Streptomycin-resistant, asporogenous mutant of Bacillus subtilis.

Summary Mutants of Saccharomyces cerevisiae lacking pyruvate kinase (EC 2.7.1.40) are described. These have less than 0.5% of the pyruvate kinase activity of the wild type. All the other glycolytic enymes are present in normal amounts in these mutants. The mutation is recessive and segregates in diploids as a single gene. Five alleles examined fail to complement one another. Tetrad analysis and mitotic recombination data place the mutation on the left arm of chromosome I distal to cys 1. The majority of single-step spontaneous revertants on glucose regain the enzyme activity fully and this activity appears, by a number of criteria, to be due to the same enzyme present in the wild type. Some of these revertants become nuclear petites. The mutants do neither grow on nor ferment sugars but do grow on ethyl alcohol or pyruvate. Glucose addition to cultures growing on alcohol arrests growth until glucose is exhausted. The steady state rate of glucose utilization is slower than in the wild type. This is associated with the accumulation of as much as 5 moles P-enolpyruvate per g wet weight of cells and proportional amounts of 2-P-glyceric and 3-P glyceric acids.The mutation is believed to involve some regulatory element in the synthesis of pyruvate kinase.     

5-Dehydro-3-deoxy-D-arabino-heptulosonic acid 7-phosphate. An intermediate in the 3-dehydroquinate synthase reaction.

3-Dehydroquinate synthase was purified to homogeneity from Escherichia coli. It was found to be a single polypeptide chain of Mr = approximately 57,000. Reaction mixtures of pure enzyme and the substrate, 3-deoxy-D-arabino-heptulosonic acid 7-phosphate, were incubated for short times and treated with NaB3H4. The resulting 3-deoxyheptonic acid 7-phosphate was degraded with sodium periodate, and formic acid representing C-5 of the substrate was isolated. The presence of 3H in the formate corresponding to 15% of the enzyme was interpreted as indicating a 5-dehydro derivative of the substrate as an intermediate of the reaction. Quinic acid, resulting from reduction of 3-dehydroquinate with NaB3H4, was also isolated and degraded with periodate. The formate from C-4 of the quinate was unlabeled, indicating that 3,4-bisdehydroquinate is not an intermediate.     

Activity and stability of yeast alcohol dehydrogenase (YADH) entrapped in aerosol OT reverse micelles

The activity and stability of yeast alcohol dehydrogenase (YADH) entrapped in aerosol OT reverse micellar droplets have been investigated spectrophotometrically. Various physical parameters, e.g., water pool size, w(0), pH, and temperature, were optimized for YADH in water/AOT/isooctane reverse micelles. It was found that the enzyme exhibits maximum activity at w(0) = 28 and pH 8.1. It was more active in reverse micelles than in aqueous buffers at a particular temperature and was denatured at about 307deg;C in both the systems. At a particular temperature YADH entrapped in reverse micelles was less stable than when it was dissolved in aqueous buffer.     

Characterization of a mannan-like oligosaccharide from Mycobacterium smegmatis

A nitrogen-free neutral mannooligosaccharide, similar in structure to the polysaccharide component of yeast mannoproteins, has been isolated from Mycobacterium smegmatis ATCC-356. It has a molecular weight of 3200 and is terminated at the reducing end by mannose. nuclear magentic resonance spectroscopy, methylation analysis, selective enzymic degradation and acetolysis indicates that the molecule consists of an alpha1 --> 6-linked backbone to which single mannose units are attached in alpha1 --> 2 linkage as sidechains.     

TP53 codon 72 polymorphism and type 2 diabetes: a case–control study in South Indian population

Molecular Biology Reports - TP53 functions primarily as a tumor suppressor, controlling a myriad of signalling pathways that prevent a cell from undergoing malignant transformation. This tumor...     

Bispidine-Amino Acid Conjugates Act as a Novel Scaffold for the Design of Antivirals That Block Japanese Encephalitis Virus Replication

Background

Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is a major cause of viral encephalitis in South and South-East Asia. Lack of antivirals and non-availability of affordable vaccines in these endemic areas are a major setback in combating JEV and other closely related viruses such as West Nile virus and dengue virus. Protein secondary structure mimetics are excellent candidates for inhibiting the protein-protein interactions and therefore serve as an attractive tool in drug development. We synthesized derivatives containing the backbone of naturally occurring lupin alkaloid, sparteine, which act as protein secondary structure mimetics and show that these compounds exhibit antiviral properties.

Methodology/Principal Findings

In this study we have identified 3,7-diazabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane, commonly called bispidine, as a privileged scaffold to synthesize effective antiviral agents. We have synthesized derivatives of bispidine conjugated with amino acids and found that hydrophobic amino acid residues showed antiviral properties against JEV. We identified a tryptophan derivative, Bisp-W, which at 5 µM concentration inhibited JEV infection in neuroblastoma cells by more than 100-fold. Viral inhibition was at a stage post-entry and prior to viral protein translation possibly at viral RNA replication. We show that similar concentration of Bisp-W was capable of inhibiting viral infection of two other encephalitic viruses namely, West Nile virus and Chandipura virus.

Conclusions/Significance

We have demonstrated that the amino-acid conjugates of 3,7-diazabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane can serve as a molecular scaffold for development of potent antivirals against encephalitic viruses. Our findings will provide a novel platform to develop effective inhibitors of JEV and perhaps other RNA viruses causing encephalitis.     

Bayesian data integration and variable selection for pan-cancer survival prediction using protein expression data

Accurate prognostic prediction using molecular information is a challenging area of research, which is essential to develop precision medicine. In this paper, we develop translational models to identify major actionable proteins that are associated with clinical outcomes, like the survival time of patients. There are considerable statistical and computational challenges due to the large dimension of the problems. Furthermore, data are available for different tumor types; hence data integration for various tumors is desirable. Having censored survival outcomes escalates one more level of complexity in the inferential procedure. We develop Bayesian hierarchical survival models, which accommodate all the challenges mentioned here. We use the hierarchical Bayesian accelerated failure time model for survival regression. Furthermore, we assume sparse horseshoe prior distribution for the regression coefficients to identify the major proteomic drivers. We borrow strength across tumor groups by introducing a correlation structure among the prior distributions. The proposed methods have been used to analyze data from the recently curated “The Cancer Proteome Atlas” (TCPA), which contains reverse-phase protein arrays–based high-quality protein expression data as well as detailed clinical annotation, including survival times. Our simulation and the TCPA data analysis illustrate the efficacy of the proposed integrative model, which links different tumors with the correlated prior structures.     

Chandipura Virus Induces Neuronal Death through Fas-Mediated Extrinsic Apoptotic Pathway

Chandipura virus (CHPV; genus Vesiculovirus, family Rhabdoviridae) is an emerging tropical pathogen with a case fatality rate of 55 to 75% that predominantly affects children in the age group of 2 to 16 years. Although it has been established as a neurotropic virus causing encephalitis, the molecular pathology leading to neuronal death is unknown. The present study elucidates for the first time the mechanism of cell death in neurons after CHPV infection that answers the basic cause of CHPV-mediated neurodegeneration. Through various cell death assays in vitro and in vivo, a relationship between viral replication within neuron and neuronal apoptosis has been established. We report that expression of CHPV phosphoprotein increases up to 6 h postinfection and diminishes thereafter in neuronal cell lines, signifying the replicative phase of CHPV. Various analyses conducted during the investigation established that CHPV-infected neurons are undergoing apoptosis through an extrinsic pathway mediated through the Fas-associated death domain (FADD) following activation of caspase-8 and -3 and prominent cleavage of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP). Knocking down the expression of caspase-3, the final executioner of apoptosis, in a neuronal cell line by endoribonuclease-prepared small interfering RNA (siRNA) validated its pivotal role in CHPV-mediated neurodegeneration by showing reduction in apoptosis after CHPV infection.