Millions of people worldwide suffer from nutritional imbalances of essential metals like zinc. These same metals, along with pollutants like cadmium and lead, contaminate soils at many sites around the world. In addition to posing a threat to human health, these metals can poison plants, livestock, and wildlife. Deciphering how metals are absorbed, transported, and incorporated as protein cofac...

Zinc finger proteins acquire DNA-binding ability by Zn (II) complexation. In the zinc finger domain of the Cys2His2 type, each finger is approximately 30 amino acid residues long and consists of a simple ββα–fold stabilized by chelation of a zinc ion with the conserved Cys2His2 residues. A zinc finger motif of Cys2His2 offers an attractive framework for the design of a novel DNA-binding protein...

In this report, we show that zinc is required for endoplasmic reticulum function in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Zinc deficiency in this yeast induces the unfolded protein response (UPR), a system normally activated by unfolded ER proteins. Msc2, a member of the cation diffusion facilitator (CDF) family of metal ion transporters, was previously implicated in zinc homeostasis. Our results indicate ...

Ion-associate complexes of Itopride hydrochloride with zinc(II) thiocyanate, sodium cobaltinitrite and ammonium reineckate are precipitated. The solubility of the ion associates at the optimum pH and ionic strength values have been examined. Saturated solutions were prepared at different temperatures ( 25 – 60C ) under the optimum precipitation conditions and the metal ion contents ( zinc, chro...

Zinc is one of the most important metal ions found in proteins performing specific functions associated with life processes. Coordination geometry of the zinc ion in the active site of the metalloprotein-ligand complexes poses a challenge in determining ligand binding affinities accurately in structure-based drug design. We report here an all atom force field based computational protocol for es...

To The Editor—The study by Berni Canani et al. [1] of zinc’s inhibitory effect on cholera toxin (CT)–induced ion secretion in human enterocytes is of interest, but it was not clear from their article whether the authors ever tested the efficacy of zinc given after CT had altered ion transport in their Ussing chamber model. Many substances can block the effects of CT when given before or simulta...

Zinc is involved in a variety of biological processes, as a structural, catalytic, and intracellular and intercellular signaling component. Thus zinc homeostasis is tightly controlled at the whole body, tissue, cellular, and subcellular levels by a number of proteins, with zinc transporters being particularly important. In metazoan, two zinc transporter families, Zn transporters (ZnT) and Zrt-,...

In most bacteria, zinc depletion is sensed by Zur, whereas the surplus is sensed by different regulators to achieve zinc homeostasis. Here we present evidence that zinc-bound Zur not only represses genes for zinc acquisition but also induces the zitB gene encoding a zinc exporter in Streptomyces coelicolor, a model actinobacteria. Zinc-dependent gene regulation by Zur occurs in two phases. At s...

The effect of zinc ion on the affinity of association of the subunits in 7 S nerve growth factor (NGF) was measured using three different techniques including rapid chromatographic separation on carboxymethylcellulose of 7 S NGF and dissociated products, quantitative frontal analysis of profiles of elution of 7 S NGF from Bio-Gel P-200, and analysis, using LineweaverBurk plots, of the inhibitio...