when flour is mixed with water to give dough. This network confers viscosity and elasticity to the dough, enabling the production of leavened products. The starchy endosperm is not a homogeneous tissue and quantitative and qualitative gradients exist for the major components: protein, starch and cell wall polysaccharides. Gradients in protein content and composition are the most evident and are of particular interest because of the major role played by the gluten proteins in determining grain processing quality. Protein gradients in the starchy endosperm were investigated using antibodies for specific gluten protein types for immunolocalization in developing grains and for western blot analysis of protein extracts from flour fractions obtained by sequential abrasion (pearling) to prepare tissue layers. Differential patterns of distribution were found for the high-molecular-weight subunits of glutenin (HMW-GS) and γ-gliadins when compared with the low-molecular-weight subunits of glutenin (LMW-GS), ω- and α-gliadins. The first two types of gluten protein are more abundant in the inner endosperm layers and the latter more abundant in the subaleurone. Immunolocalization also showed that segregation of gluten proteins occurs both between and within protein bodies during protein deposition and may still be retained in the mature grain. Quantitative and qualitative gradients in gluten protein composition are established during grain development. These gradients may be due to the origin of subaleurone cells, which unlike other starchy endosperm cells derive from the re-differentiation of aleurone cells, but could also result from the action of specific regulatory signals produced by the maternal tissue

  20. Phrase Mining of Textual Data to Analyze Extracellular Matrix Protein Patterns Across Cardiovascular Disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liem, David Alexandre; Murali, Sanjana; Sigdel, Dibakar; Shi, Yu; Wang, Xuan; Shen, Jiaming; Choi, Howard; Caufield, J Harry; Wang, Wei; Ping, Peipei; Han, Jiawei

    2018-05-18

    Extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins have been shown to play important roles regulating multiple biological processes in an array of organ systems, including the cardiovascular system. By using a novel bioinformatics text-mining tool, we studied six categories of cardiovascular disease (CVD), namely ischemic heart disease (IHD), cardiomyopathies (CM), cerebrovascular accident (CVA), congenital heart disease (CHD), arrhythmias (ARR), and valve disease (VD), anticipating novel ECM protein-disease and protein-protein relationships hidden within vast quantities of textual data. We conducted a phrase-mining analysis, delineating the relationships of 709 ECM proteins with the six groups of CVDs reported in 1,099,254 abstracts. The technology pipeline known as Context-aware Semantic Online Analytical Processing (CaseOLAP) was applied to semantically rank the association of proteins to each and all six CVDs, performing analyses to quantify each protein-disease relationship. We performed principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering of the data, where each protein is visualized as a six dimensional vector. We found that ECM proteins display variable degrees of association with the six CVDs; certain CVDs share groups of associated proteins whereas others have divergent protein associations. We identified 82 ECM proteins sharing associations with all six CVDs. Our bioinformatics analysis ascribed distinct ECM pathways (via Reactome) from this subset of proteins, namely insulin-like growth factor regulation and interleukin-4 and interleukin-13 signaling, suggesting their contribution to the pathogenesis of all six CVDs. Finally, we performed hierarchical clustering analysis and identified protein clusters associated with a targeted CVD; analyses revealed unexpected insights underlying ECM-pathogenesis of CVDs.

  1. Human cytomegalovirus tegument protein pp65 is detected in all intra- and extra-axial brain tumours independent of the tumour type or grade.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sylwia Libard

    Full Text Available Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV has been indicated being a significant oncomodulator. Recent reports have suggested that an antiviral treatment alters the outcome of a glioblastoma. We analysed the performance of commercial HCMV-antibodies applying the immunohistochemical (IHC methods on brain sample obtained from a subject with a verified HCMV infection, on samples obtained from 14 control subjects, and on a tissue microarray block containing cores of various brain tumours. Based on these trials, we selected the best performing antibody and analysed a cohort of 417 extra- and intra-axial brain tumours such as gliomas, medulloblastomas, primary diffuse large B-cell lymphomas, and meningiomas. HCMV protein pp65 immunoreactivity was observed in all types of tumours analysed, and the IHC expression did not depend on the patient's age, gender, tumour type, or grade. The labelling pattern observed in the tumours differed from the labelling pattern observed in the tissue with an active HCMV infection. The HCMV protein was expressed in up to 90% of all the tumours investigated. Our results are in accordance with previous reports regarding the HCMV protein expression in glioblastomas and medulloblastomas. In addition, the HCMV protein expression was seen in primary brain lymphomas, low-grade gliomas, and in meningiomas. Our results indicate that the HCMV protein pp65 expression is common in intra- and extra-axial brain tumours. Thus, the assessment of the HCMV expression in tumours of various origins and pathologically altered tissue in conditions such as inflammation, infection, and even degeneration should certainly be facilitated.

  2. Cold gelation of globular proteins

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Alting, A.C.

    2003-01-01

    Keywords : globular proteins, whey protein, ovalbumin, cold gelation, disulfide bonds, texture, gel hardnessProtein gelation in food products is important to obtain desirable sensory and textural properties. Cold gelation is a novel method to produce protein-based gels. It is a two step process in

  3. Directed formation of micro- and nanoscale patterns of functional light-harvesting LH2 complexes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reynolds, Nicholas P; Janusz, Stefan; Escalante-Marun, Maryana; Timney, John; Ducker, Robert E; Olsen, John D; Otto, Cees; Subramaniam, Vinod; Leggett, Graham J; Hunter, C Neil

    2007-11-28

    The precision placement of the desired protein components on a suitable substrate is an essential prelude to any hybrid "biochip" device, but a second and equally important condition must also be met: the retention of full biological activity. Here we demonstrate the selective binding of an optically active membrane protein, the light-harvesting LH2 complex from Rhodobacter sphaeroides, to patterned self-assembled monolayers at the micron scale and the fabrication of nanometer-scale patterns of these molecules using near-field photolithographic methods. In contrast to plasma proteins, which are reversibly adsorbed on many surfaces, the LH2 complex is readily patterned simply by spatial control of surface polarity. Near-field photolithography has yielded rows of light-harvesting complexes only 98 nm wide. Retention of the native optical properties of patterned LH2 molecules was demonstrated using in situ fluorescence emission spectroscopy.

  4. Circulating levels of environmental contaminants are associated with dietary patterns in older adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ax, Erika; Lampa, Erik; Lind, Lars; Salihovic, Samira; van Bavel, Bert; Cederholm, Tommy; Sjögren, Per; Lind, P Monica

    2015-02-01

    Food intake contributes substantially to our exposure to environmental contaminants. Still, little is known about our dietary habits' contribution to exposure variability. The aim of this study was to assess circulating levels of environmental contaminants in relation to predefined dietary patterns in an elderly Swedish population. Dietary data and serum concentrations of environmental contaminants were obtained from 844 70-year-old Swedish subjects (50% women) in the Prospective Investigation of the Vasculature in Uppsala Seniors (PIVUS) study. Dietary data from 7-day food records was used to assess adherence to a Mediterranean-like diet, a low carbohydrate-high protein diet and the WHO dietary recommendations. Circulating levels of 6 polychlorinated biphenyl markers, 3 organochlorine pesticides, 1 dioxin and 1 polybrominated diphenyl ether, the metals cadmium, lead, mercury and aluminum and serum levels of bisphenol A and 4 phthalate metabolites were investigated in relation to dietary patterns in multivariate linear regression models. A Mediterranean-like diet was positively associated with levels of several polychlorinated biphenyls (118, 126, 153, and 209), trans-nonachlor and mercury. A low carbohydrate-high protein diet was positively associated with polychlorinated biphenyls 118 and 153, trans-nonachlor, hexachlorobenzene and p, p'-dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene, mercury and lead. The WHO recommended diet was negatively related to levels of dioxin and lead, and borderline positively to polychlorinated biphenyl 118 and trans-nonachlor. Dietary patterns were associated in diverse manners with circulating levels of environmental contaminants in this elderly Swedish population. Following the WHO dietary recommendations seems to be associated with a lower burden of environmental contaminants. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Compare local pocket and global protein structure models by small structure patterns

    KAUST Repository

    Cui, Xuefeng; Kuwahara, Hiroyuki; Li, Shuai Cheng; Gao, Xin

    2015-01-01

    Researchers proposed several criteria to assess the quality of predicted protein structures because it is one of the essential tasks in the Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction (CASP) competitions. Popular criteria

  6. Temporal patterns of cardiac performance and genes encoding heat shock proteins and metabolic sensors of an intertidal limpet Cellana toreuma during sublethal heat stress.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Shu; Han, Guo-dong; Dong, Yun-wei

    2014-04-01

    Intertidal invertebrates develop effective physiological adaptations to cope with the rapidly changing thermal environment in the intertidal zone. In the present study, the temporal patterns of heart rate, protein carbonyl groups, and genes encoding heat shock proteins (hsp70 and hsp90) and metabolic sensors (ampkα, ampkβ and sirt1) were measured to study the effect of sublethal heat stress on the cardiac function, oxidative stress, heat shock response and cellular metabolism of an intertidal limpet Cellana toreuma. All the physiological parameters are sensitive to temperature and duration of heat stress. Spearman correlation analysis revealed that the correlations between heart rate and levels of heat shock proteins mRNA and metabolic sensors mRNA were statistically significant. These results further suggest that cardiac function plays crucial roles in cellular energy metabolism and heat shock responses. The significant increase of protein carbonyl groups at 34°C after 4h exposure indicated that the failure of cardiac function and the increase of anaerobic metabolism partly leads to the increase of protein carbonyl groups. Generally, the physiological responses to heat stress are sensitive to temperature and are energy-consumptive, as indicated by the upregulation of metabolic sensors mRNA. However, the upregulation of heat shock proteins and metabolic sensors at the post-transcriptional level and related functions need to be confirmed in further experiments. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  7. Protein biosynthesis in cultured human hair follicle cells.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weterings, P J; Vermorken, A J; Bloemendal, H

    1980-10-31

    A new technique has been used for culturing human keratinocytes. The cells grow on the basement membrane-like capsules of bovine lenses. Lens cells were removed from the capsules by rigid trypsinization. In order to exclude any contamination with remaining living cells the isolated capsules were irradiated with X-rays at a dose of 10,000 rad. In this way human epithelial cells can be brought in culture from individual hair follicles. Since feeder cells are not used in this culture technique, the biosynthesis of keratinocyte proteins can be studied in these cultures. The newly synthesized proteins can be separated into a water-soluble, a urea-soluble, and a urea-insoluble fraction. Product analysis has been performed on the first two fractions revealing protein patterns identical to those of intact hair follicles. Product analysis of the urea-soluble fractions of microdissected hair follicles shows that the protein pattern of the cultured keratinocytes resembles the protein pattern of the hair follicle sheath. Studies on the metabolism of benzo(a)pyrene revealed that the enzyme aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase (AHH) is present in cultured hair follicle cells. A possible use of our culture system for eventual detection of inherited predisposition for smoking-dependent lung cancer is discussed.

  8. LINEARIZATION OF THE BRADFORD PROTEIN ASSAY TO APPLICATION IN COW MILK PROTEINS QUANTIFICATION BY UV-Vis SPECTROPHOTOMETRY METHOD

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alessa Siqueira de Oliveira dos Santos

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Reliable methods for determination and quantification of total protein in food are essential information to ensure quality and safety of food trade. The objective of this study was to evaluate the linearity of calibration curves obtained from different proteins (blood serum albumin-BSA, α-LA, β-LG, caseins (CN: αs, β and κ-CAS with the reagent of Bradford. Comercial UHT skimmed bovine milk was analyzed for the determination of total protein using the Bradford method by reading at 595 nm. The determination of the concentrations of total milk protein was achieved by linear regression. The Bradford method showed a high sensitivity for the determination of total proteins in bovine milk dilution 1:25 to values closer to those obtained by the Kjeldahl method. The results showed that the calibration curve of standard proteins β-CN and BSA obtained better linearity with less variation in the absorbance measurements for the determination of total protein of milk.

  9. Expression and purification of recombinant proteins in Escherichia coli tagged with a small metal-binding protein from Nitrosomonas europaea.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vargas-Cortez, Teresa; Morones-Ramirez, Jose Ruben; Balderas-Renteria, Isaias; Zarate, Xristo

    2016-02-01

    Escherichia coli is still the preferred organism for large-scale production of recombinant proteins. The use of fusion proteins has helped considerably in enhancing the solubility of heterologous proteins and their purification with affinity chromatography. Here, the use of a small metal-binding protein (SmbP) from Nitrosomonas europaea is described as a new fusion protein for protein expression and purification in E. coli. Fluorescent proteins tagged at the N-terminal with SmbP showed high levels of solubility, compared with those of maltose-binding protein and glutathione S-transferase, and low formation of inclusion bodies. Using commercially available IMAC resins charged with Ni(II), highly pure recombinant proteins were obtained after just one chromatography step. Proteins may be purified from the periplasm of E. coli if SmbP contains the signal sequence at the N-terminal. After removal of the SmbP tag from the protein of interest, high-yields are obtained since SmbP is a protein of just 9.9 kDa. The results here obtained suggest that SmbP is a good alternative as a fusion protein/affinity tag for the production of soluble recombinant proteins in E. coli. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. Application of DNA Machineries for the Barcode Patterned Detection of Genes or Proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Zhixin; Luo, Guofeng; Wulf, Verena; Willner, Itamar

    2018-06-05

    The study introduces an analytical platform for the detection of genes or aptamer-ligand complexes by nucleic acid barcode patterns generated by DNA machineries. The DNA machineries consist of nucleic acid scaffolds that include specific recognition sites for the different genes or aptamer-ligand analytes. The binding of the analytes to the scaffolds initiate, in the presence of the nucleotide mixture, a cyclic polymerization/nicking machinery that yields displaced strands of variable lengths. The electrophoretic separation of the resulting strands provides barcode patterns for the specific detection of the different analytes. Mixtures of DNA machineries that yield, upon sensing of different genes (or aptamer ligands), one-, two-, or three-band barcode patterns are described. The combination of nucleic acid scaffolds acting, in the presence of polymerase/nicking enzyme and nucleotide mixture, as DNA machineries, that generate multiband barcode patterns provide an analytical platform for the detection of an individual gene out of many possible genes. The diversity of genes (or other analytes) that can be analyzed by the DNA machineries and the barcode patterned imaging is given by the Pascal's triangle. As a proof-of-concept, the detection of one of six genes, that is, TP53, Werner syndrome, Tay-Sachs normal gene, BRCA1, Tay-Sachs mutant gene, and cystic fibrosis disorder gene by six two-band barcode patterns is demonstrated. The advantages and limitations of the detection of analytes by polymerase/nicking DNA machineries that yield barcode patterns as imaging readout signals are discussed.

  11. Quantitative defense theory and patterns of feeding by oak insects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Faeth, Stanley H

    1985-12-01

    Patterns of herbivory over a two year period on Quercus emoryi (Fagaceae) were correlated with seasonal and yearly changes in tannin and protein content. Quantitative defense theory predicts that tannin and protein content in apparent plants should be negatively and positively correlated, respectively, with degree of herbivory. Most herbivory occurred early in the growing season, but the pattern varied between the two years. Tannin and protein content sometimes varied negatively and sometimes positively with degree of herbivory; they did not consistently covary with herbivory. Protein content was positively correlated with herbivory in 1981-1982 but not in 1982-1983. Condensed tannin content was negatively correlated with herbivory in 1981-1982 but not in 1982-1983. Hydrolysable tannin content was positively correlated with herbivory activity. Multiple regression analyses indicated these phytochemical variables explained either no significant variation in herbivory (1982-1983) or did so in a fashion opposite (1981-1982) to the predictions of the theory of quantitative defense.Feeding by oak insects was not solely a function of seasonal changes in quantitative defenses and nutrients. Obviously, population dynamics of the insects are sensitive to factors other than phytochemistry of the trees and I discuss other factors that can influence patterns of herbivory.

  12. Impact of protein and ligand impurities on ITC-derived protein-ligand thermodynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grüner, Stefan; Neeb, Manuel; Barandun, Luzi Jakob; Sielaff, Frank; Hohn, Christoph; Kojima, Shun; Steinmetzer, Torsten; Diederich, François; Klebe, Gerhard

    2014-09-01

    The thermodynamic characterization of protein-ligand interactions by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) is a powerful tool in drug design, giving valuable insight into the interaction driving forces. ITC is thought to require protein and ligand solutions of high quality, meaning both the absence of contaminants as well as accurately determined concentrations. Ligands synthesized to deviating purity and protein of different pureness were titrated by ITC. Data curation was attempted also considering information from analytical techniques to correct stoichiometry. We used trypsin and tRNA-guanine transglycosylase (TGT), together with high affinity ligands to investigate the effect of errors in protein concentration as well as the impact of ligand impurities on the apparent thermodynamics. We found that errors in protein concentration did not change the thermodynamic properties obtained significantly. However, most ligand impurities led to pronounced changes in binding enthalpy. If protein binding of the respective impurity is not expected, the actual ligand concentration was corrected for and the thus revised data compared to thermodynamic properties obtained with the respective pure ligand. Even in these cases, we observed differences in binding enthalpy of about 4kJ⋅mol(-1), which is considered significant. Our results indicate that ligand purity is the critical parameter to monitor if accurate thermodynamic data of a protein-ligand complex are to be recorded. Furthermore, artificially changing fitting parameters to obtain a sound interaction stoichiometry in the presence of uncharacterized ligand impurities may lead to thermodynamic parameters significantly deviating from the accurate thermodynamic signature. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. Development of a phosphorylated Momordica charantia protein system for inhibiting susceptible dose-dependent C. albicans to available antimycotics: An allosteric regulation of protein.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qiao, Yuanbiao; Song, Li; Zhu, Chenchen; Wang, Qian; Guo, Tianyan; Yan, Yanhua; Li, Qingshan

    2017-11-15

    A regulatory Momordica charantia protein system was constructed allosterically by in vitro protein phosphorylation, in an attempt to evaluate antimycological pluripotency against dose-dependent susceptibilities in C. albicans. Fungal strain lineages susceptible to ketoconazole, econazole, miconazole, 5-flucytosine, nystatin and amphotericin B were prepared in laboratory, followed by identification via antifungal susceptibility testing. Protein phosphorylation was carried out in reactions with 5'-adenylic, guanidylic, cytidylic and uridylic acids and cyclic adenosine triphosphate, through catalysis of cyclin-dependent kinase 1, protein kinase A and protein kinase C respectively. Biochemical analysis of enzymatic reactions indicated the apparent Michaelis-Menten constants and maximal velocity values of 16.57-91.97mM and 55.56-208.33μM·min -1 , together with an approximate 1:1 reactant stoichiometric ratio. Three major protein phosphorylation sites were theoretically predicted at Thr255, Thr102 and Thr24 by a KinasePhos tool. Additionally, circular dichroism spectroscopy demonstrated that upon phosphorylation, protein folding structures were decreased in random coil, β6-sheet and α1-helix partial regions. McFarland equivalence standard testing yielded the concentration-dependent inhibition patterns, while fungus was grown in Sabouraud's dextrose agar. The minimal inhibitory concentrations of 0.16-0.51μM (at 50% response) were obtained for free protein and phosphorylated counterparts. With respect to the 3-cycling susceptibility testing regimen, individuals of total protein forms were administrated in-turn at 0.14μM/cycle. Relative inhibition ratios were retained to 66.13-81.04% of initial ones regarding the ketoconazole-susceptible C. albicans growth. An inhibitory protein system, with an advantage of decreasing antifungal susceptibilities to diverse antimycotics, was proposed because of regulatory pluripotency whereas little contribution to susceptibility in

  14. Racemic protein crystallography.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yeates, Todd O; Kent, Stephen B H

    2012-01-01

    Although natural proteins are chiral and are all of one "handedness," their mirror image forms can be prepared by chemical synthesis. This opens up new opportunities for protein crystallography. A racemic mixture of the enantiomeric forms of a protein molecule can crystallize in ways that natural proteins cannot. Recent experimental data support a theoretical prediction that this should make racemic protein mixtures highly amenable to crystallization. Crystals obtained from racemic mixtures also offer advantages in structure determination strategies. The relevance of these potential advantages is heightened by advances in synthetic methods, which are extending the size limit for proteins that can be prepared by chemical synthesis. Recent ideas and results in the area of racemic protein crystallography are reviewed.

  15. Identification and characterization of proteins involved in nuclear organization using Drosophila GFP protein trap lines.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Margaret Rohrbaugh

    Full Text Available Strains from a collection of Drosophila GFP protein trap lines express GFP in the normal tissues where the endogenous protein is present. This collection can be used to screen for proteins distributed in the nucleus in a non-uniform pattern.We analyzed four lines that show peripheral or punctate nuclear staining. One of these lines affects an uncharacterized gene named CG11138. The CG11138 protein shows a punctate distribution in the nuclear periphery similar to that of Drosophila insulator proteins but does not co-localize with known insulators. Interestingly, mutations in Lamin proteins result in alterations in CG11138 localization, suggesting that this protein may be a novel component of the nuclear lamina. A second line affects the Decondensation factor 31 (Df31 gene, which encodes a protein with a unique nuclear distribution that appears to segment the nucleus into four different compartments. The X-chromosome of males is confined to one of these compartments. We also find that Drosophila Nucleoplasmin (dNlp is present in regions of active transcription. Heat shock leads to loss of dNlp from previously transcribed regions of polytene chromosome without redistribution to the heat shock genes. Analysis of Stonewall (Stwl, a protein previously found to be necessary for the maintenance of germline stem cells, shows that Stwl is present in a punctate pattern in the nucleus that partially overlaps with that of known insulator proteins. Finally we show that Stwl, dNlp, and Df31 form part of a highly interactive network. The properties of other components of this network may help understand the role of these proteins in nuclear biology.These results establish screening of GFP protein trap alleles as a strategy to identify factors with novel cellular functions. Information gained from the analysis of CG11138 Stwl, dNlp, and Df31 sets the stage for future studies of these proteins.

  16. Evaluating, Comparing, and Interpreting Protein Domain Hierarchies

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-01-01

    Abstract Arranging protein domain sequences hierarchically into evolutionarily divergent subgroups is important for investigating evolutionary history, for speeding up web-based similarity searches, for identifying sequence determinants of protein function, and for genome annotation. However, whether or not a particular hierarchy is optimal is often unclear, and independently constructed hierarchies for the same domain can often differ significantly. This article describes methods for statistically evaluating specific aspects of a hierarchy, for probing the criteria underlying its construction and for direct comparisons between hierarchies. Information theoretical notions are used to quantify the contributions of specific hierarchical features to the underlying statistical model. Such features include subhierarchies, sequence subgroups, individual sequences, and subgroup-associated signature patterns. Underlying properties are graphically displayed in plots of each specific feature's contributions, in heat maps of pattern residue conservation, in “contrast alignments,” and through cross-mapping of subgroups between hierarchies. Together, these approaches provide a deeper understanding of protein domain functional divergence, reveal uncertainties caused by inconsistent patterns of sequence conservation, and help resolve conflicts between competing hierarchies. PMID:24559108

  17. Single-well monitoring of protein-protein interaction and phosphorylation-dephosphorylation events.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arcand, Mathieu; Roby, Philippe; Bossé, Roger; Lipari, Francesco; Padrós, Jaime; Beaudet, Lucille; Marcil, Alexandre; Dahan, Sophie

    2010-04-20

    We combined oxygen channeling assays with two distinct chemiluminescent beads to detect simultaneously protein phosphorylation and interaction events that are usually monitored separately. This novel method was tested in the ERK1/2 MAP kinase pathway. It was first used to directly monitor dissociation of MAP kinase ERK2 from MEK1 upon phosphorylation and to evaluate MAP kinase phosphatase (MKP) selectivity and mechanism of action. In addition, MEK1 and ERK2 were probed with an ATP competitor and an allosteric MEK1 inhibitor, which generated distinct phosphorylation-interaction patterns. Simultaneous monitoring of protein-protein interactions and substrate phosphorylation can provide significant mechanistic insight into enzyme activity and small molecule action.

  18. Reaching (sub-)micrometer resolution of photo-immobilized proteins using diffracted light beams

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Skovsen, Esben; Neves Petersen, Teresa; Petersen, Steffen B.

    2008-01-01

    , with dimensions as small as a few micrometers. The ultimate size of the immobilized spots is dependent on the focal area of the UV beam. The technology involves light induced formation of free, reactive thiol groups in molecules containing aromatic residues nearby disulphide bridges. It is not only limited...... to immobilizing molecules according to conventional patterns like microarrays, as any bitmap motif can virtually be used a template for patterning. We now show that molecules (proteins) can be immobilized on a surface with any arbitrary pattern according to diffraction patterns of light. The pattern of photo......-immobilized proteins reproduces the diffraction pattern of light expected with the optical setup. Immobilising biomolecules according to diffraction patterns of light will allow achievement of smaller patterns with higher resolution. The flexibility of this new technology leads to any patterns of photo...

  19. Karakteristik Protein dan Nitrogen Non Protein Daging Ikan Cucut Lanyam (Charcharhinus limbatus (Characteristics of Protein and Non Protein Nitrogen in Lanyam Shark Muscle

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yuspihana Fitrial

    2017-02-01

    Based on protein solubility of Lanyam muscle at pH 1.5 to 12 obtained two points which is minimum solubility at pH 4.5 and pH 9. Based on the classification Osborn, Lanyam muscle contained albumin (28.64%, globulin (13:44%, prolamin (03.29%, glutelin (33.70%. Observation of non-protein nitrogen levels indicated that the washing process was very effective to reduce non-protein nitrogen levels up to 62.34% and urea levels up to 58% . Differential Scanning Calorimetry Study of Lanyam mince showed two types of protein that has a different stability to heat and after added 2.5% NaCl formed a peak which is a fusion of both these proteins

  20. An Even Distribution of Protein Intake Daily Promotes Protein Adequacy but Does Not Influence Nutritional Status in Institutionalized Elderly

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tieland, Michael; Beelen, Janne; Laan, Anna C.M.; Poon, Shirley; Groot, de Lisette C.P.G.M.; Seeman, Ego; Wang, Xiaofang; Iuliano, Sandra

    2018-01-01

    Objective: Although it has been established that sufficient protein is required to maintain good nutritional status and support healthy aging, it is not clear if the pattern of protein consumption may also influence nutritional status, especially in institutionalized elderly who are at risk of

  1. Exploring the potential of 3D Zernike descriptors and SVM for protein-protein interface prediction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Daberdaku, Sebastian; Ferrari, Carlo

    2018-02-06

    The correct determination of protein-protein interaction interfaces is important for understanding disease mechanisms and for rational drug design. To date, several computational methods for the prediction of protein interfaces have been developed, but the interface prediction problem is still not fully understood. Experimental evidence suggests that the location of binding sites is imprinted in the protein structure, but there are major differences among the interfaces of the various protein types: the characterising properties can vary a lot depending on the interaction type and function. The selection of an optimal set of features characterising the protein interface and the development of an effective method to represent and capture the complex protein recognition patterns are of paramount importance for this task. In this work we investigate the potential of a novel local surface descriptor based on 3D Zernike moments for the interface prediction task. Descriptors invariant to roto-translations are extracted from circular patches of the protein surface enriched with physico-chemical properties from the HQI8 amino acid index set, and are used as samples for a binary classification problem. Support Vector Machines are used as a classifier to distinguish interface local surface patches from non-interface ones. The proposed method was validated on 16 classes of proteins extracted from the Protein-Protein Docking Benchmark 5.0 and compared to other state-of-the-art protein interface predictors (SPPIDER, PrISE and NPS-HomPPI). The 3D Zernike descriptors are able to capture the similarity among patterns of physico-chemical and biochemical properties mapped on the protein surface arising from the various spatial arrangements of the underlying residues, and their usage can be easily extended to other sets of amino acid properties. The results suggest that the choice of a proper set of features characterising the protein interface is crucial for the interface prediction

  2. FRA-1 protein overexpression is a feature of hyperplastic and neoplastic breast disorders

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chiappetta, Gennaro; Pierantoni, Giovanna Maria; Fusco, Alfredo; Ferraro, Angelo; Botti, Gerardo; Monaco, Mario; Pasquinelli, Rosa; Vuttariello, Emilia; Arnaldi, Liliane; Di Bonito, Maurizio; D'Aiuto, Giuseppe

    2007-01-01

    Fos-related antigen 1 (FRA-1) is an immediate early gene encoding a member of AP-1 family of transcription factors involved in cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, and other biological processes. fra-1 gene overexpression has an important role in the process of cellular transformation, and our previous studies suggest FRA-1 protein detection as a useful tool for the diagnosis of thyroid neoplasias. Here we investigate the expression of the FRA-1 protein in benign and malignant breast tissues by immunohistochemistry, Western blot, RT-PCR and qPCR analysis, to evaluate its possible help in the diagnosis and prognosis of breast neoplastic diseases. We investigate the expression of the FRA-1 protein in 70 breast carcinomas and 30 benign breast diseases by immunohistochemistry, Western blot, RT-PCR and qPCR analysis. FRA-1 protein was present in all of the carcinoma samples with an intense staining in the nucleus. Positive staining was also found in most of fibroadenomas, but in this case the staining was present both in the nucleus and cytoplasm, and the number of positive cells was lower than in carcinomas. Similar results were obtained from the analysis of breast hyperplasias, with no differences in FRA-1 expression level between typical and atypical breast lesions; however the FRA-1 protein localization is mainly nuclear in the atypical hyperplasias. In situ breast carcinomas showed a pattern of FRA-1 protein expression very similar to that observed in atypical hyperplasias. Conversely, no FRA-1 protein was detectable in 6 normal breast tissue samples used as controls. RT-PCR and qPCR analysis confirmed these results. Similar results were obtained analysing FRA-1 expression in fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) samples. The data shown here suggest that FRA-1 expression, including its intracellular localization, may be considered a useful marker for hyperplastic and neoplastic proliferative breast disorders

  3. Protein secondary structure prediction for a single-sequence using hidden semi-Markov models

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Borodovsky Mark

    2006-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The accuracy of protein secondary structure prediction has been improving steadily towards the 88% estimated theoretical limit. There are two types of prediction algorithms: Single-sequence prediction algorithms imply that information about other (homologous proteins is not available, while algorithms of the second type imply that information about homologous proteins is available, and use it intensively. The single-sequence algorithms could make an important contribution to studies of proteins with no detected homologs, however the accuracy of protein secondary structure prediction from a single-sequence is not as high as when the additional evolutionary information is present. Results In this paper, we further refine and extend the hidden semi-Markov model (HSMM initially considered in the BSPSS algorithm. We introduce an improved residue dependency model by considering the patterns of statistically significant amino acid correlation at structural segment borders. We also derive models that specialize on different sections of the dependency structure and incorporate them into HSMM. In addition, we implement an iterative training method to refine estimates of HSMM parameters. The three-state-per-residue accuracy and other accuracy measures of the new method, IPSSP, are shown to be comparable or better than ones for BSPSS as well as for PSIPRED, tested under the single-sequence condition. Conclusions We have shown that new dependency models and training methods bring further improvements to single-sequence protein secondary structure prediction. The results are obtained under cross-validation conditions using a dataset with no pair of sequences having significant sequence similarity. As new sequences are added to the database it is possible to augment the dependency structure and obtain even higher accuracy. Current and future advances should contribute to the improvement of function prediction for orphan proteins inscrutable

  4. Skeletal muscle proteins: a new approach to delimitate the time since death.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Foditsch, Elena Esra; Saenger, Alexandra Maria; Monticelli, Fabio Carlo

    2016-03-01

    Skeletal muscle tissue is proposed as a forensic model tissue with strong potential, as it is easily accessible and its true-to-life state structure and function is well known. Despite this strong potential, skeletal muscle degradation studies are rare. The aim of this study was to test if a skeletal muscle-based protein analysis is applicable to delimitate the time since death. Under standard conditions, two pigs were stored either at 22 °C for 5 days or 4 °C for 21 days. Their Mm. biceps femori were sampled periodically for analyses of ten skeletal muscle proteins postmortem. All analyzed proteins can serve as markers for a delimitation of the time since death. Desmin, nebulin, titin, and SERCA 1 displayed distinct protein patterns at certain points of time. The other five proteins, α-actinin, calsequestrin-1, laminin, troponin T-C, and SERCA 2, showed no degradation patterns within the analyzed postmortem time frame. Referring to specific skeletal muscle proteins, results showed short-term stabilities for just a minority of analyzed proteins, while the majority of investigated proteins displayed characteristics as long-term markers. Due to specific patterns and the possibility to determine definite constraints of the presence, absence, or pattern alterations of single proteins, the feasibility of porcine skeletal muscle as forensic model tissue is outlined and the potential of skeletal muscle as forensic model tissue is underlined, especially with respect to later postmortem phases, which so far lack feasible methods to delimitate the time since death.

  5. Expanding protein universe and its origin from the biological Big Bang.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dokholyan, Nikolay V; Shakhnovich, Boris; Shakhnovich, Eugene I

    2002-10-29

    The bottom-up approach to understanding the evolution of organisms is by studying molecular evolution. With the large number of protein structures identified in the past decades, we have discovered peculiar patterns that nature imprints on protein structural space in the course of evolution. In particular, we have discovered that the universe of protein structures is organized hierarchically into a scale-free network. By understanding the cause of these patterns, we attempt to glance at the very origin of life.

  6. Anti-leucine rich glioma inactivated 1 protein and anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor encephalitis show distinct patterns of brain glucose metabolism in 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose positron emission tomography.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wegner, Florian; Wilke, Florian; Raab, Peter; Tayeb, Said Ben; Boeck, Anna-Lena; Haense, Cathleen; Trebst, Corinna; Voss, Elke; Schrader, Christoph; Logemann, Frank; Ahrens, Jörg; Leffler, Andreas; Rodriguez-Raecke, Rea; Dengler, Reinhard; Geworski, Lilli; Bengel, Frank M; Berding, Georg; Stangel, Martin; Nabavi, Elham

    2014-06-20

    Pathogenic autoantibodies targeting the recently identified leucine rich glioma inactivated 1 protein and the subunit 1 of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor induce autoimmune encephalitis. A comparison of brain metabolic patterns in 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose positron emission tomography of anti-leucine rich glioma inactivated 1 protein and anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor encephalitis patients has not been performed yet and shall be helpful in differentiating these two most common forms of autoimmune encephalitis. The brain 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose uptake from whole-body positron emission tomography of six anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor encephalitis patients and four patients with anti-leucine rich glioma inactivated 1 protein encephalitis admitted to Hannover Medical School between 2008 and 2012 was retrospectively analyzed and compared to matched controls. Group analysis of anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate encephalitis patients demonstrated regionally limited hypermetabolism in frontotemporal areas contrasting an extensive hypometabolism in parietal lobes, whereas the anti-leucine rich glioma inactivated 1 protein syndrome was characterized by hypermetabolism in cerebellar, basal ganglia, occipital and precentral areas and minor frontomesial hypometabolism. This retrospective 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose positron emission tomography study provides novel evidence for distinct brain metabolic patterns in patients with anti-leucine rich glioma inactivated 1 protein and anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor encephalitis.

  7. Dynamic gene and protein expression patterns of the autism-associated met receptor tyrosine kinase in the developing mouse forebrain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Judson, Matthew C; Bergman, Mica Y; Campbell, Daniel B; Eagleson, Kathie L; Levitt, Pat

    2009-04-10

    The establishment of appropriate neural circuitry depends on the coordination of multiple developmental events across space and time. These events include proliferation, migration, differentiation, and survival-all of which can be mediated by hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) signaling through the Met receptor tyrosine kinase. We previously found a functional promoter variant of the MET gene to be associated with autism spectrum disorder, suggesting that forebrain circuits governing social and emotional function may be especially vulnerable to developmental disruptions in HGF/Met signaling. However, little is known about the spatiotemporal distribution of Met expression in the forebrain during the development of such circuits. To advance our understanding of the neurodevelopmental influences of Met activation, we employed complementary Western blotting, in situ hybridization, and immunohistochemistry to comprehensively map Met transcript and protein expression throughout perinatal and postnatal development of the mouse forebrain. Our studies reveal complex and dynamic spatiotemporal patterns of expression during this period. Spatially, Met transcript is localized primarily to specific populations of projection neurons within the neocortex and in structures of the limbic system, including the amygdala, hippocampus, and septum. Met protein appears to be principally located in axon tracts. Temporally, peak expression of transcript and protein occurs during the second postnatal week. This period is characterized by extensive neurite outgrowth and synaptogenesis, supporting a role for the receptor in these processes. Collectively, these data suggest that Met signaling may be necessary for the appropriate wiring of forebrain circuits, with particular relevance to the social and emotional dimensions of behavior. (c) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

  8. Paralog-Specific Patterns of Structural Disorder and Phosphorylation in the Vertebrate SH3-SH2-Tyrosine Kinase Protein Family.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dos Santos, Helena G; Siltberg-Liberles, Jessica

    2016-09-19

    One of the largest multigene families in Metazoa are the tyrosine kinases (TKs). These are important multifunctional proteins that have evolved as dynamic switches that perform tyrosine phosphorylation and other noncatalytic activities regulated by various allosteric mechanisms. TKs interact with each other and with other molecules, ultimately activating and inhibiting different signaling pathways. TKs are implicated in cancer and almost 30 FDA-approved TK inhibitors are available. However, specific binding is a challenge when targeting an active site that has been conserved in multiple protein paralogs for millions of years. A cassette domain (CD) containing SH3-SH2-Tyrosine Kinase domains reoccurs in vertebrate nonreceptor TKs. Although part of the CD function is shared between TKs, it also presents TK specific features. Here, the evolutionary dynamics of sequence, structure, and phosphorylation across the CD in 17 TK paralogs have been investigated in a large-scale study. We establish that TKs often have ortholog-specific structural disorder and phosphorylation patterns, while secondary structure elements, as expected, are highly conserved. Further, domain-specific differences are at play. Notably, we found the catalytic domain to fluctuate more in certain secondary structure elements than the regulatory domains. By elucidating how different properties evolve after gene duplications and which properties are specifically conserved within orthologs, the mechanistic understanding of protein evolution is enriched and regions supposedly critical for functional divergence across paralogs are highlighted. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.

  9. Sequence alignment reveals possible MAPK docking motifs on HIV proteins.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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.

  10. Tissue distribution and deposition pattern of a cellulosic parenchyma-specific protein from cassava roots

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Petrônio A.S. Souza

    1998-06-01

    Full Text Available A protein with a molecular mass of 22kDa was purified from the cellulosic parenchyma of cassava roots. The amino acid composition of the protein was determined and antibodies generated against the purified protein were used to show that the concentration of the protein remains unchanged during root "tuber" formation. By using a tissue printing technique, as well as western blot, it was shown that the cellulosic parenchyma was the only root tissue in which the protein was deposited.

  11. Sensitivity patterns of pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates obtained from clinical specimens in peshawar

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Abbas, S.H.; Khan, M.Z.U.; Naeem, M.

    2015-01-01

    Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) is a highly virulent opportunistic pathogen and a leading cause of nosocomial infections.Affected patients are often hospitalized in an intensive care unit, and are immuno-compromised as a result of disease and treatment. Suspected P. aeruginosa require timely, adequate and empirical antibiotic therapy to ensure improved outcomes. The purpose of the study was to find the sensitivity and resistance pattern of P. aeruginosa to various groups of drugs, in clinical isolates collected from two major tertiary care hospitals of Peshawar. Methods: Different clinical isolate were taken from patients admitted in various wards of Khyber Teaching Hospital and Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar. Results: A total of 258 clinical isolates were positive for P. aeruginosa out of 2058 clinical isolates. Pseudomonas showed high degree of resistance to third generation Cephalosporins (Ceftazidime, and Ceftriaxone) and moderate degree of resistance to Quinolones and Aminoglycosides (Ofloxacin, Ciprofloxacin, Levofloxacin and Amikacin). Low resistance was observed to different combinations (Cefoperazone + Sulbactum, Piperacillin + Tazobactum). Meropenem and Imipenem had negligible resistance. Conclusion: There is growing resistance to different classes of antibiotics. Combination drugs are useful approach for empirical treatment in suspected Pseudomonas infection. Imipenem and Meropenem are extremely effective but should be in reserve. (author)

  12. THE TECHNOLOGY OF PASTE FROM SUGAR BEET OBTAINING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. G. Magomedov

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available We considered a new technology for processing sugar beet into intermediate product for the food industry. Nowadays sugar beet is mainly used for processing into granulated sugar. In the granulated sugar obtaining sugar beet undergoes deep extraction of all nutrients: proteins, minerals, pectin, organic acids, preventing the crystallization process, and then the refined product (granulated sugar with a mass fraction of sucrose not less than 99.75% is obtained. We developed a technology for producing a sugar beet paste, which allows to preserve both sucrose, and almost all useful for human food substances containing in beet. A sugar beet paste is a valuable food product. Carbohydrates, organic acids, minerals, proteins, dietary fibers and vitamins are found in it. The block diagram of a sugar beet paste is given in the article. Technology of obtaining a sugar beet paste was tested under production conditions at the cannery (Joint Stock Company "Sadovoye" Liskinsky district,. Storozhevoe village, Voronezh region. The chemical composition of the paste (Dry Substances = 40% was determined, the degree of meeting of daily requirement for nutrients was calculated. 100 g of the product satisfy the daily requirement for dietary fiber by 42.5%, organic acids by 27.5% potassium by 24.0%, magnesium by 40.0%, iron by 26.7%. The sugar beet paste can be used as a semi-finished product in the confectionery, bakery, food concentrates industry, for products with increased nutritional value, as well as the finished product instead of marmalade and jam.

  13. Detecting protein-protein interactions in living cells

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gottschalk, Marie; Bach, Anders; Hansen, Jakob Lerche

    2009-01-01

    to the endogenous C-terminal peptide of the NMDA receptor, as evaluated by a cell-free protein-protein interaction assay. However, it is important to address both membrane permeability and effect in living cells. Therefore a bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) assay was established, where the C......-terminal of the NMDA receptor and PDZ2 of PSD-95 were fused to green fluorescent protein (GFP) and Renilla luciferase (Rluc) and expressed in COS7 cells. A robust and specific BRET signal was obtained by expression of the appropriate partner proteins and subsequently, the assay was used to evaluate a Tat......The PDZ domain mediated interaction between the NMDA receptor and its intracellular scaffolding protein, PSD-95, is a potential target for treatment of ischemic brain diseases. We have recently developed a number of peptide analogues with improved affinity for the PDZ domains of PSD-95 compared...

  14. Nutritional geometry: gorillas prioritize non-protein energy while consuming surplus protein.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rothman, Jessica M; Raubenheimer, David; Chapman, Colin A

    2011-12-23

    It is widely assumed that terrestrial food webs are built on a nitrogen-limited base and consequently herbivores must compensate through selection of high-protein foods and efficient nitrogen retention. Like many folivorous primates, gorillas' diet selection supports this assumption, as they apparently prefer protein-rich foods. Our study of mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei) in Uganda revealed that, in some periods, carbohydrate-rich fruits displace a large portion of protein-rich leaves in their diet. We show that non-protein energy (NPE) intake was invariant throughout the year, whereas protein intake was substantially higher when leaves were the major portion of the diet. This pattern of macronutrient intake suggests that gorillas prioritize NPE and, to achieve this when leaves are the major dietary item, they over-eat protein. The concentrations of protein consumed in relation to energy when leaves were the major portion of the diet were close to the maximum recommended for humans and similar to high-protein human weight-loss diets. By contrast, the concentrations of protein in relation to energy when gorillas ate fruit-dominated diets were similar to those recommended for humans. Our results question the generality of nitrogen limitation in terrestrial herbivores and provide a fascinating contrast with human macronutrient intake.

  15. Nutritional geometry: gorillas prioritize non-protein energy while consuming surplus protein

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rothman, Jessica M.; Raubenheimer, David; Chapman, Colin A.

    2011-01-01

    It is widely assumed that terrestrial food webs are built on a nitrogen-limited base and consequently herbivores must compensate through selection of high-protein foods and efficient nitrogen retention. Like many folivorous primates, gorillas' diet selection supports this assumption, as they apparently prefer protein-rich foods. Our study of mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei) in Uganda revealed that, in some periods, carbohydrate-rich fruits displace a large portion of protein-rich leaves in their diet. We show that non-protein energy (NPE) intake was invariant throughout the year, whereas protein intake was substantially higher when leaves were the major portion of the diet. This pattern of macronutrient intake suggests that gorillas prioritize NPE and, to achieve this when leaves are the major dietary item, they over-eat protein. The concentrations of protein consumed in relation to energy when leaves were the major portion of the diet were close to the maximum recommended for humans and similar to high-protein human weight-loss diets. By contrast, the concentrations of protein in relation to energy when gorillas ate fruit-dominated diets were similar to those recommended for humans. Our results question the generality of nitrogen limitation in terrestrial herbivores and provide a fascinating contrast with human macronutrient intake. PMID:21632622

  16. Protein Attachment on Nanodiamonds.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Chung-Lun; Lin, Cheng-Huang; Chang, Huan-Cheng; Su, Meng-Chih

    2015-07-16

    A recent advance in nanotechnology is the scale-up production of small and nonaggregated diamond nanoparticles suitable for biological applications. Using detonation nanodiamonds (NDs) with an average diameter of ∼4 nm as the adsorbents, we have studied the static attachment of three proteins (myoglobin, bovine serum albumin, and insulin) onto the nanoparticles by optical spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and dynamic light scattering, and electrophoretic zeta potential measurements. Results show that the protein surface coverage is predominantly determined by the competition between protein-protein and protein-ND interactions, giving each protein a unique and characteristic structural configuration in its own complex. Specifically, both myoglobin and bovine serum albumin show a Langmuir-type adsorption behavior, forming 1:1 complexes at saturation, whereas insulin folds into a tightly bound multimer before adsorption. The markedly different adsorption patterns appear to be independent of the protein concentration and are closely related to the affinity of the individual proteins for the NDs. The present study provides a fundamental understanding for the use of NDs as a platform for nanomedical drug delivery.

  17. Multi-protein assemblies underlie the mesoscale organization of the plasma membrane

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saka, Sinem K.; Honigmann, Alf; Eggeling, Christian; Hell, Stefan W.; Lang, Thorsten; Rizzoli, Silvio O.

    2014-01-01

    Most proteins have uneven distributions in the plasma membrane. Broadly speaking, this may be caused by mechanisms specific to each protein, or may be a consequence of a general pattern that affects the distribution of all membrane proteins. The latter hypothesis has been difficult to test in the past. Here, we introduce several approaches based on click chemistry, through which we study the distribution of membrane proteins in living cells, as well as in membrane sheets. We found that the plasma membrane proteins form multi-protein assemblies that are long lived (minutes), and in which protein diffusion is restricted. The formation of the assemblies is dependent on cholesterol. They are separated and anchored by the actin cytoskeleton. Specific proteins are preferentially located in different regions of the assemblies, from their cores to their edges. We conclude that the assemblies constitute a basic mesoscale feature of the membrane, which affects the patterning of most membrane proteins, and possibly also their activity. PMID:25060237

  18. Canola/rapeseed protein-functionality and nutrition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wanasundara Janitha P.D.

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Protein rich meal is a valuable co-product of canola/rapeseed oil extraction. Seed storage proteins that include cruciferin (11S and napin (2S dominate the protein complement of canola while oleosins, lipid transfer proteins and other minor proteins of non-storage nature are also found. Although oil-free canola meal contains 36–40% protein on a dry weight basis, non-protein components including fibre, polymeric phenolics, phytates and sinapine, etc. of the seed coat and cellular components make protein less suitable for food use. Separation of canola protein from non-protein components is a technical challenge but necessary to obtain full nutritional and functional potential of protein. Process conditions of raw material and protein preparation are critical of nutritional and functional value of the final protein product. The storage proteins of canola can satisfy many nutritional and functional requirements for food applications. Protein macromolecules of canola also provide functionalities required in applications beyond edible uses; there exists substantial potential as a source of plant protein and a renewable biopolymer. Available information at present is mostly based on the protein products that can be obtained as mixtures of storage protein types and other chemical constituents of the seed; therefore, full potential of canola storage proteins is yet to be revealed.

  19. Effect of heat stress on the pattern of protein synthesis in wheat endosperm

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Inwood, W.; Bernardin, J.

    1990-01-01

    The exposure of detached wheat heads (T. aestivum L. cv Cheyenne) to elevated temperatures resulted not only in the induction of a typical set of high and low molecular weight heat shock proteins (hsps), but also in a differential effect on the synthesis of wheat storage proteins in endosperm tissue when monitored by SDS PAGE of 35 S-labeled polypeptides. The synthesis of hsps in the endosperm had a rapid onset, reached a maximum rate within the first 2 hours at 40 degree C, and then steadily decreased during the next four hours. When heads were returned to 25 degree C after 3 hours at 40 degree C, hsp synthesis did not cease abruptly, but gradually declined over the next several hours. High molecular weight glutenin protein synthesis was drastically reduced with the same time course as heat shock protein synthesis was induced at 40 degree C. Conversely, the synthesis of gliadin proteins remained at a high level at 40 degree C. The synthesis rates for glutenin and gliadin proteins remained at low and high levels, respectively, for as long as the elevated temperature was maintained up to 7 hours

  20. Protein synthesis underlies post-retrieval memory consolidation to a restricted degree only when updated information is obtained

    OpenAIRE

    Rodriguez-Ortiz, Carlos J.; De la Cruz, Vanesa; Gutiérrez, Ranier; Bermudez-Rattoni, Federico

    2005-01-01

    Consolidation theory proposes that through the synthesis of new proteins recently acquired memories are strengthened over time into a stable long-term memory trace. However, evidence has accumulated suggesting that retrieved memory is susceptible to disruption, seeming to consolidate again (reconsolidate) to be retained in long-term storage. Here we show that intracortical blockade of protein synthesis in the gustatory cortex after retrieval of taste-recognition memory disrupts previously con...

  1. Monitoring the effects of toxic chemicals on protein expression

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Giometti, C.S.; Taylor, J.

    1987-01-01

    Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis coupled with computer-assisted image and data analysis was used to monitor protein populations for both qualitative and quantitative changes induced by exposure to chemicals. For mutagenesis studies designed to screen for heritable mutations, a computer-assisted search of the optical density data from 2DE patterns was used to look for (a) new protein spots, (b) missing protein spots and/or (c) altered expression of normal protein spots. Using this approach, 320 mice were screened for mutations induced by treatment of sires with 150 mg/kg body weight of ethylnitrosourea (ENU) and four different mutations were identified. Protein patterns from 105 offspring from untreated male mice (controls) and 369 offspring from irradiated male mice (3 Gy gamma) were also screened. No heritable mutations were found in those data sets, however. In addition, protein changes were observed in livers of animals exposed to the hepatocellular peroxisomal proliferation agents (and carcinogens) Wy-14,643 and DEHP. The de novo synthesis of a new protein by these agents was demonstrated and quantitated

  2. Phosphorylation of ribosomal proteins induced by auxins in maize embryonic tissues

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Perez, L.; Aguilar, R.; Mendez, A.P.; de Jimenez, E.S.

    1990-01-01

    The effect of auxin on ribosomal protein phosphorylation of germinating maize (Zea mays) tissues was investigated. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and autoradiography of [ 32 P] ribosomal protein patterns for natural and synthetic auxin-treated tissues were performed. Both the rate of 32 P incorporation and the electrophoretic patterns were dependent on 32 P pulse length, suggesting that active protein phosphorylation-dephosphorylation occurred in small and large subunit proteins, in control as well as in auxin-treated tissues. The effect of ribosomal protein phosphorylation on in vitro translation was tested. Measurements of poly(U) translation rates as a function of ribosome concentration provided apparent K m values significantly different for auxin-treated and nontreated tissues. These findings suggest that auxin might exert some kind of translational control by regulating the phosphorylated status of ribosomal proteins

  3. Tissue- and paralogue-specific functions of acyl-CoA-binding proteins in lipid metabolism in C. elegans

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Elle, Ida Coordt; Simonsen, Karina Trankjær; Olsen, Louise Cathrine Braun

    2011-01-01

    -deficient yeast cells, and that they exhibit distinct temporal- and tissue expression patterns in C. elegans. We have obtained loss-of-function mutants for six of these forms. All single mutants display relatively subtle phenotypes; however we find that functional loss of ACBP-1 leads to reduced triglyceride...... storage, and increased β-oxidation. Collectively, the present results suggest that each of the ACBP paralogues serves a distinct function in C. elegans....... of several ACBP paralogues in many eukaryotic species indicate that these proteins serve distinct functions. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans expresses seven ACBPs; four basal forms and three ACBP-domain proteins. We find that each of these paralogues is capable of complementing growth of ACBP...

  4. Brain calbindin-D28k and an Mr 29,000 calcium binding protein in cerebellum are different but related proteins: Evidence obtained from sequence analysis by tandem mass spectroscopy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gabrielides, C.; Christakos, S.; McCormack, A.L.; Hunt, D.F.

    1991-01-01

    A calcium binding protein of M r 29,000 which cross-reacts with antibodies raised against chick calbindin-D 28k was previously reported to be present in rat cerebellum. It was suggested that the M r 29,000 protein represents another form of calbindin-D 28k . In the authors laboratory they were able to identify M r 28,000 and 29,000 proteins in rat, human, and chick cerebellum by their ability to bind 45 Ca in a 45 Ca blot assay. Two calcium binding proteins of M r 27,680 and 29,450 were isolated from rat cerebelli by the use of gel permeation chromatography and preparative gel electrophoresis. After reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) the proteins were sequenced. Sequence analysis by tandem mass spectrometry indicated only 52% identity between the rat cerebellar M r 28,000 and 29,000 proteins. Thus they are not different forms of the same protein, as previously suggested. Eighty-nine percent identity was observed between the rate cerebellar M r 29,000 protein and chick calretinin. The difference in identity between the rat cerebellar M r 29,000 protein and chick calretinin may be due to species differences, and thus this protein is most likely rat calretinin. These results suggest either posttranscriptional regulation of calretinin in cerebellum or species differences. The study also suggests that previous immunocytochemical mapping for calbindin using antisera which cross-reacted with both proteins detected brain regions that expressed not only calbindin but also calretinin or a calretinin-like protein

  5. Immunocytochemical localization of the [3H]estradiol-binding protein in rat pancreatic acinar cells

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Grossman, A.; Oppenheim, J.; Grondin, G.; St Jean, P.; Beaudoin, A.R.

    1989-01-01

    Significant amounts of an estradiol-binding protein (EBP) are present in pancreatic acinar cells. This protein differs from the one found in female reproductive tissues and secondary sex organs (which is commonly referred to as estrogen receptor). EBP has now been purified from rat pancreas and was used as an antigen to induce polyclonal antibodies in rabbits. The antiserum obtained was purified initially by ammonium sulfate fractionation and then still further by interaction with a protein fraction from pancreas that was devoid of estradiol-binding activity. The latter procedure was used to precipitate nonspecific immunoglobulin Gs. Western blot analysis demonstrated that the anti-EBP antibody reacted specifically with a doublet of protein bands having mol wt of 64K and 66K. When this purified antibody was used as an immunocytochemical probe in conjunction with protein-A-gold, acinar cells were labeled on the surface of the endoplasmic reticulum, on the plasma membrane, and in mitochondria. This specific labeling pattern was not observed when preimmune serum was used. No labeling was observed over the nucleus, Golgi apparatus, or zymogen granules with purified anti-EBP antibodies. The unexpected distribution of EBP in both the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria is discussed

  6. Automatic classification of liver scintigram patterns by computer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Csernay, L.; Csirik, J.

    1976-01-01

    The pattern recognition of projection is one of the problems in the automatic evaluation of scintigrams. An algorythm and a computerized programme with the ability to classify the shapes of liver scintigrams has been elaborated by the authors. The programme differentiates not only normal and pathologic basic forms, but performs the identification of nine normal forms described by the literature. To pattern recognition structural and local parameters of the picture were defined. A detailed mechanism of the programme is given in their reports. The programme can classify 55 out of 60 actual liver scintigrams, a result different from subjective definition obtained in 5 cases. These were normal pattern of liver scans. No wrong definition was obtained when classifying normal and pathologic patterns

  7. Protein Adsorption to In-Line Filters of Intravenous Administration Sets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Besheer, Ahmed

    2017-10-01

    Ensuring compatibility of administered therapeutic proteins with intravenous administration sets is an important regulatory requirement. A low-dose recovery during administration of low protein concentrations is among the commonly observed incompatibilities, and it is mainly due to adsorption to in-line filters. To better understand this phenomenon, we studied the adsorption of 4 different therapeutic proteins (2 IgG1s, 1 IgG4, and 1 Fc fusion protein) diluted to 0.01 mg/mL in 5% glucose (B. Braun EcoFlac; B. Braun Melsungen AG, Melsungen, Germany) or 0.9% sodium chloride (NaCl; Freeflex; Fresenius Kabi, Friedberg, Germany) solutions to 8 in-line filters (5 positively charged and 3 neutral filters made of different polymers and by different suppliers). The results show certain patterns of protein adsorption, which depend to a large extent on the dilution solution and filter material, and to a much lower extent on the proteins' biophysical properties. Investigation of the filter membranes' zeta potential showed a correlation between the observed adsorption pattern in 5% glucose solution and the filter's surface charge, with higher protein adsorption for the strongly negatively charged membranes. In 0.9% NaCl solution, the surface charges are masked, leading to different adsorption patterns. These results contribute to the general understanding of the protein adsorption to IV infusion filters and allow the design of more efficient compatibility studies. Copyright © 2017 American Pharmacists Association®. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Some Results on Sea Ice Rheology for the Seasonal Ice Zone, Obtained from the Deformation Field of Sea Ice Drift Pattern

    Science.gov (United States)

    Toyota, T.; Kimura, N.

    2017-12-01

    Sea ice rheology which relates sea ice stress to the large-scale deformation of the ice cover has been a big issue to numerical sea ice modelling. At present the treatment of internal stress within sea ice area is based mostly on the rheology formulated by Hibler (1979), where the whole sea ice area behaves like an isotropic and plastic matter under the ordinary stress with the yield curve given by an ellipse with an aspect ratio (e) of 2, irrespective of sea ice area and horizontal resolution of the model. However, this formulation was initially developed to reproduce the seasonal variation of the perennial ice in the Arctic Ocean. As for its applicability to the seasonal ice zones (SIZ), where various types of sea ice are present, it still needs validation from observational data. In this study, the validity of this rheology was examined for the Sea of Okhotsk ice, typical of the SIZ, based on the AMSR-derived ice drift pattern in comparison with the result obtained for the Beaufort Sea. To examine the dependence on a horizontal scale, the coastal radar data operated near the Hokkaido coast, Japan, were also used. Ice drift pattern was obtained by a maximum cross-correlation method with grid spacings of 37.5 km from the 89 GHz brightness temperature of AMSR-E for the entire Sea of Okhotsk and the Beaufort Sea and 1.3 km from the coastal radar for the near-shore Sea of Okhotsk. The validity of this rheology was investigated from a standpoint of work rate done by deformation field, following the theory of Rothrock (1975). In analysis, the relative rates of convergence were compared between theory and observation to check the shape of yield curve, and the strain ellipse at each grid cell was estimated to see the horizontal variation of deformation field. The result shows that the ellipse of e=1.7-2.0 as the yield curve represents the observed relative conversion rates well for all the ice areas. Since this result corresponds with the yield criterion by Tresca and

  9. Interpretation of biological and mechanical variations between the Lowry versus Bradford method for protein quantification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Tzong-Shi; Yiao, Szu-Yu; Lim, Kenneth; Jensen, Roderick V; Hsiao, Li-Li

    2010-07-01

    The identification of differences in protein expression resulting from methodical variations is an essential component to the interpretation of true, biologically significant results. We used the Lowry and Bradford methods- two most commonly used methods for protein quantification, to assess whether differential protein expressions are a result of true biological or methodical variations. MATERIAL #ENTITYSTARTX00026; Differential protein expression patterns was assessed by western blot following protein quantification by the Lowry and Bradford methods. We have observed significant variations in protein concentrations following assessment with the Lowry versus Bradford methods, using identical samples. Greater variations in protein concentration readings were observed over time and in samples with higher concentrations, with the Bradford method. Identical samples quantified using both methods yielded significantly different expression patterns on Western blot. We show for the first time that methodical variations observed in these protein assay techniques, can potentially translate into differential protein expression patterns, that can be falsely taken to be biologically significant. Our study therefore highlights the pivotal need to carefully consider methodical approaches to protein quantification in techniques that report quantitative differences.

  10. Categorizing Biases in High-Confidence High-Throughput Protein-Protein Interaction Data Sets*

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Xueping; Ivanic, Joseph; Memišević, Vesna; Wallqvist, Anders; Reifman, Jaques

    2011-01-01

    We characterized and evaluated the functional attributes of three yeast high-confidence protein-protein interaction data sets derived from affinity purification/mass spectrometry, protein-fragment complementation assay, and yeast two-hybrid experiments. The interacting proteins retrieved from these data sets formed distinct, partially overlapping sets with different protein-protein interaction characteristics. These differences were primarily a function of the deployed experimental technologies used to recover these interactions. This affected the total coverage of interactions and was especially evident in the recovery of interactions among different functional classes of proteins. We found that the interaction data obtained by the yeast two-hybrid method was the least biased toward any particular functional characterization. In contrast, interacting proteins in the affinity purification/mass spectrometry and protein-fragment complementation assay data sets were over- and under-represented among distinct and different functional categories. We delineated how these differences affected protein complex organization in the network of interactions, in particular for strongly interacting complexes (e.g. RNA and protein synthesis) versus weak and transient interacting complexes (e.g. protein transport). We quantified methodological differences in detecting protein interactions from larger protein complexes, in the correlation of protein abundance among interacting proteins, and in their connectivity of essential proteins. In the latter case, we showed that minimizing inherent methodology biases removed many of the ambiguous conclusions about protein essentiality and protein connectivity. We used these findings to rationalize how biological insights obtained by analyzing data sets originating from different sources sometimes do not agree or may even contradict each other. An important corollary of this work was that discrepancies in biological insights did not

  11. Flow patterns in vertical two-phase flow

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    McQuillan, K.W.; Whalley, P.B.

    1985-01-01

    This paper is concerned with the flow patterns which occur in upwards gas-liquid two-phase flow in vertical tubes. The basic flow patterns are described and the use of flow patter maps is discussed. The transition between plug flow and churn flow is modelled under the assumption that flooding of the falling liquid film limits the stability of plug flow. The resulting equation is combined with other flow pattern transition equations to produce theoretical flow pattern maps, which are then tested against experimental flow pattern data. Encouraging agreement is obtained

  12. In vivo labelling of proteins associated with folded chromosomes of yeast

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Litske Petersen, J.G.; Pinon, R.

    1980-01-01

    Proteins associated with the pre-replicative (g 1 ) and post-replicative (g 2 ) folded chromosomes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae can be labelled in vivo by growing cells in acetate vegetative medium containing [ 35 S]methionine. In both sporulating (MATa/MATα) and non-sporulating (MATa/MATa, MATα/MATα) diploids proteins associated with the resting stage genome (g 0 ) can be labelled with [ 35 S]methionine during nitrogen starvation and in sporulation medium. In addition, in MATa/MATα diploids proteins associated with the meiotic replication form (r) can also be labelled. SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and autoradiography of the labelled proteins from the various folded genome forms showed that the g 1 and g 2 patterns are, with the exception of one polypeptide band, essentially identical. Several differences distinguished the r and g 0 patterns from those of the g 1 and g 2 structures. At least four polypeptide bands distinguish the r and g 0 patterns. No significant differences were observed between the g 0 proteins of sporulating and non-sporulating diploids. (author)

  13. Distal-less induces elemental color patterns in Junonia butterfly wings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dhungel, Bidur; Ohno, Yoshikazu; Matayoshi, Rie; Iwasaki, Mayo; Taira, Wataru; Adhikari, Kiran; Gurung, Raj; Otaki, Joji M

    2016-01-01

    The border ocellus, or eyespot, is a conspicuous color pattern element in butterfly wings. For two decades, it has been hypothesized that transcription factors such as Distal-less (Dll) are responsible for eyespot pattern development in butterfly wings, based on their expression in the prospective eyespots. In particular, it has been suggested that Dll is a determinant for eyespot size. However, functional evidence for this hypothesis has remained incomplete, due to technical difficulties. Here, we show that ectopically expressed Dll induces ectopic elemental color patterns in the adult wings of the blue pansy butterfly, Junonia orithya (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae). Using baculovirus-mediated gene transfer, we misexpressed Dll protein fused with green fluorescent protein (GFP) in pupal wings, resulting in ectopic color patterns, but not the formation of intact eyespots. Induced changes included clusters of black and orange scales (a basic feature of eyespot patterns), black and gray scales, and inhibition of cover scale development. In contrast, ectopic expression of GFP alone did not induce any color pattern changes using the same baculovirus-mediated gene transfer system. These results suggest that Dll plays an instructive role in the development of color pattern elements in butterfly wings, although Dll alone may not be sufficient to induce a complete eyespot. This study thus experimentally supports the hypothesis of Dll function in eyespot development.

  14. Templating Biomineralization: Surface Directed Protein Self-assembly and External Magnetic Field Stimulation of Osteoblasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ba, Xiaolan

    Biomineralization is a wide-spread phenomenon in the biological systems, which is the process of mineral formation by organisms through interaction between its organic contents and the inorganic minerals. The process is essential in a broad spectrum of biological phenomena ranging from bone and tooth formation to pathological mineralization under hypoxic conditions or cancerous formations. In this thesis I studied biomineralization at the earliest stages in order to obtain a better understanding of the fundamental principals involved. This knowledge is essential if we want to engineer devices which will increase bone regeneration or prevent unwanted mineral deposits. Extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins play an essential role during biomineralization in bone and engineered tissues. In this dissertation, I present an approach to mimic the ECM in vitro to probe the interactions of these proteins with calcium phosphate mineral and with each other. Early stage of mineralization is investigated by mechanical properties of the protein fibers using Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) and Shear Modulation Force Microscopy (SMFM). The development of mineral crystals on the protein matrices is also characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Grazing Incidence X-ray Diffraction (GIXRD). The results demonstrate complementary actions of the two ECM proteins to collect cations and template calcium phosphate mineral, respectively. Magnets have been clinically used as an "induction source" in various bone or orthodontic treatments. However, the mechanism and effects of magnetic fields remain unclear. In this dissertation, I also undertake the present investigation to study the effects of 150 mT static magnetic fields (SMF) on ECM development and cell biomineralization using MC3T3-E1 osteobalst-like cells. Early stage of biomineralization is characterized by SPM, SMFM and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CSLM). Late stage of

  15. Patterning of leaf vein networks by convergent auxin transport pathways.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sawchuk, Megan G; Edgar, Alexander; Scarpella, Enrico

    2013-01-01

    The formation of leaf vein patterns has fascinated biologists for centuries. Transport of the plant signal auxin has long been implicated in vein patterning, but molecular details have remained unclear. Varied evidence suggests a central role for the plasma-membrane (PM)-localized PIN-FORMED1 (PIN1) intercellular auxin transporter of Arabidopsis thaliana in auxin-transport-dependent vein patterning. However, in contrast to the severe vein-pattern defects induced by auxin transport inhibitors, pin1 mutant leaves have only mild vein-pattern defects. These defects have been interpreted as evidence of redundancy between PIN1 and the other four PM-localized PIN proteins in vein patterning, redundancy that underlies many developmental processes. By contrast, we show here that vein patterning in the Arabidopsis leaf is controlled by two distinct and convergent auxin-transport pathways: intercellular auxin transport mediated by PM-localized PIN1 and intracellular auxin transport mediated by the evolutionarily older, endoplasmic-reticulum-localized PIN6, PIN8, and PIN5. PIN6 and PIN8 are expressed, as PIN1 and PIN5, at sites of vein formation. pin6 synthetically enhances pin1 vein-pattern defects, and pin8 quantitatively enhances pin1pin6 vein-pattern defects. Function of PIN6 is necessary, redundantly with that of PIN8, and sufficient to control auxin response levels, PIN1 expression, and vein network formation; and the vein pattern defects induced by ectopic PIN6 expression are mimicked by ectopic PIN8 expression. Finally, vein patterning functions of PIN6 and PIN8 are antagonized by PIN5 function. Our data define a new level of control of vein patterning, one with repercussions on other patterning processes in the plant, and suggest a mechanism to select cell files specialized for vascular function that predates evolution of PM-localized PIN proteins.

  16. Patterning of leaf vein networks by convergent auxin transport pathways.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Megan G Sawchuk

    Full Text Available The formation of leaf vein patterns has fascinated biologists for centuries. Transport of the plant signal auxin has long been implicated in vein patterning, but molecular details have remained unclear. Varied evidence suggests a central role for the plasma-membrane (PM-localized PIN-FORMED1 (PIN1 intercellular auxin transporter of Arabidopsis thaliana in auxin-transport-dependent vein patterning. However, in contrast to the severe vein-pattern defects induced by auxin transport inhibitors, pin1 mutant leaves have only mild vein-pattern defects. These defects have been interpreted as evidence of redundancy between PIN1 and the other four PM-localized PIN proteins in vein patterning, redundancy that underlies many developmental processes. By contrast, we show here that vein patterning in the Arabidopsis leaf is controlled by two distinct and convergent auxin-transport pathways: intercellular auxin transport mediated by PM-localized PIN1 and intracellular auxin transport mediated by the evolutionarily older, endoplasmic-reticulum-localized PIN6, PIN8, and PIN5. PIN6 and PIN8 are expressed, as PIN1 and PIN5, at sites of vein formation. pin6 synthetically enhances pin1 vein-pattern defects, and pin8 quantitatively enhances pin1pin6 vein-pattern defects. Function of PIN6 is necessary, redundantly with that of PIN8, and sufficient to control auxin response levels, PIN1 expression, and vein network formation; and the vein pattern defects induced by ectopic PIN6 expression are mimicked by ectopic PIN8 expression. Finally, vein patterning functions of PIN6 and PIN8 are antagonized by PIN5 function. Our data define a new level of control of vein patterning, one with repercussions on other patterning processes in the plant, and suggest a mechanism to select cell files specialized for vascular function that predates evolution of PM-localized PIN proteins.

  17. Understanding Protein-Protein Interactions Using Local Structural Features

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Planas-Iglesias, Joan; Bonet, Jaume; García-García, Javier

    2013-01-01

    Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) play a relevant role among the different functions of a cell. Identifying the PPI network of a given organism (interactome) is useful to shed light on the key molecular mechanisms within a biological system. In this work, we show the role of structural features...... interacting and non-interacting protein pairs to classify the structural features that sustain the binding (or non-binding) behavior. Our study indicates that not only the interacting region but also the rest of the protein surface are important for the interaction fate. The interpretation...... to score the likelihood of the interaction between two proteins and to develop a method for the prediction of PPIs. We have tested our method on several sets with unbalanced ratios of interactions and non-interactions to simulate real conditions, obtaining accuracies higher than 25% in the most unfavorable...

  18. Effect of pre-treatment on in vitro gastric digestion of quinoa protein (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) obtained by wet and dry fractionation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Opazo-Navarrete, M.; Schutyser, M.A.I.; Boom, R.M.; Janssen, A.E.M.

    2018-01-01

    Quinoa protein was isolated from quinoa seeds using wet fractionation that resulted in a protein isolate (QPI) with a high protein purity of 87.1% (w/dw) and a protein yield of around 54%, and a dry fractionation method delivered a quinoa protein concentrate (QPC) with a purity of 27.8% (w/dw)

  19. Mechanical stretching of proteins-a theoretical survey of the Protein Data Bank

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sulkowska, Joanna I; Cieplak, Marek

    2007-01-01

    The mechanical stretching of single proteins has been studied experimentally for about 50 proteins, yielding a variety of force patterns and peak forces. Here we perform a theoretical survey of proteins of known native structure and map out the landscape of possible dynamical behaviours under stretching at constant speed. We consider 7510 proteins comprising not more than 150 amino acids and 239 longer proteins. The model used is constructed based on the native geometry. It is solved by methods of molecular dynamics and validated by comparing the theoretical predictions to experimental results. We characterize the distribution of peak forces and investigate correlations with the system size and with the structure classification as characterized by the CATH scheme. Despite the presence of such correlations, proteins with the same CATH index may belong to different classes of dynamical behaviour. We identify proteins with the biggest forces and show that they belong to few topology classes. We determine which protein segments act as mechanical clamps and show that, in most cases, they correspond to long stretches of parallel β-strands, but other mechanisms are also possible. (topical review)

  20. An ER-directed fusion protein comprising a bacterial subtilisin ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    nausch

    subtilase tag was fused to human interleukin 6 (IL6) and transiently expressed in Nicotiana ..... MP, tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) movement protein; TVCV-3'-NTR, TVCV-3' untranslated .... on the degradation pattern of heterologous proteins.

  1. DNA-Catalytically Active Gold Nanoparticle Conjugates-Based Colorimetric Multidimensional Sensor Array for Protein Discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wei, Xiangcong; Chen, Zhengbo; Tan, Lulu; Lou, Tianhong; Zhao, Yan

    2017-01-03

    A series of single-strand oligonucleotides functionalized catalytically active gold nanoparticle (AuNPs) as nonspecific receptors have been designed to build a protein sensing array. We take advantage of the correlation between the catalytic activity and the exposed surface area of AuNPs, i.e., DNA-proteins interactions mask the surface area of AuNPs, leading to poor catalytic performance of AuNPs. As the number of DNA-bound proteins increases, the surfaces of AuNPs become more masked; thus, the time of 4- nitrophenol/NaBH 4 reaction for color change (yellow → colorless) of the solution increases. Taking advantage of three nonspecific SH-labeled DNA sequences (A15, C15, and T15) as array sensing elements and the color-change time (CCT) of the solution as signal readout, colorimetric response patterns can be obtained on the array and identified via linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Eleven proteins have been completely distinguished with 100% accuracy with the naked eye at the 30 nM level. Remarkably, two similar proteins (bovine serum albumin and human serum albumin), two different proteins (bovine serum albumin and concanavalin) at the same concentration, and the mixtures of the two proteins with different molar ratios have been discriminated with 100%. The practicability of this sensor array is further validated by high accuracy (100%) identification of 11 proteins in human serum samples.

  2. Petunia nectar proteins have ribonuclease activity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hillwig, Melissa S; Liu, Xiaoteng; Liu, Guangyu; Thornburg, Robert W; Macintosh, Gustavo C

    2010-06-01

    Plants requiring an insect pollinator often produce nectar as a reward for the pollinator's visitations. This rich secretion needs mechanisms to inhibit microbial growth. In Nicotiana spp. nectar, anti-microbial activity is due to the production of hydrogen peroxide. In a close relative, Petunia hybrida, limited production of hydrogen peroxide was found; yet petunia nectar still has anti-bacterial properties, suggesting that a different mechanism may exist for this inhibition. The nectar proteins of petunia plants were compared with those of ornamental tobacco and significant differences were found in protein profiles and function between these two closely related species. Among those proteins, RNase activities unique to petunia nectar were identified. The genes corresponding to four RNase T2 proteins from Petunia hybrida that show unique expression patterns in different plant tissues were cloned. Two of these enzymes, RNase Phy3 and RNase Phy4 are unique among the T2 family and contain characteristics similar to both S- and S-like RNases. Analysis of amino acid patterns suggest that these proteins are an intermediate between S- and S-like RNases, and support the hypothesis that S-RNases evolved from defence RNases expressed in floral parts. This is the first report of RNase activities in nectar.

  3. Dynamic moire patterns for profilometry applications

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    De Oliveira, G N [Pos-graduacao em Engenharia Mecanica, TEM/PGMEC, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rua Passos da Patria, 156, Niteroi, R.J., Cep.: 24.210-240 (Brazil); De Oliveira, M E; Dos Santos, P A M, E-mail: pams@if.uff.br [Instituto de Fisica, Laboratorio de Optica Nao-linear e Aplicada, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Av. Gal. Nilton Tavares de Souza, s/n, Gragoata, Niteroi, R.J., Cep.:24.210-346 (Brazil)

    2011-01-01

    In the present work is proposed that dynamic moire-like fringe patterns produced by photorefraction, with low spatial frequencies, could be used for profile determination of small objects. The Fourier transform profilometry technique is applied in the projected moire fringe pattern onto an object surface. Basically, the Fourier transform of the projected fringes is obtained. After that, a phase map is generated. Then, the optical profile of object is obtained using phase unwrapping. So, the entire process can be indicated to measure, with good accuracy degree, profile of small objects in sub-micrometer scale in optical mechanical systems.

  4. Expansion of protein domain repeats.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Asa K Björklund

    2006-08-01

    Full Text Available Many proteins, especially in eukaryotes, contain tandem repeats of several domains from the same family. These repeats have a variety of binding properties and are involved in protein-protein interactions as well as binding to other ligands such as DNA and RNA. The rapid expansion of protein domain repeats is assumed to have evolved through internal tandem duplications. However, the exact mechanisms behind these tandem duplications are not well-understood. Here, we have studied the evolution, function, protein structure, gene structure, and phylogenetic distribution of domain repeats. For this purpose we have assigned Pfam-A domain families to 24 proteomes with more sensitive domain assignments in the repeat regions. These assignments confirmed previous findings that eukaryotes, and in particular vertebrates, contain a much higher fraction of proteins with repeats compared with prokaryotes. The internal sequence similarity in each protein revealed that the domain repeats are often expanded through duplications of several domains at a time, while the duplication of one domain is less common. Many of the repeats appear to have been duplicated in the middle of the repeat region. This is in strong contrast to the evolution of other proteins that mainly works through additions of single domains at either terminus. Further, we found that some domain families show distinct duplication patterns, e.g., nebulin domains have mainly been expanded with a unit of seven domains at a time, while duplications of other domain families involve varying numbers of domains. Finally, no common mechanism for the expansion of all repeats could be detected. We found that the duplication patterns show no dependence on the size of the domains. Further, repeat expansion in some families can possibly be explained by shuffling of exons. However, exon shuffling could not have created all repeats.

  5. Effect of pre-treatment on in vitro gastric digestion of quinoa protein (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) obtained by wet and dry fractionation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Opazo-Navarrete, M; Schutyser, M A I; Boom, R M; Janssen, A E M

    2018-02-01

    Quinoa protein was isolated from quinoa seeds using wet fractionation that resulted in a protein isolate (QPI) with a high protein purity of 87.1% (w/dw) and a protein yield of around 54%, and a dry fractionation method delivered a quinoa protein concentrate (QPC) with a purity of 27.8% (w/dw) and yield of around 47%. The dry fractionation process only involves milling and sieving and keeps the protein in its natural, native state. The aim was to study the in vitro gastric digestibility of both protein. Attention was paid to thermal pre-treatment of QPI and QPC. QPC showed significantly higher (p < .05) digestibility than QPI samples. The results were interpreted with a simple double exponential model. The fraction of easily digested protein in QPC is higher than for QPI. The better digestibility of the QPC was explained by the prevention of the formation of large aggregates during pre-heating of the protein.

  6. Optimized sample preparation for two-dimensional gel electrophoresis of soluble proteins from chicken bursa of Fabricius

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zheng Xiaojuan

    2009-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE is a powerful method to study protein expression and function in living organisms and diseases. This technique, however, has not been applied to avian bursa of Fabricius (BF, a central immune organ. Here, optimized 2-DE sample preparation methodologies were constructed for the chicken BF tissue. Using the optimized protocol, we performed further 2-DE analysis on a soluble protein extract from the BF of chickens infected with virulent avibirnavirus. To demonstrate the quality of the extracted proteins, several differentially expressed protein spots selected were cut from 2-DE gels and identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS. Results An extraction buffer containing 7 M urea, 2 M thiourea, 2% (w/v 3-[(3-cholamidopropyl-dimethylammonio]-1-propanesulfonate (CHAPS, 50 mM dithiothreitol (DTT, 0.2% Bio-Lyte 3/10, 1 mM phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride (PMSF, 20 U/ml Deoxyribonuclease I (DNase I, and 0.25 mg/ml Ribonuclease A (RNase A, combined with sonication and vortex, yielded the best 2-DE data. Relative to non-frozen immobilized pH gradient (IPG strips, frozen IPG strips did not result in significant changes in the 2-DE patterns after isoelectric focusing (IEF. When the optimized protocol was used to analyze the spleen and thymus, as well as avibirnavirus-infected bursa, high quality 2-DE protein expression profiles were obtained. 2-DE maps of BF of chickens infected with virulent avibirnavirus were visibly different and many differentially expressed proteins were found. Conclusion These results showed that method C, in concert extraction buffer IV, was the most favorable for preparing samples for IEF and subsequent protein separation and yielded the best quality 2-DE patterns. The optimized protocol is a useful sample preparation method for comparative proteomics analysis of chicken BF tissues.

  7. Heat-shock proteins in stromal joint tissues: innocent bystanders or disease-initiating proteins?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lambrecht, Stijn; Juchtmans, Nele; Elewaut, Dirk

    2014-02-01

    Heat-shock proteins (HSPs) are molecular chaperones that are highly conserved between species. In recent decades it has become clear that these proteins play an important role in the pathogenesis of inflammatory and degenerative joint diseases by (dys)regulating the immune system and by direct effects on the stromal tissues of the joint. In this review we discuss current insights into the expression pattern of HSPs in connective tissues, the direct biological role of HSPs in stromal tissues and the potential clinical applications.

  8. Quality control methodology for high-throughput protein-protein interaction screening.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vazquez, Alexei; Rual, Jean-François; Venkatesan, Kavitha

    2011-01-01

    Protein-protein interactions are key to many aspects of the cell, including its cytoskeletal structure, the signaling processes in which it is involved, or its metabolism. Failure to form protein complexes or signaling cascades may sometimes translate into pathologic conditions such as cancer or neurodegenerative diseases. The set of all protein interactions between the proteins encoded by an organism constitutes its protein interaction network, representing a scaffold for biological function. Knowing the protein interaction network of an organism, combined with other sources of biological information, can unravel fundamental biological circuits and may help better understand the molecular basics of human diseases. The protein interaction network of an organism can be mapped by combining data obtained from both low-throughput screens, i.e., "one gene at a time" experiments and high-throughput screens, i.e., screens designed to interrogate large sets of proteins at once. In either case, quality controls are required to deal with the inherent imperfect nature of experimental assays. In this chapter, we discuss experimental and statistical methodologies to quantify error rates in high-throughput protein-protein interactions screens.

  9. Comparison of Vespula germanica venoms obtained from different sources.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sanchez, F; Blanca, M; Miranda, A; Carmona, M J; Garcia, J; Fernandez, J; Torres, M J; Rondon, M C; Juarez, C

    1994-08-01

    This study was carried out to compare the allergenic potency of Vespula germanica (VG) venoms extracted by different methods and commercially available venoms from Vespula species currently used for in vivo and in vitro studies including immunotherapy. Pure VG venom was used as the reference material. Protein content and enzymatic and allergenic properties of all venoms studied were determined by dye stain reagent, hyaluronidase and phospholipase A1B enzyme activities, and radioallergosorbent test inhibition studies, respectively. Radioallergosorbent test discs sensitized with commercial and pure VG venom were compared using specific IgE antibodies from subjects allergic to VG venom. The data obtained indicate that there were important differences in the allergenic potency between the Vespula species venoms employed for in vivo and/or in vitro assays, VG venom obtained by sac dissection, and pure VG venom. These results indicate that venoms from Vespula species used for in vitro and in vivo tests have a lower concentration of allergens and contain nonvenom proteins. These data should be taken into account when these vespid venoms are used for diagnostic purposes and also when evaluating immunotherapy studies.

  10. 3D7-derived Plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1 is a frequent target of naturally acquired antibodies recognizing protein domains in a particular pattern independent of malaria transmission intensity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Joergensen, Louise; Vestergaard, Lasse S; Turner, Louise

    2007-01-01

    Protection against Plasmodium falciparum malaria is largely mediated by IgG against surface Ags such as the erythrocyte membrane protein 1 family (PfEMP1) responsible for antigenic variation and sequestration of infected erythrocytes. PfEMP1 molecules can be divided into groups A, B/A, B, C, and B......, the sequence by which individuals acquired Abs to particular constructs was largely the same in the three villages. This indicates that the pattern of PfEMP1 expression by parasites transmitted at the different sites was similar, suggesting that PfEMP1 expression is nonrandom and shaped by host......-parasite relationship factors operating at all transmission intensities....

  11. A domain-based approach to predict protein-protein interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Resat Haluk

    2007-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Knowing which proteins exist in a certain organism or cell type and how these proteins interact with each other are necessary for the understanding of biological processes at the whole cell level. The determination of the protein-protein interaction (PPI networks has been the subject of extensive research. Despite the development of reasonably successful methods, serious technical difficulties still exist. In this paper we present DomainGA, a quantitative computational approach that uses the information about the domain-domain interactions to predict the interactions between proteins. Results DomainGA is a multi-parameter optimization method in which the available PPI information is used to derive a quantitative scoring scheme for the domain-domain pairs. Obtained domain interaction scores are then used to predict whether a pair of proteins interacts. Using the yeast PPI data and a series of tests, we show the robustness and insensitivity of the DomainGA method to the selection of the parameter sets, score ranges, and detection rules. Our DomainGA method achieves very high explanation ratios for the positive and negative PPIs in yeast. Based on our cross-verification tests on human PPIs, comparison of the optimized scores with the structurally observed domain interactions obtained from the iPFAM database, and sensitivity and specificity analysis; we conclude that our DomainGA method shows great promise to be applicable across multiple organisms. Conclusion We envision the DomainGA as a first step of a multiple tier approach to constructing organism specific PPIs. As it is based on fundamental structural information, the DomainGA approach can be used to create potential PPIs and the accuracy of the constructed interaction template can be further improved using complementary methods. Explanation ratios obtained in the reported test case studies clearly show that the false prediction rates of the template networks constructed

  12. Differential expression pattern of UBX family genes in Caenorhabditis elegans

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yamauchi, Seiji; Sasagawa, Yohei; Ogura, Teru; Yamanaka, Kunitoshi

    2007-01-01

    UBX (ubiquitin regulatory X)-containing proteins belong to an evolutionary conserved protein family and determine the specificity of p97/VCP/Cdc48p function by binding as its adaptors. Caenorhabditis elegans was found to possess six UBX-containing proteins, named UBXN-1 to -6. However, no general or specific function of them has been revealed. During the course of understanding not only their function but also specified function of p97, we investigated spatial and temporal expression patterns of six ubxn genes in this study. Transcript analyses showed that the expression pattern of each ubxn gene was different throughout worm's development and may show potential developmental dynamics in their function, especially ubxn-5 was expressed specifically in the spermatogenic germline, suggesting a crucial role in spermatogenesis. In addition, as ubxn-4 expression was induced by ER stress, it would function as an ERAD factor in C. elegans. In vivo expression analysis by using GFP translational fusion constructs revealed that six ubxn genes show distinct expression patterns. These results altogether demonstrate that the expression of all six ubxn genes of C. elegans is differently regulated

  13. The SBASE protein domain library, release 8.0: a collection of annotated protein sequence segments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murvai, J; Vlahovicek, K; Barta, E; Pongor, S

    2001-01-01

    SBASE 8.0 is the eighth release of the SBASE library of protein domain sequences that contains 294 898 annotated structural, functional, ligand-binding and topogenic segments of proteins, cross-referenced to most major sequence databases and sequence pattern collections. The entries are clustered into over 2005 statistically validated domain groups (SBASE-A) and 595 non-validated groups (SBASE-B), provided with several WWW-based search and browsing facilities for online use. A domain-search facility was developed, based on non-parametric pattern recognition methods, including artificial neural networks. SBASE 8.0 is freely available by anonymous 'ftp' file transfer from ftp.icgeb.trieste.it. Automated searching of SBASE can be carried out with the WWW servers http://www.icgeb.trieste.it/sbase/ and http://sbase.abc. hu/sbase/.

  14. Neuroimaging characteristics and growth pattern on magnetic resonance imaging in a 52-year-old man presenting with pituicytoma: a case report

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kosuge Yasushi

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Introduction Pituicytoma is a rare neoplasm of the neurohypophysis. To the best of our knowledge there have been no reports of pituicytoma in which long-term magnetic resonance imaging observation was performed. We calculated the doubling time of the tumor volume and described the growth pattern of a pituicytoma. Case presentation A 52-year-old Japanese man with a history of decreased libido was found to have a sellar and suprasellar mass. He underwent transsphenoidal surgery, but only a small specimen was obtained because of intraoperative bleeding. The tentative histological diagnosis was schwannoma. He noticed bitemporal hemianopsia 7 years later. A follow-up magnetic resonance imaging disclosed a tumor volume doubling time of 3830 days. Transcranial gross-total tumor resection was performed. The lesion consisted of elongated and plump tumor cells that were arranged in a fascicular or storiform pattern and were positive for S-100 protein and focally positive for glial fibrillary acidic protein. The final histological diagnosis was pituicytoma. Conclusion Pituicytoma is a slow-growing tumor, but the growth rate may change during follow-up.

  15. Detection of discriminative sequence patterns in the neighborhood of proline cis peptide bonds and their functional annotation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Papaloukas Costas

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Polypeptides are composed of amino acids covalently bonded via a peptide bond. The majority of peptide bonds in proteins is found to occur in the trans conformation. In spite of their infrequent occurrence, cis peptide bonds play a key role in the protein structure and function, as well as in many significant biological processes. Results We perform a systematic analysis of regions in protein sequences that contain a proline cis peptide bond in order to discover non-random associations between the primary sequence and the nature of proline cis/trans isomerization. For this purpose an efficient pattern discovery algorithm is employed which discovers regular expression-type patterns that are overrepresented (i.e. appear frequently repeated in a set of sequences. Four types of pattern discovery are performed: i exact pattern discovery, ii pattern discovery using a chemical equivalency set, iii pattern discovery using a structural equivalency set and iv pattern discovery using certain amino acids' physicochemical properties. The extracted patterns are carefully validated using a specially implemented scoring function and a significance measure (i.e. log-probability estimate indicative of their specificity. The score threshold for the first three types of pattern discovery is 0.90 while for the last type of pattern discovery 0.80. Regarding the significance measure, all patterns yielded values in the range [-9, -31] which ensure that the derived patterns are highly unlikely to have emerged by chance. Among the highest scoring patterns, most of them are consistent with previous investigations concerning the neighborhood of cis proline peptide bonds, and many new ones are identified. Finally, the extracted patterns are systematically compared against the PROSITE database, in order to gain insight into the functional implications of cis prolyl bonds. Conclusion Cis patterns with matches in the PROSITE database fell mostly into two

  16. Pulmonary heat shock protein expression after exposure to a metabolically activated Clara cell toxicant: relationship to protein adduct formation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Williams, Kurt J.; Cruikshank, Michael K.; Plopper, Charles G.

    2003-01-01

    Heat shock proteins/stress proteins (Hsps) participate in regulation of protein synthesis and degradation and serve as general cytoprotectants, yet their role in lethal Clara cell injury is not clear. To define the pattern of Hsp expression in acute lethal Clara cell injury, mice were treated with the Clara cell-specific toxicant naphthalene (NA), and patterns of expression compared to electrophilic protein adduction and previously established organellar degradation and gluathione (GSH) depletion. In sites of lethal injury (distal bronchiole), prior to organellar degradation (1 h post-NA), protein adduction is detectable and ubiquitin, Hsp 25, Hsp 72, and heme-oxygenase 1 (HO-1) are increased. Maximal Hsp expression, protein adduction, and GSH depletion occur simultaneous (by 2-3 h) with early organelle disruption. Hsp expression is higher later (6-24 h), only in exfoliating cells. In airway sites (proximal bronchiole) with nonlethal Clara cell injury elevation of Hsp 25, 72, and HO-1 expression follows significant GSH depletion (greater than 50% 2 h post-NA). This data build upon our previous studies and we conclude that (1) in lethal (terminal bronchiole) and nonlethal (proximal bronchiole) Clara cell injury, Hsp induction is associated with the loss of GSH and increased protein adduction, and (2) in these same sites, organelle disruption is not a prerequisite for Hsp induction

  17. Functional and Structural Overview of G-Protein-Coupled Receptors Comprehensively Obtained from Genome Sequences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Makiko Suwa

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available An understanding of the functional mechanisms of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs is very important for GPCR-related drug design. We have developed an integrated GPCR database (SEVENS http://sevens.cbrc.jp/ that includes 64,090 reliable GPCR genes comprehensively identified from 56 eukaryote genome sequences, and overviewed the sequences and structure spaces of the GPCRs. In vertebrates, the number of receptors for biological amines, peptides, etc. is conserved in most species, whereas the number of chemosensory receptors for odorant, pheromone, etc. significantly differs among species. The latter receptors tend to be single exon type or a few exon type and show a high ratio in the numbers of GPCRs, whereas some families, such as Class B and Class C receptors, have long lengths due to the presence of many exons. Statistical analyses of amino acid residues reveal that most of the conserved residues in Class A GPCRs are found in the cytoplasmic half regions of transmembrane (TM helices, while residues characteristic to each subfamily found on the extracellular half regions. The 69 of Protein Data Bank (PDB entries of complete or fragmentary structures could be mapped on the TM/loop regions of Class A GPCRs covering 14 subfamilies.

  18. Computational design of protein interactions: designing proteins that neutralize influenza by inhibiting its hemagglutinin surface protein

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fleishman, Sarel

    2012-02-01

    Molecular recognition underlies all life processes. Design of interactions not seen in nature is a test of our understanding of molecular recognition and could unlock the vast potential of subtle control over molecular interaction networks, allowing the design of novel diagnostics and therapeutics for basic and applied research. We developed the first general method for designing protein interactions. The method starts by computing a region of high affinity interactions between dismembered amino acid residues and the target surface and then identifying proteins that can harbor these residues. Designs are tested experimentally for binding the target surface and successful ones are affinity matured using yeast cell surface display. Applied to the conserved stem region of influenza hemagglutinin we designed two unrelated proteins that, following affinity maturation, bound hemagglutinin at subnanomolar dissociation constants. Co-crystal structures of hemagglutinin bound to the two designed binders were within 1Angstrom RMSd of their models, validating the accuracy of the design strategy. One of the designed proteins inhibits the conformational changes that underlie hemagglutinin's cell-invasion functions and blocks virus infectivity in cell culture, suggesting that such proteins may in future serve as diagnostics and antivirals against a wide range of pathogenic influenza strains. We have used this method to obtain experimentally validated binders of several other target proteins, demonstrating the generality of the approach. We discuss the combination of modeling and high-throughput characterization of design variants which has been key to the success of this approach, as well as how we have used the data obtained in this project to enhance our understanding of molecular recognition. References: Science 332:816 JMB, in press Protein Sci 20:753

  19. Recovery of gold from industrial wastewater by extracellular proteins obtained from a thermophilic bacterium Tepidimonas fonticaldi AT-A2.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Yin-Lung; Wu, Jen-Hao; Cheng, Chieh-Lun; Nagarajan, Dillirani; Lee, Ching-Ray; Li, Yi-Heng; Lo, Yung-Chung; Chang, Jo-Shu

    2017-09-01

    Biosorption has emerged as a promising alternative approach for treating wastewater with dilute metal contents in a green and cost effective way. In this study, extracellular proteins of an isolated thermophilic bacterium (Tepidimonas fonticaldi AT-A2) were used as biosorbent to recover precious metal (i.e., Au) from wastewater. The Au (III) adsorption capacity on the T. fonticaldi AT-A2 proteins was the highest when the pH was set at about 4.0-5.0. The adsorption capacity increased with increasing temperature from 15 to 70°C. Adsorption isotherm studies show that both Langmuir and Freundrich models could describe the adsorption equilibrium. The maximum adsorption capacity of Au (III) at 50°C and pH 5 could reach 9.7mg Au/mg protein. The protein-based biosorbent was also used for the recovery of Au from a wastewater containing 15mg/L of Au, achieving a high adsorption capacity of 1.45mg Au/mg protein and a removal efficiency of 71%. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. The convection patterns in microemulsions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Korneta, W.; Lopez Quintela, M.A.; Fernandez Novoa, A.

    1991-07-01

    The Rayleigh-Benard convection in the microemulsion consisting of water (7.5%), cyclohexan (oil-61.7%) and diethylenglycolmonobutylether (surfactant-30.8%) is studied from the onset of convection to the phase separation. The five classes of convection patterns are observed and recorded on the video: localized travelling waves, travelling waves, travelling waves and localized steady rolls, steady rolls and steady polygons. The Fourier transforms and histograms of these patterns are presented. The origin of any pattern is discussed. The intermittent behaviour close to the phase separation was observed. Possible applications of the obtained results are suggested. (author). 6 refs, 4 figs

  1. Mistimed food intake and sleep alters 24-hour time-of-day patterns of the human plasma proteome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Depner, Christopher M; Melanson, Edward L; McHill, Andrew W; Wright, Kenneth P

    2018-06-05

    Proteomics holds great promise for understanding human physiology, developing health biomarkers, and precision medicine. However, how much the plasma proteome varies with time of day and is regulated by the master circadian suprachiasmatic nucleus brain clock, assessed here by the melatonin rhythm, is largely unknown. Here, we assessed 24-h time-of-day patterns of human plasma proteins in six healthy men during daytime food intake and nighttime sleep in phase with the endogenous circadian clock (i.e., circadian alignment) versus daytime sleep and nighttime food intake out of phase with the endogenous circadian clock (i.e., circadian misalignment induced by simulated nightshift work). We identified 24-h time-of-day patterns in 573 of 1,129 proteins analyzed, with 30 proteins showing strong regulation by the circadian cycle. Relative to circadian alignment, the average abundance and/or 24-h time-of-day patterns of 127 proteins were altered during circadian misalignment. Altered proteins were associated with biological pathways involved in immune function, metabolism, and cancer. Of the 30 circadian-regulated proteins, the majority peaked between 1400 hours and 2100 hours, and these 30 proteins were associated with basic pathways involved in extracellular matrix organization, tyrosine kinase signaling, and signaling by receptor tyrosine-protein kinase erbB-2. Furthermore, circadian misalignment altered multiple proteins known to regulate glucose homeostasis and/or energy metabolism, with implications for altered metabolic physiology. Our findings demonstrate the circadian clock, the behavioral wake-sleep/food intake-fasting cycle, and interactions between these processes regulate 24-h time-of-day patterns of human plasma proteins and help identify mechanisms of circadian misalignment that may contribute to metabolic dysregulation.

  2. A Proteomic Approach for the Identification of Up-Regulated Proteins Involved in the Metabolic Process of the Leiomyoma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ura, Blendi; Scrimin, Federica; Arrigoni, Giorgio; Franchin, Cinzia; Monasta, Lorenzo; Ricci, Giuseppe

    2016-04-09

    Uterine leiomyoma is the most common benign smooth muscle cell tumor of the uterus. Proteomics is a powerful tool for the analysis of complex mixtures of proteins. In our study, we focused on proteins that were upregulated in the leiomyoma compared to the myometrium. Paired samples of eight leiomyomas and adjacent myometrium were obtained and submitted to two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and mass spectrometry for protein identification and to Western blotting for 2-DE data validation. The comparison between the patterns revealed 24 significantly upregulated (p leiomyoma and not with the normal myometrium. The overexpression of seven proteins involved in the metabolic processes of the leiomyoma was further validated by Western blotting and 2D Western blotting. Four of these proteins have never been associated with the leiomyoma before. The 2-DE approach coupled with mass spectrometry, which is among the methods of choice for comparative proteomic studies, identified a number of proteins overexpressed in the leiomyoma and involved in several biological processes, including metabolic processes. A better understanding of the mechanism underlying the overexpression of these proteins may be important for therapeutic purposes.

  3. Tau protein

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Frederiksen, Jette Lautrup Battistini; Kristensen, Kim; Bahl, Jmc

    2011-01-01

    Background: Tau protein has been proposed as biomarker of axonal damage leading to irreversible neurological impairment in MS. CSF concentrations may be useful when determining risk of progression from ON to MS. Objective: To investigate the association between tau protein concentration and 14......-3-3 protein in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with monosymptomatic optic neuritis (ON) versus patients with monosymptomatic onset who progressed to multiple sclerosis (MS). To evaluate results against data found in a complete literature review. Methods: A total of 66 patients with MS and/or ON from...... the Department of Neurology of Glostrup Hospital, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, were included. CSF samples were analysed for tau protein and 14-3-3 protein, and clinical and paraclinical information was obtained from medical records. Results: The study shows a significantly increased concentration of tau...

  4. Prepregnancy low-carbohydrate dietary pattern and risk of gestational diabetes mellitus: a prospective cohort study

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bao, Wei; Bowers, Katherine; Tobias, Deirdre K

    2014-01-01

    ; an animal LCD score on the basis of intakes of carbohydrate, animal protein, and animal fat; and a vegetable LCD score on the basis of intakes of carbohydrate, vegetable protein, and vegetable fat. A higher score reflected a higher intake of fat and protein and a lower intake of carbohydrate...... protein and fat from vegetable food sources is not associated with the risk. Women of reproductive age who follow a low-carbohydrate dietary pattern may consider consuming vegetable rather than animal sources of protein and fat to minimize their risk of GDM.......-carbohydrate dietary patterns with risk of GDM. DESIGN: We included 21,411 singleton pregnancies in the Nurses' Health Study II. Prepregnancy LCD scores were calculated from validated food-frequency questionnaires, including an overall LCD score on the basis of intakes of carbohydrate, total protein, and total fat...

  5. Design of optimal linear antennas with maximally flat radiation patterns

    Science.gov (United States)

    Minkovich, B. M.; Mints, M. Ia.

    1990-02-01

    The paper presents an explicit solution to the problem of maximizing the aperture area utilization coefficient and obtaining the best approximation in the mean of the sectorial U-shaped radiation pattern of a linear antenna, when Butterworth flattening constraints are imposed on the approximating pattern. Constraints are established on the choice of the smallest and large antenna dimensions that make it possible to obtain maximally flat patterns, having a low sidelobe level and free from pulsations within the main lobe.

  6. Differential Protein Expression in Congenital and Acquired Cholesteatomas.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Seung-Ho Shin

    Full Text Available Congenital cholesteatomas are epithelial lesions that present as an epithelial pearl behind an intact eardrum. Congenital and acquired cholesteatomas progress quite differently from each other and progress patterns can provide clues about the unique origin and pathogenesis of the abnormality. However, the exact pathogenic mechanisms by which cholesteatomas develop remain unknown. In this study, key proteins that directly affect cholesteatoma pathogenesis are investigated with proteomics and immunohistochemistry. Congenital cholesteatoma matrices and retroauricular skin were harvested during surgery in 4 patients diagnosed with a congenital cholesteatoma. Tissue was also harvested from the retraction pocket in an additional 2 patients during middle ear surgery. We performed 2-dimensional (2D electrophoresis to detect and analyze spots that are expressed only in congenital cholesteatoma and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/MS to separate proteins by molecular weight. Protein expression was confirmed by immunohistochemical staining. The image analysis of 2D electrophoresis showed that 4 congenital cholesteatoma samples had very similar protein expression patterns and that 127 spots were exclusively expressed in congenital cholesteatomas. Of these 127 spots, 10 major spots revealed the presence of titin, forkhead transcription activator homolog (FKH 5-3, plectin 1, keratin 10, and leucine zipper protein 5 by MALDI-TOF/MS analysis. Immunohistochemical staining showed that FKH 5-3 and titin were expressed in congenital cholesteatoma matrices, but not in acquired cholesteatomas. Our study shows that protein expression patterns are completely different in congenital cholesteatomas, acquired cholesteatomas, and skin. Moreover, non-epithelial proteins, including FKH 5-3 and titin, were unexpectedly expressed in congenital cholesteatoma tissue. Our data indicates that congenital cholesteatoma origins

  7. Surfactant protein A and surfactant protein D variation in pulmonary disease

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sørensen, Grith Lykke; Husby, Steffen; Holmskov, Uffe

    2007-01-01

    Surfactant proteins A (SP-A) and D (SP-D) have been implicated in pulmonary innate immunity. The proteins are host defense lectins, belonging to the collectin family which also includes mannan-binding lectin (MBL). SP-A and SP-D are pattern-recognition molecules with the lectin domains binding...... lavage and blood have indicated associations with a multitude of pulmonary inflammatory diseases. In addition, accumulating evidence in mouse models of infection and inflammation indicates that recombinant forms of the surfactant proteins are biologically active in vivo and may have therapeutic potential...... in controlling pulmonary inflammatory disease. The presence of the surfactant collectins, especially SP-D, in non-pulmonary tissues, such as the gastrointestinal tract and genital organs, suggest additional actions located to other mucosal surfaces. The aim of this review is to summarize studies on genetic...

  8. Using Protein Dimers to Maximize the Protein Hybridization Efficiency with Multisite DNA Origami Scaffolds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Verma, Vikash; Mallik, Leena; Hariadi, Rizal F.; Sivaramakrishnan, Sivaraj; Skiniotis, Georgios; Joglekar, Ajit P.

    2015-01-01

    DNA origami provides a versatile platform for conducting ‘architecture-function’ analysis to determine how the nanoscale organization of multiple copies of a protein component within a multi-protein machine affects its overall function. Such analysis requires that the copy number of protein molecules bound to the origami scaffold exactly matches the desired number, and that it is uniform over an entire scaffold population. This requirement is challenging to satisfy for origami scaffolds with many protein hybridization sites, because it requires the successful completion of multiple, independent hybridization reactions. Here, we show that a cleavable dimerization domain on the hybridizing protein can be used to multiplex hybridization reactions on an origami scaffold. This strategy yields nearly 100% hybridization efficiency on a 6-site scaffold even when using low protein concentration and short incubation time. It can also be developed further to enable reliable patterning of a large number of molecules on DNA origami for architecture-function analysis. PMID:26348722

  9. Using Protein Dimers to Maximize the Protein Hybridization Efficiency with Multisite DNA Origami Scaffolds.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vikash Verma

    Full Text Available DNA origami provides a versatile platform for conducting 'architecture-function' analysis to determine how the nanoscale organization of multiple copies of a protein component within a multi-protein machine affects its overall function. Such analysis requires that the copy number of protein molecules bound to the origami scaffold exactly matches the desired number, and that it is uniform over an entire scaffold population. This requirement is challenging to satisfy for origami scaffolds with many protein hybridization sites, because it requires the successful completion of multiple, independent hybridization reactions. Here, we show that a cleavable dimerization domain on the hybridizing protein can be used to multiplex hybridization reactions on an origami scaffold. This strategy yields nearly 100% hybridization efficiency on a 6-site scaffold even when using low protein concentration and short incubation time. It can also be developed further to enable reliable patterning of a large number of molecules on DNA origami for architecture-function analysis.

  10. A novel disulfide-rich protein motif from avian eggshell membranes.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vamsi K Kodali

    2011-03-01

    Full Text Available Under the shell of a chicken egg are two opposed proteinaceous disulfide-rich membranes. They are fabricated in the avian oviduct using fibers formed from proteins that are extensively coupled by irreversible lysine-derived crosslinks. The intractability of these eggshell membranes (ESM has slowed their characterization and their protein composition remains uncertain. In this work, reductive alkylation of ESM followed by proteolytic digestion led to the identification of a cysteine rich ESM protein (abbreviated CREMP that was similar to spore coat protein SP75 from cellular slime molds. Analysis of the cysteine repeats in partial sequences of CREMP reveals runs of remarkably repetitive patterns. Module a contains a C-X(4-C-X(5-C-X(8-C-X(6 pattern (where X represents intervening non-cysteine residues. These inter-cysteine amino acid residues are also strikingly conserved. The evolutionarily-related module b has the same cysteine spacing as a, but has 11 amino acid residues at its C-terminus. Different stretches of CREMP sequences in chicken genomic DNA fragments show diverse repeat patterns: e.g. all a modules; an alternation of a-b modules; or an a-b-b arrangement. Comparable CREMP proteins are found in contigs of the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata and in the oviparous green anole lizard (Anolis carolinensis. In all these cases the long runs of highly conserved modular repeats have evidently led to difficulties in the assembly of full length DNA sequences. Hence the number, and the amino acid lengths, of CREMP proteins are currently unknown. A 118 amino acid fragment (representing an a-b-a-b pattern from a chicken oviduct EST library expressed in Escherichia coli is a well folded, highly anisotropic, protein with a large chemical shift dispersion in 2D solution NMR spectra. Structure is completely lost on reduction of the 8 disulfide bonds of this protein fragment. Finally, solid state NMR spectra suggest a surprising degree of order in intact

  11. Pretreatment of flaxseed protein isolate by high hydrostatic pressure: Impacts on protein structure, enzymatic hydrolysis and final hydrolysate antioxidant capacities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perreault, Véronique; Hénaux, Loïc; Bazinet, Laurent; Doyen, Alain

    2017-04-15

    The effect of high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) on flaxseed protein structure and peptide profiles, obtained after protein hydrolysis, was investigated. Isolated flaxseed protein (1%, m/v) was subjected to HHP (600MPa, 5min or 20min at 20°C) prior to hydrolysis with trypsin only and trypsin-pronase. The results demonstrated that HHP treatment induced dissociation of flaxseed proteins and generated higher molecular weight aggregates as a function of processing duration. Fluorescence spectroscopy showed that HHP treatment, as well as processing duration, had an impact on flaxseed protein structure since exposition of hydrophobic amino acid tyrosine was modified. Except for some specific peptides, the concentrations of which were modified, similar peptide profiles were obtained after hydrolysis of pressure-treated proteins using trypsin. Finally, hydrolysates obtained using trypsin-pronase had a greater antioxidant capacity (ORAC) than control samples; these results confirmed that HHP enhanced the generation of antioxidant peptides. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Effect of protein solution components in the adsorption of Herbaspirillum seropedicae GlnB protein on mica.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferreira, Cecília F G; Benelli, Elaine M; Klein, Jorge J; Schreiner, Wido; Camargo, Paulo C

    2009-10-15

    The adsorption of proteins and its buffer solution on mica surfaces was investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Different salt concentration of the Herbaspirillum seropedicae GlnB protein (GlnB-Hs) solution deposited on mica was investigated. This protein is a globular, soluble homotrimer (36kDa), member of PII-like proteins family involved in signal transducing in prokaryote. Supramolecular structures were formed when this protein was deposited onto bare mica surface. The topographic AFM images of the GlnB-Hs films showed that at high salt concentration the supramolecular structures are spherical-like, instead of the typical doughnut-like shape for low salt concentration. AFM images of NaCl and Tris from the buffer solution showed structures with the same pattern as those observed for high salt protein solution, misleading the image interpretation. XPS experiments showed that GlnB protein film covers the mica surface without chemical reaction.

  13. AGAMOUS controls GIANT KILLER, a multifunctional chromatin modifier in reproductive organ patterning and differentiation.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kian-Hong Ng

    2009-11-01

    Full Text Available The Arabidopsis homeotic protein AGAMOUS (AG, a MADS domain transcription factor, specifies reproductive organ identity during flower development. Using a binding assay and expression analysis, we identified a direct target of AG, GIANT KILLER (GIK, which fine-tunes the expression of multiple genes downstream of AG. The GIK protein contains an AT-hook DNA binding motif that is widely found in chromosomal proteins and that binds to nuclear matrix attachment regions of DNA elements. Overexpression and loss of function of GIK cause wide-ranging defects in patterning and differentiation of reproductive organs. GIK directly regulates the expression of several key transcriptional regulators, including ETTIN/AUXIN RESPONSE FACTOR 3 (ETT/ARF3 that patterns the gynoecium, by binding to the matrix attachment regions of target promoters. Overexpression of GIK causes a swift and dynamic change in repressive histone modification in the ETT promoter. We propose that GIK acts as a molecular node downstream of the homeotic protein AG, regulating patterning and differentiation of reproductive organs through chromatin organization.

  14. Updated US Department of Agriculture Food Patterns meet goals of the 2010 dietary guidelines.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Britten, Patricia; Cleveland, Linda E; Koegel, Kristin L; Kuczynski, Kevin J; Nickols-Richardson, Sharon M

    2012-10-01

    The US Department of Agriculture Food Patterns were updated for the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans to meet new nutrition goals and incorporate results of food pattern modeling requested by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. The purpose of this article is to describe the process used and changes in the updated patterns. Changes include renaming the Meat and Beans and Milk Groups to the Protein Foods and Dairy Groups, respectively, to be more encompassing of foods in each. Vegetable subgroups now provide more achievable intake recommendations. Calcium-fortified soymilk is now included in the Dairy Group because of its similarity to foods in that group. Increased amounts of seafoods are recommended in the Protein Foods Group, balanced by decreased amounts of meat and poultry. A limit on calories from solid fats and added sugars is included, replacing the previous discretionary calorie allowance and emphasizing the need to choose nutrient-dense forms of foods. Lacto-ovo vegetarian and vegan patterns that meet nutrition goals were created by making substitutions in the Protein Foods Group, and for vegan patterns, in the Dairy Group. Patterns identify food choices that meet nutritional needs within energy allowances and encourage choosing a variety of foods. They rely on foods in nutrient-dense forms, including a limited amount of calories from solid fats and added sugars. The Food Patterns provide a useful template for educating consumers about healthful food choices while highlighting a large gap between choices many Americans make and healthy eating patterns. Copyright © 2012 Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Inhomogeneity Based Characterization of Distribution Patterns on the Plasma Membrane.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laura Paparelli

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Cell surface protein and lipid molecules are organized in various patterns: randomly, along gradients, or clustered when segregated into discrete micro- and nano-domains. Their distribution is tightly coupled to events such as polarization, endocytosis, and intracellular signaling, but challenging to quantify using traditional techniques. Here we present a novel approach to quantify the distribution of plasma membrane proteins and lipids. This approach describes spatial patterns in degrees of inhomogeneity and incorporates an intensity-based correction to analyze images with a wide range of resolutions; we have termed it Quantitative Analysis of the Spatial distributions in Images using Mosaic segmentation and Dual parameter Optimization in Histograms (QuASIMoDOH. We tested its applicability using simulated microscopy images and images acquired by widefield microscopy, total internal reflection microscopy, structured illumination microscopy, and photoactivated localization microscopy. We validated QuASIMoDOH, successfully quantifying the distribution of protein and lipid molecules detected with several labeling techniques, in different cell model systems. We also used this method to characterize the reorganization of cell surface lipids in response to disrupted endosomal trafficking and to detect dynamic changes in the global and local organization of epidermal growth factor receptors across the cell surface. Our findings demonstrate that QuASIMoDOH can be used to assess protein and lipid patterns, quantifying distribution changes and spatial reorganization at the cell surface. An ImageJ/Fiji plugin of this analysis tool is provided.

  16. Obtention control bars patterns for a BWR using Tabo search

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Castillo, A.; Ortiz, J.J.; Alonso, G.; Morales, L.B.; Valle, E. del

    2004-01-01

    The obtained results when implementing the technique of tabu search, for to optimize patterns of control bars in a BWR type reactor, using the CM-PRESTO code are presented. The patterns of control bars were obtained for the designs of fuel reloads obtained in a previous work, using the same technique. The obtained results correspond to a cycle of 18 months using 112 fresh fuels enriched at the 3.53 of U-235. The used technique of tabu search, prohibits recently visited movements, in the position that correspond to the axial positions of the control bars, additionally the tiempo t abu matrix is used for to manage a size of variable tabu list and the objective function is punished with the frequency of the forbidden movements. The obtained patterns of control bars improve the longitude of the cycle with regard to the reference values and they complete the restrictions of safety. (Author)

  17. Nonlinear effects on Turing patterns: Time oscillations and chaos

    KAUST Repository

    Aragón, J. L.

    2012-08-08

    We show that a model reaction-diffusion system with two species in a monostable regime and over a large region of parameter space produces Turing patterns coexisting with a limit cycle which cannot be discerned from the linear analysis. As a consequence, the patterns oscillate in time. When varying a single parameter, a series of bifurcations leads to period doubling, quasiperiodic, and chaotic oscillations without modifying the underlying Turing pattern. A Ruelle-Takens-Newhouse route to chaos is identified. We also examine the Turing conditions for obtaining a diffusion-driven instability and show that the patterns obtained are not necessarily stationary for certain values of the diffusion coefficients. These results demonstrate the limitations of the linear analysis for reaction-diffusion systems. © 2012 American Physical Society.

  18. TUNABLE TENSOR VOTING FOR REGULARIZING PUNCTATE PATTERNS OF MEMBRANE-BOUND PROTEIN SIGNALS

    OpenAIRE

    Loss, Leandro

    2009-01-01

    Membrane-bound protein, expressed in the basal-lateral region, is heterogeneous and an important endpoint for understanding biological processes. At the optical resolution, membrane-bound protein can be visualized as being diffused (e.g., E-cadherin), punctate (e.g., connexin), or simultaneously diffused and punctate as a result of sample preparation or conditioning. Furthermore, there is a significant amount of heterogeneity as a result of technical and biological variations. This paper aims...

  19. Why fibrous proteins are romantic.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cohen, C

    1998-01-01

    Here I give a personal account of the great history of fibrous protein structure. I describe how Astbury first recognized the essential simplicity of fibrous proteins and their paradigmatic role in protein structure. The poor diffraction patterns yielded by these proteins were then deciphered by Pauling, Crick, Ramachandran and others (in part by model building) to reveal alpha-helical coiled coils, beta-sheets, and the collagen triple helical coiled coil-all characterized by different local sequence periodicities. Longer-range sequence periodicities (or "magic numbers") present in diverse fibrous proteins, such as collagen, tropomyosin, paramyosin, myosin, and were then shown to account for the characteristic axial repeats observed in filaments of these proteins. More recently, analysis of fibrous protein structure has been extended in many cases to atomic resolution, and some systems, such as "leucine zippers," are providing a deeper understanding of protein design than similar studies of globular proteins. In the last sections, I provide some dramatic examples of fibrous protein dynamics. One example is the so-called "spring-loaded" mechanism for viral fusion by the hemagglutinin protein of influenza. Another is the possible conformational changes in prion proteins, implicated in "mad cow disease," which may be related to similar transitions in a variety of globular and fibrous proteins. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

  20. Raman optical activity of proteins and glycoproteins

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Smyth, E.

    2000-03-01

    Raman optical activity (ROA), measured in this project as a small difference in the intensity of Raman scattering from chiral molecules in right- and left-circularly polarised incident laser light, offers the potential to provide more information about the structure of biological molecules in aqueous solution than conventional spectroscopic techniques. Chapter one contains a general discussion of the relative merits of different spectroscopic techniques for structure determination of biomolecules, as well as a brief introduction to ROA. In Chapter two a theoretical analysis of ROA is developed, which extends the discussion in chapter one. The spectrometer setup and sample preparation is then discussed in chapter three. Instrument and sample conditions are monitored to ensure that the best results are obtained. As with any experimental project problems occur, which may result in a degradation of the spectra obtained. The cause of these problems was explored and remedied whenever possible. Chapter four introduces a brief account of protein, glycoprotein and carbohydrate structure and function, with a particular emphasis on the structure of proteins. In the remaining chapters experimental ROA results on proteins and glycoproteins, with some carbohydrate samples, from a wide range of sources are examined. For example, in chapter five some β-sheet proteins are examined. Structural features in these proteins are examined in the extended amide III region of their ROA spectra, revealing that ROA is sensitive to the rigidity or flexibility inherent in proteins. Chapter six concentrates on a group of proteins (usually glycoproteins) known as the serine proteinase inhibitors (serpins). Medically, the serpins are one of the most important groups of proteins of current interest, with wide-ranging implications in conditions such as Down's syndrome, Alzheimer's disease, and emphysema with associated cirrhosis of the liver. With favourable samples and conditions ROA may offer the

  1. Evaluation of dietary patterns among Norwegian postmenopausal women using plasma carotenoids as biomarkers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Markussen, Marianne S; Veierød, Marit B; Sakhi, Amrit K; Ellingjord-Dale, Merete; Blomhoff, Rune; Ursin, Giske; Andersen, Lene F

    2015-02-28

    A number of studies have examined dietary patterns in various populations. However, to study to what extent such patterns capture meaningful differences in consumption of foods is of interest. In the present study, we identified important dietary patterns in Norwegian postmenopausal women (age 50-69 years, n 361), and evaluated these patterns by examining their associations with plasma carotenoids. Diet was assessed by a 253-item FFQ. These 253 food items were categorised into forty-six food groups, and dietary patterns were identified using principal component analysis. We used the partial correlation coefficient (r(adj)) and multiple linear regression analysis to examine the associations between the dietary patterns and the plasma carotenoids α-carotene, β-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin, lutein, lycopene and zeaxanthin. Overall, four dietary patterns were identified: the 'Western'; 'Vegetarian'; 'Continental'; 'High-protein'. The 'Western' dietary pattern scores were significantly inversely correlated with plasma lutein, zeaxanthin, lycopene and total carotenoids (-0·25 ≤ r(adj) ≤ -0·13). The 'Vegetarian' dietary pattern scores were significantly positively correlated with all the plasma carotenoids (0·15 ≤ r(adj) ≤ 0·24). The 'Continental' dietary pattern scores were significantly inversely correlated with plasma lutein and α-carotene (r(adj) = -0·13). No significant association between the 'High-protein' dietary pattern scores and the plasma carotenoids was found. In conclusion, the healthy dietary pattern, the 'Vegetarian' pattern, is associated with a more favourable profile of the plasma carotenoids than our unhealthy dietary patterns, the 'Western' and 'Continental' patterns.

  2. dependent/calmodulin- stimulated protein kinase from moss

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Unknown

    stimulated protein kinase; CDPK, calmodulin domain-like protein kinase; KM14, 14 amino acid synthetic peptide; .... used were obtained from Sigma Chemical Company, USA, ..... Plant chimeric Ca2+/Calmodulin-dependent protein kinase.

  3. Chronology of p53 protein accumulation in gastric carcinogenesis

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Craanen, M. E.; Blok, P.; Dekker, W.; Offerhaus, G. J.; Tytgat, G. N.

    1995-01-01

    p53 Protein accumulation in early gastric carcinoma was studied in relation to the histological type (Lauren classification) and the type of growth pattern, including the chronology of p53 protein accumulation during carcinogenesis. Forty five, paraffin embedded gastrectomy specimens from early

  4. Annotating the protein-RNA interaction sites in proteins using evolutionary information and protein backbone structure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Tao; Li, Qian-Zhong

    2012-11-07

    RNA-protein interactions play important roles in various biological processes. The precise detection of RNA-protein interaction sites is very important for understanding essential biological processes and annotating the function of the proteins. In this study, based on various features from amino acid sequence and structure, including evolutionary information, solvent accessible surface area and torsion angles (φ, ψ) in the backbone structure of the polypeptide chain, a computational method for predicting RNA-binding sites in proteins is proposed. When the method is applied to predict RNA-binding sites in three datasets: RBP86 containing 86 protein chains, RBP107 containing 107 proteins chains and RBP109 containing 109 proteins chains, better sensitivities and specificities are obtained compared to previously published methods in five-fold cross-validation tests. In order to make further examination for the efficiency of our method, the RBP107 dataset is used as training set, RBP86 and RBP109 datasets are used as the independent test sets. In addition, as examples of our prediction, RNA-binding sites in a few proteins are presented. The annotated results are consistent with the PDB annotation. These results show that our method is useful for annotating RNA binding sites of novel proteins.

  5. Ranking docking poses by graph matching of protein-ligand interactions: lessons learned from the D3R Grand Challenge 2

    Science.gov (United States)

    da Silva Figueiredo Celestino Gomes, Priscila; Da Silva, Franck; Bret, Guillaume; Rognan, Didier

    2018-01-01

    A novel docking challenge has been set by the Drug Design Data Resource (D3R) in order to predict the pose and affinity ranking of a set of Farnesoid X receptor (FXR) agonists, prior to the public release of their bound X-ray structures and potencies. In a first phase, 36 agonists were docked to 26 Protein Data Bank (PDB) structures of the FXR receptor, and next rescored using the in-house developed GRIM method. GRIM aligns protein-ligand interaction patterns of docked poses to those of available PDB templates for the target protein, and rescore poses by a graph matching method. In agreement with results obtained during the previous 2015 docking challenge, we clearly show that GRIM rescoring improves the overall quality of top-ranked poses by prioritizing interaction patterns already visited in the PDB. Importantly, this challenge enables us to refine the applicability domain of the method by better defining the conditions of its success. We notably show that rescoring apolar ligands in hydrophobic pockets leads to frequent GRIM failures. In the second phase, 102 FXR agonists were ranked by decreasing affinity according to the Gibbs free energy of the corresponding GRIM-selected poses, computed by the HYDE scoring function. Interestingly, this fast and simple rescoring scheme provided the third most accurate ranking method among 57 contributions. Although the obtained ranking is still unsuitable for hit to lead optimization, the GRIM-HYDE scoring scheme is accurate and fast enough to post-process virtual screening data.

  6. The carnegie protein trap library: a versatile tool for Drosophila developmental studies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buszczak, Michael; Paterno, Shelley; Lighthouse, Daniel; Bachman, Julia; Planck, Jamie; Owen, Stephenie; Skora, Andrew D; Nystul, Todd G; Ohlstein, Benjamin; Allen, Anna; Wilhelm, James E; Murphy, Terence D; Levis, Robert W; Matunis, Erika; Srivali, Nahathai; Hoskins, Roger A; Spradling, Allan C

    2007-03-01

    Metazoan physiology depends on intricate patterns of gene expression that remain poorly known. Using transposon mutagenesis in Drosophila, we constructed a library of 7404 protein trap and enhancer trap lines, the Carnegie collection, to facilitate gene expression mapping at single-cell resolution. By sequencing the genomic insertion sites, determining splicing patterns downstream of the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) exon, and analyzing expression patterns in the ovary and salivary gland, we found that 600-900 different genes are trapped in our collection. A core set of 244 lines trapped different identifiable protein isoforms, while insertions likely to act as GFP-enhancer traps were found in 256 additional genes. At least 8 novel genes were also identified. Our results demonstrate that the Carnegie collection will be useful as a discovery tool in diverse areas of cell and developmental biology and suggest new strategies for greatly increasing the coverage of the Drosophila proteome with protein trap insertions.

  7. Angiogenesis interactome and time course microarray data reveal the distinct activation patterns in endothelial cells.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liang-Hui Chu

    Full Text Available Angiogenesis involves stimulation of endothelial cells (EC by various cytokines and growth factors, but the signaling mechanisms are not completely understood. Combining dynamic gene expression time-course data for stimulated EC with protein-protein interactions associated with angiogenesis (the "angiome" could reveal how different stimuli result in different patterns of network activation and could implicate signaling intermediates as points for control or intervention. We constructed the protein-protein interaction networks of positive and negative regulation of angiogenesis comprising 367 and 245 proteins, respectively. We used five published gene expression datasets derived from in vitro assays using different types of blood endothelial cells stimulated by VEGFA (vascular endothelial growth factor A. We used the Short Time-series Expression Miner (STEM to identify significant temporal gene expression profiles. The statistically significant patterns between 2D fibronectin and 3D type I collagen substrates for telomerase-immortalized EC (TIME show that different substrates could influence the temporal gene activation patterns in the same cell line. We investigated the different activation patterns among 18 transmembrane tyrosine kinase receptors, and experimentally measured the protein level of the tyrosine-kinase receptors VEGFR1, VEGFR2 and VEGFR3 in human umbilical vein EC (HUVEC and human microvascular EC (MEC. The results show that VEGFR1-VEGFR2 levels are more closely coupled than VEGFR1-VEGFR3 or VEGFR2-VEGFR3 in HUVEC and MEC. This computational methodology can be extended to investigate other molecules or biological processes such as cell cycle.

  8. Development of a lectin binding assay to differentiate between recombinant and endogenous proteins in pharmacokinetic studies of protein-biopharmaceuticals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weber, Alfred; Minibeck, Eva; Scheiflinger, Friedrich; Turecek, Peter L

    2015-04-10

    Human glycoproteins, expressed in hamster cell lines, show similar glycosylation patterns to naturally occurring human molecules except for a minute difference in the linkage of terminal sialic acid: both cell types lack α2,6-galactosyl-sialyltransferase, abundantly expressed in human hepatocytes and responsible for the α2,6-sialylation of circulating glycoproteins. This minute difference, which is currently not known to have any physiological relevance, was the basis for the selective measurement of recombinant glycoproteins in the presence of their endogenous counterparts. The assay is based on using the lectin Sambucus nigra agglutinin (SNA), selectively binding to α2,6-sialylated N-glycans. Using von Willebrand factor (VWF), factor IX (FIX), and factor VIIa (FVIIa), it was demonstrated that (i) the plasma-derived proteins, but not the corresponding recombinant proteins, specifically bind to SNA and (ii) this binding can be used to deplete the plasma-derived proteins. The feasibility of this approach was confirmed in spike-recovery studies for all three recombinant coagulation proteins in human plasma and for recombinant VWF (rVWF) in macaque plasma. Analysis of plasma samples from macaques after administration of recombinant and a plasma-derived VWF demonstrated the suitability and robustness of this approach. Data showed that rVWF could be selectively measured without changing the ELISAs and furthermore revealed the limitations of baseline adjustment using a single measurement of the predose concentration only. The SNA gel-based depletion procedure can easily be integrated in existing procedures as a specific sample pre-treatment step. While ELISA-based methods were used to measure the recombinant coagulation proteins in the supernatants obtained by depletion, this procedure is applicable for all biochemical analyses. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. Associative self-anchoring interacts with obtainability of chosen objects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dean eMobbs

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available While there is evidence that implicit self-esteem transfers to chosen objects (associative self-anchoring, it is still unknown whether this phenomenon extends to explicit self-esteem. Moreover, whether the knowledge that these objects might belong to the self in the future or not affects the evaluation of these objects has yet to be tested. Here, we demonstrate that evaluations of chosen objects are further enhanced when they are obtainable as compared to when they are not in participants with high explicit self-esteem, whereas participants with low explicit self-esteem exhibit the opposite pattern. These findings extend previous results and shed new light on the role of self-esteem in altering preferences for chosen objects depending on their obtainability.

  10. MicroRNA markers for forensic body fluid identification obtained from microarray screening and quantitative RT-PCR confirmation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    D. Zubakov (Dmitry); A.W.M. Boersma (Anton); Y. Choi (Ying); P.F. van Kuijk (Patricia); E.A.C. Wiemer (Erik); M.H. Kayser (Manfred)

    2010-01-01

    textabstractMicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-protein coding molecules with important regulatory functions; many have tissue-specific expression patterns. Their very small size in principle makes them less prone to degradation processes, unlike messenger RNAs (mRNAs), which were previously proposed as

  11. Heat shock protein Hsp90-2 expression in the Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings under clinorotation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kozeko, Liudmyla

    Heat shock proteins 90 kDa (Hsp90) are abundant under normal conditions and induced by stress. This family is distinguished from other chaperones in that most of its substrates are signal transduction proteins. Previously, we determined some time-dependent increase in the Hsp90 level in pea seedlings in response to simulated microgravity that indicated a stress-reaction. However, expression of the individual members of the Hsp90 family have specific pattern. The purpose of this study was to investigate possible alterations in the gene expression pattern of cytosolic Hsp90-2 in Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings under 2D-clinorotation. To obtain detailed expression pattern of the HSP90-2 genes we used seeds that provides a resource of loss-of-function mutations gene expression patterns via translational fusions with the reporter gene, GUS (a line N 166718, NASC). There were two variants of the experiment: 1) seedlings grew under clinorotation for 10, 12, 14 d; 2) seedlings grew in the stationary conditions for 10 d followed by clinorotation for 3 h -at 22o C and 16h light cycle. The seedlings grown in the stationary conditions were used as a control. GUS staining showed that HSP90-2 expression was regulated during seedling development and affected by clinorotation in the heterozygous mutant plants. In the homozygous for the mutation plants, HSP90-2 expression was stable during seedling development and not affected by clinorotation. GUS staining was observed in cotyledons, leaves and hypocotyls of the seedlings (especially intense in vascular bundles), indicating intensive cellular processes with participation of this chaperone. Possible pathways of influence of clinorotation on HSP90-2 expression are discussed.

  12. Procedural generation of aesthetic patterns from dynamics and iteration processes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gdawiec Krzysztof

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Aesthetic patterns are widely used nowadays, e.g., in jewellery design, carpet design, as textures and patterns on wallpapers, etc. Most of the work during the design stage is carried out by a designer manually. Therefore, it is highly useful to develop methods for aesthetic pattern generation. In this paper, we present methods for generating aesthetic patterns using the dynamics of a discrete dynamical system. The presented methods are based on the use of various iteration processes from fixed point theory (Mann, S, Noor, etc. and the application of an affine combination of these iterations. Moreover, we propose new convergence tests that enrich the obtained patterns. The proposed methods generate patterns in a procedural way and can be easily implemented on the GPU. The presented examples show that using the proposed methods we are able to obtain a variety of interesting patterns. Moreover, the numerical examples show that the use of the GPU implementation with shaders allows the generation of patterns in real time and the speed-up (compared with a CPU implementation ranges from about 1000 to 2500 times.

  13. Pattern of protein retention in growing boars of different breeds, and estimation of maximum protein retention

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tauson, A H; Chwalibog, André; Jakobsen, K

    1998-01-01

    Protein and energy metabolism in boars of different breeds, 10 each of Hampshire, Duroc and Danish Landrace was measured in balance and respiration experiments by means of indirect calorimetry in an open-air circulation system. Measurements were performed in four periods (Period I-IV) covering th...

  14. Protein quality and growth in malnourished children

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Manary, Mark; Callaghan, Meghan; Singh, Lauren

    2016-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Protein quality refers to the amounts and ratios of essential amino acids in a food. Two methods most commonly used for determining protein quality are the protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS) and the digestible indispensible amino acid score (DIAAS). OBJECTIVE...... in children with SAM and acute infection, and these data were reviewed with respect to protein synthesis. Eleven published treatment trials for SAM with different therapeutic foods were analyzed to examine the relationship between protein quality scores with weight gain (g/kg/d). Protein scores were...... calculated with the PDCAAS and DIAAS amino acid reference patterns. A DIAAS score adjusted for the higher weight gain expected in malnourished children was also used. Bivariate correlation analysis was used to examine this relationship. RESULTS: The protein kinetic data supported the hypothesis...

  15. SELDI-TOF-based serum proteomic pattern diagnostics for early detection of cancer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petricoin, Emanuel F; Liotta, Lance A

    2004-02-01

    Proteomics is more than just generating lists of proteins that increase or decrease in expression as a cause or consequence of pathology. The goal should be to characterize the information flow through the intercellular protein circuitry that communicates with the extracellular microenvironment and then ultimately to the serum/plasma macroenvironment. The nature of this information can be a cause, or a consequence, of disease and toxicity-based processes. Serum proteomic pattern diagnostics is a new type of proteomic platform in which patterns of proteomic signatures from high dimensional mass spectrometry data are used as a diagnostic classifier. This approach has recently shown tremendous promise in the detection of early-stage cancers. The biomarkers found by SELDI-TOF-based pattern recognition analysis are mostly low molecular weight fragments produced at the specific tumor microenvironment.

  16. Protein biosynthesis in isolated human scalp hair follicles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vermorken, A J; Weterings, P J; Bloemendal, H

    1979-02-15

    The present study demonstrates that protein biosynthesis can be studied in single isolated human scalp hair follicles. The matrix and the sheath are the main regions where amino acids are built in. Incorporation is linear for at least five hours. The newly synthesized proteins can be separated into a water-soluble, a urea-soluble and a urea-insoluble fraction. Product analysis has been performed on the first two fractions, revealing different protein patterns.

  17. The distribution of tritium among the amino acids of proteins obtained from mice exposed to tritiated water

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Commerford, S.L.; Carsten, A.L.; Cronkite, E.P.

    1983-01-01

    The distribution of tritium among the amino acids of serum proteins in mice chronically exposed to tritiated water was determined by ion exchange chromatography of the protein hydrolysate. The specific activity of nonexchangeable tritium in these amino acids relative to the specific activity of tritium in the tissue water of mice ranged from 0.04 for phenylalanine and threonine to 1.0 for glycine and alanine. Since tritium from tissue water can enter the nonexchangeable positions of amino acids only as the result of metabolic processing, the relative specific activity of tritium in each amino acid is an indicator of the extent of such processing. The tritium content of tyrosine and all the amino acids required in the diet for survival is quite low, except for histidine, and can be entirely accounted for by transamination or, in the case of methionine, by transmethylation. The tritium content of the other amino acids is too high to result from such minor processing and must reflect primarily the fraction synthesized de novo. The implications of these findings with respect to the radiobiological consequences of a diet containing tritiated proteins are discussed

  18. Plant protein and animal proteins: do they differentially affect cardiovascular disease risk?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Richter, Chesney K; Skulas-Ray, Ann C; Champagne, Catherine M; Kris-Etherton, Penny M

    2015-11-01

    Proteins from plant-based compared with animal-based food sources may have different effects on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors. Numerous epidemiologic and intervention studies have evaluated their respective health benefits; however, it is difficult to isolate the role of plant or animal protein on CVD risk. This review evaluates the current evidence from observational and intervention studies, focusing on the specific protein-providing foods and populations studied. Dietary protein is derived from many food sources, and each provides a different composite of nonprotein compounds that can also affect CVD risk factors. Increasing the consumption of protein-rich foods also typically results in lower intakes of other nutrients, which may simultaneously influence outcomes. Given these complexities, blanket statements about plant or animal protein may be too general, and greater consideration of the specific protein food sources and the background diet is required. The potential mechanisms responsible for any specific effects of plant and animal protein are similarly multifaceted and include the amino acid content of particular foods, contributions from other nonprotein compounds provided concomitantly by the whole food, and interactions with the gut microbiome. Evidence to date is inconclusive, and additional studies are needed to further advance our understanding of the complexity of plant protein vs. animal protein comparisons. Nonetheless, current evidence supports the idea that CVD risk can be reduced by a dietary pattern that provides more plant sources of protein compared with the typical American diet and also includes animal-based protein foods that are unprocessed and low in saturated fat. © 2015 American Society for Nutrition.

  19. Lactic acid fermentation for refining proteins from green crops and obtaining a high quality feed product for monogastric animals

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Santamaria-Fernandez, M.; Molinuevo-Salces, B.; Kiel, P.

    2017-01-01

    of organic protein-rich feeds from green crops. In this context, red clover, clover grass, alfalfa and oilseed radish were studied as possible feedstocks for the development of an organic biorefinery system in Northern Europe. For this purpose, the green crops were processed into a nitrogen-rich protein...

  20. A two primers random amplified polymorphic DNA procedure to obtain polymerase chain reaction fingerprints of bacterial species.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rivas, R; Velázquez, E; Valverde, A; Mateos, P F; Martínez-Molina, E

    2001-04-01

    Polymerase chain reation (PCR) fingerprints are used to characterize and recognize bacteria and are generally obtained using universal primers that generate an array of DNA amplicons, which can be separated by electrophoresis. Universal primers 8F and 1491 R have been used to amplify specifically 16S rDNA. We have used these primers at an annealing temperature of 50 degrees C. Agarose gel electrophoresis of PCR products revealed several bands. The band pattern of each bacterial species was different and the strains belonging to the same species shared an identical pattern. The patterns obtained did not show variations with plasmid DNA content or the growth stage of the bacteria. The peculiarity of the randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) described in this work lies in the use of two large primers (proximately 20 nt) to obtain the pattern, since normally a only smaller primer is used, and in the new application for the primers used to amplify 16S rDNA. This new procedure, called two primers (TP)-RAPD fingerprinting, is thus rapid, sensitive, reliable, highly reproducible and suitable for experiments with a large number of microorganisms, and can be applied to bacterial taxonomy, ecological studies and for the detection of new bacterial species.