THE purpose of this essay is to retrace some of the early steps that I and a few (then) young geneticists took in the late 1960s and early 1970s to define the Escherichia coli functions used by phage to properly execute their developmental cycle. Eventually, this led to the discovery and functional understanding of the so-called DnaK (Hsp70) and GroEL (Hsp60) molecular chaperone machines, unive...

K88 fimbriae are ordered polymeric protein structures at the surface of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli cells. Their production and assembly requires a molecular chaperone located in the periplasm (FaeE) and a molecular usher located in the outer membrane (FaeD). FaeC is the tip component of the K88 fimbriae. We studied the expression of the subcloned faeC gene, the subcellular localization of...

K88 fimbriae are ordered polymeric protein structures at the surface of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli cells. Their production and assembly requires a molecular chaperone located in the periplasm (FaeE) and a molecular usher located in the outer membrane (FaeD). FaeC is the tip component of the K88 fimbriae. We studied the expression of the subcloned faeC gene, the subcellular localization of...

Synucleins are emerging as central players in the formation of pathologically insoluble deposits characteristic of neurodegenerative diseases. synuclein (SNCG), previously identified as a breast cancer-specific gene (BCSG1), is also highly associated with breast or ovarian cancer progression. However, the molecular targets of SNCG aberrant expression in breast cancer have not been identified. H...

Alpha-casein, more specifically known as αS-casein, is a predominant milk protein with important nutritional properties. αS-Casein, composed of two individual gene products, αS1and αS2-casein, has been described in the past few decades as having molecular chaperone properties. In performing as molecular chaperones, αScasein and its purified constituent proteins, αS1and αS2-casein, stabilise a w...

The family of small heat shock proteins (sHsp) is composed of 10 members in mammals, four of which are found mutated in diseases associated with the accumulation of protein aggregates. Though many sHsp have demonstrated molecular chaperone activity in vitro in cell-free conditions, their activity in vivo in the normal cellular context remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated the c...

The overarching goal of delineating molecular principles underlying differentiation of protein kinase clients and chaperone-based modulation of kinase activity is fundamental to understanding activity of many oncogenic kinases that require chaperoning of Hsp70 and Hsp90 systems to attain a functionally competent active form. Despite structural similarities and common activation mechanisms share...

Objective(s):Brucellosis is a well-known domestic animal infectious disease, which is caused by Brucella bacterium. GroEL antigen increases Brucella survival and is one of the major antigens that stimulates the immune system. Hence, the objective of the present study was cloning and bioinformatics analysis of GroEL gene. Materials and Methods: The full-length open reading frame of this gene was...

Synucleins are emerging as central players in the formation of pathologically insoluble deposits characteristic of neurodegenerative diseases. synuclein (SNCG), previously identified as a breast cancer-specific gene (BCSG1), is also highly associated with breast or ovarian cancer progression. However, the molecular targets of SNCG aberrant expression in breast cancer have not been identified. H...