Elongation Factor P: New Mechanisms of Function and an Evolutionary Diversity of Translation Regulation

Molecular Biology - The protein synthesis in cells occurs in ribosomes, with the involvement of protein translational factors. One of these translational factors is the elongation factor P (EF-P)....     

A Study of the Structure of Trypsin-Like Serine Proteinases. 2. A Study of Tryptophan Fluorescence in Variants of Miniplasminogen with an Altered Primary Structure

Biophysics - Abstract—Variants of miniplasminogen with an altered primary structure have been designed to study previously described changes in tryptophan fluorescence during plasminogen...     

四吡咯化合物生物合成研究进展

四吡咯化合物是存在于生物体中一类具有重要功能的化合物,已经广泛应用于农业、食品和医药等领域.由于化学合成法的烦琐流程和高昂成本以及动植物提取法存在品质不均一等缺点,大幅度限制了其工业化生产与相关应用.近年来,合成生物学的快速发展为微生物利用可再生生物质资源高效合成四吡咯化合物提供了新的技术手段.针对四吡咯化合物生物合成...     

A kinetic model of the cleavage of permutational variants of the antigenomic HDV-ribozyme

The kinetic characteristics have been studied for noncircularly permuted variants of the human hepatitis delta virus (HDV) antigenomic ribozyme to find out the cause of the two-phase kinetics of the self-cleavage reaction. Different ways of reaction initiation, suboptimal conditions, and jumpwise changes of reaction conditions have been used, and the temperature dependences have been studied. A correlation has been shown between the apparent kinetic constant of the first reaction phase and the portion of the ribozyme molecules that self-cleaved during the first phase. Partial restoration of the initial reaction characteristics has been shown by the reinitiation of reaction being stopped after completing the first phase. On the basis of all the data obtained, a scheme of the self-cleavage reaction has been proposed including: (i) activation of the ribozyme with energy of 40-50 kcal/mol and a characteristic time of several deciminutes under optimal reaction conditions; (ii) fast and reversible reaction of the phosphodiester bond cleavage; (iii) reaction leading to isomerization of the 3',5'-phosphodiester bond to the 2',5' bond in the self-cleavage site with a characteristic activation time of tens of minutes; and (iv) practically irreversible conformational change leading to fixation of the cleavage by immobilization of the 5'-terminal nucleotide of the product in the center of the formed structure and displacement of the 3'-terminal nucleotide to the periphery. The latter process has a characteristic time of tens of minutes and a low activation energy.     

Construction of peptide mimetics of an epitope of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) gp41 protein, recognized by virus-neutralizing antibodies 2F5

A phase peptide library was screened with virus-neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (MCA) 2F5 which recognize a conserved epitope of HIV-1 gp41. Phages that expose peptides specifically binding with MCA 2F5 were selected by ELISA. Amino acid sequence analysis revealed a homology to region 662-671 of HIV-1 HB10 gp160 for most peptides. The major role in recognition was ascribed to Asp-664, Lys-665, and Trp-666. The epitope-mimicking peptides were tested for immunogenicity. Antibodies to gp41 were detected in serum of immunized rabbits.