Putative conformational switching and inhibitory regions in the Microviridae external scaffolding protein were investigated. Substitutions for glycine 61, hypothesized to promote a postdimerization conformational switch, have dominant lethal phenotypes. In previous studies, chimeric alpha3/phiX174 proteins for structures alpha-helix 1 and loop 6/alpha-helix 7 inhibited phiX174 morphogenesis whe...

Vascular endothelial cell growth inhibitor (VEGI) is a recently identified antiangiogenic cytokine that belongs to the TNF superfamily, and could effectively inhibit endothelial cell proliferation and angiogenesis. Synthetic peptide CTT (CTTHWGFTLC) has been found to suppress invasion and migration of both tumor and endothelial cells by potent and selective inhibition of MMP-2 and MMP-9. To pre...

Chimeric cDNA clones of influenza virus hemagglutinin (HA) were constructed in which the DNA encoding either the NH2 terminus or the COOH terminus of HA was replaced with that of a vesicular stomatitis virus G protein. The chimeric cDNAs (GHA or HAG) were expressed in CV1 cells using the simian virus 40 late replacement promoter. Both chimeric proteins are synthesized, glycosylated, and transpo...

Strategies to sensitize human tumors that are resistant to apoptosis have been clinically unsuccessful. We demonstrate that a structurally modified chimeric Pseudomonas exotoxin, PEdelta53L/TGF-alpha/KDEL, with binding specificity for the epidermal growth factor receptor, markedly enhances sensitivity of human xenografts to radiation killing. Exposure to PEdelta53L/TGF-alpha/KDEL decreases the ...

PURPOSE Atherosclerosis is classically defined as an immune-mediated disease characterized by accumulation of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol over intima in medium sized and large arteries. Recent studies have demonstrated that both innate and adaptive immune responses are involved in atherosclerosis. In addition, experimental and human models have recognized many autoantigens in pathophysi...

We report an intracellular peptide delivery system capable of targeting specific cellular compartments. In the model system we constructed a chimeric protein consisting of the nontoxic B subunit of Escherichia coli heat-labile enterotoxin (EtxB) fused to a 27-mer peptide derived from the DNA polymerase of herpes simplex virus 1. Viral DNA synthesis takes places in the nucleus and requires the i...

Chimeric RNAs comprise exons from two or more different genes and have the potential to encode novel proteins that alter cellular phenotypes. To date, numerous putative chimeric transcripts have been identified among the ESTs isolated from several organisms and using high throughput RNA sequencing. The few corresponding protein products that have been characterized mostly result from chromosoma...

Unique to pestiviruses, the N-terminal protein encoded by the bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) genome is a cysteine protease (Npro) responsible for a self-cleavage that releases the N terminus of the core protein (C). This unique protease is dispensable for viral replication, and its coding region can be replaced by a ubiquitin gene directly fused in frame to the core. To develop an antiviral...