This study was designed to examine the metabolic fate of exogenous lauric acid in cultured rat hepatocytes, in terms of both lipid metabolism and acylation of proteins. Radiolabeled [14C]-lauric acid at 0.1 mM in the culture medium was rapidly taken up by the cells (94.8 +/- 2.2% of the initial radioactivity was cleared from the medium after a 4 h incubation) but its incorporation into cellular...

RNA molecules depend on structural elements that are critical for cellular function. Chemical methods for probing RNA structure have emerged as a necessary component of characterizing RNA function. As such, understanding the limitations and idiosyncrasies of these methods is essential for their utility. Selective hydroxyl acylation has emerged as a common method for analyzing RNA structure. Est...

Nonsense codon suppression for unnatural amino acid incorporation requires the preparation of a suppressor aminoacyl-tRNA. Chemical acylation strategies are general but inefficient and arduous. A recent report (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2007, 129, 15848) showed acylation of RNA mediated by lanthanum(III) using amino acid phosphate esters. The successful implementation of this methodology to full-length...

Aryl-keto-containing α-amino acids are of great importance in organic chemistry and biochemistry. They are valuable intermediates for the construction of hydroxyl α-amino acids, nonproteinogenic α-amino acids, as well as other biofunctional components. Friedel-Crafts acylation is an effective method to prepare aryl-keto derivatives. In this review, we summarize the preparation of aryl-keto cont...

Incubation of rat brain myelin with [3H]palmitic acid in the presence of ATP, CoA and MgCl2 or [14C]-palmitoyl-CoA in a cell-free system resulted in the selective labelling of 'PLP' [proteolipid protein; Folch & Lees (1951) J. Biol. Chem. 191, 807-817] and 'DM-20' [Agrawal, Burton, Fishman, Mitchell & Prensky (1972) J. Neurochem. 19, 2083-2089] which, after polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis in...

S-acylation, the covalent attachment of palmitate and other fatty acids on cysteine residues, is a reversible post-translational modification that exerts diverse effects on protein functions. S-acylation is catalyzed by protein acyltransferases (PAT), while deacylation requires acyl-protein thioesterases (APT), with numerous inhibitors for these enzymes having already been developed and charact...

1. Acetylation of aspartate aminotransferase from pig heart inhibits completely the enzymic activity when the coenzyme is in the amino form (pyridoxamine phosphate) or when the coenzyme has been removed, but not when the coenzyme is in the aldehyde form (pyridoxal phosphate). 2. The group the acylation of which is responsible for the inhibition has been identified with the in-amino group of a l...

Nano sulfated titania was tested as solid acid heterogeneous catalyst for the synthesis of 4-(Trifluoromethyl) coumarin and coumarin derivatives under solvent-free condition. Factorial design evidenced a positive effect of reaction temperature, amount of catalyst, and solvents.  This nano-sized sulfated titania has been prepared by a sol-gel hydrothermal process. The prepared sulfated titania s...

Some new b-lactams bearing biologically important morpholine ring have been synthesized by acylation of amino b-lactams in the presence of morpholine-4-carbonyl chloride. These novel β-lactams were prepared under mild reaction conditions without any solvent in short reaction times. Their biological activities have been examined against microbial agents such as Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus),...

We report the identification and characterization of eight yeast mitochondrial tRNA mutants, located in mitochondrial tRNA(Gln), tRNA(Arg2), tRNA(Ile), tRNA(His), and tRNA(Cys), the respiratory phenotypes of which exhibit various degrees of deficiency. The mutations consist in single-base substitutions, insertions, or deletions, and are distributed all over the tRNA sequence and structure. To i...