Adding Content to Contacts: Measurement of High Quality Contacts for Maternal and Newborn Health in Ethiopia,North East Nigeria,and Uttar Pradesh,India

BackgroundFamilies in high mortality settings need regular contact with high quality services, but existing population-based measurements of contacts do not reflect quality. To address this, in 2012, we designed linked household and frontline worker surveys for Gombe State, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Uttar Pradesh, India. Using reported frequency and content of contacts, we present a method for estimating the population level coverage of high quality contacts.ConclusionsMeasuring content of care to reflect the quality of contacts can reveal missed opportunities to deliver best possible health care.     

7-Azidoactinomycin D: a novel probe for examining actinomycin D-DNA interactions

The technique of photoaffinity labeling is applied to the actinomycin D system to provide a novel probe for the examination of the interactions of actinomycin D with nucleic acids. The capacity for covalent attachment of actinomycin D will aid greatly in the study of target-site specificities and the correlations of biological effects with biophysical DNA interactions. Through chemical modification of the parent actinomycin D molecule with a photoreactive azido substituent, a functional analog of the parent actinomycin D is generated having equilibrium binding properties identical to those of the parent molecule yet with the capacity to form a covalent attachment to DNA upon photolysis. The results presented here describe the noncovalent interactions of this photoreactive probe to DNA (absence of light) and compares the binding properties observed to those of the parent actinomycin D and 7-aminoactinomycin D analog. These studies demonstrate that the DNA binding properties (i.e. binding affinity, binding site size, and sequence specificity) retained by the 7-azidoactinomycin D, thus providing a suitable probe for examining actinomycin D-DNA interactions.     

Cooperative binding of m-AMSA to nucleic acids.

The equilibrium binding of the antitumor agent m-AMSA (4'-(9-acridinylamino) methane-sulfon-m-ansidide) has been examined by optical methods. These studies which have focused on the low bound drug concentrations (r values less than 0.02, base pairs) reveal m-AMSA to bind calf thymus DNA in a highly cooperative manner as indicated by the initial positive slope of the Scatchard plot. In contrast, the studies on the parent 9-aminoacridine under identical conditions demonstrate that this compound binds DNA in a noncooperative (neighbor exclusion) manner. The positive cooperative binding phenomenon of m-AMSA is probed as a function of ionic concentration and shown to exist over the range of salt concentrations examined (0.01 to 0.1 M); however, the magnitude of the cooperative binding is altered. This observation of cooperativity is consistent with earlier studies on biologically active compounds and may be related to such binding parameters as binding sequence selectivity and/or structural perturbations to the DNA structure.     

Global and local molecular dynamics of a bacterial carboxylesterase provide insight into its catalytic mechanism

Carboxylesterases (CEs) are ubiquitous enzymes responsible for the detoxification of xenobiotics. In humans, substrates for these enzymes are far-ranging, and include the street drug heroin and the anticancer agent irinotecan. Hence, their ability to bind and metabolize substrates is of broad interest to biomedical science. In this study, we focused our attention on dynamic motions of a CE from B. subtilis (pnbCE), with emphasis on the question of what individual domains of the enzyme might contribute to its catalytic activity. We used a 10 ns all-atom molecular dynamics simulation, normal mode calculations, and enzyme kinetics to understand catalytic consequences of structural changes within this enzyme. Our results shed light on how molecular motions are coupled with catalysis. During molecular dynamics, we observed a distinct C-C bond rotation between two conformations of Glu310. Such a bond rotation would alternately facilitate and impede protonation of the active site His399 and act as a mechanism by which the enzyme alternates between its active and inactive conformation. Our normal mode results demonstrate that the distinct low-frequency motions of two loops in pnbCE, coil_5 and coil_21, are important in substrate conversion and seal the active site. Mutant CEs lacking these external loops show significantly reduced rates of substrate conversion, suggesting this sealing motion prevents escape of substrate. Overall, the results of our studies give new insight into the structure-function relationship of CEs and have implications for the entire family of α/β fold family of hydrolases, of which this CE is a member.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Pichia stipitis</Emphasis> xylose reductase helps detoxifying lignocellulosic hydrolysate by reducing 5-hydroxymethyl-furfural (HMF)

Background  

Pichia stipitis xylose reductase (Ps-XR) has been used to design Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains that are able to ferment xylose. One example is the industrial S. cerevisiae xylose-consuming strain TMB3400, which was constructed by expression of P. stipitis xylose reductase and xylitol dehydrogenase and overexpression of endogenous xylulose kinase in the industrial S. cerevisiae strain USM21.