Plasmodium falciparum, the causative agent of severe human malaria. The dominance of resistant strains has compelled to the discovery and development of new and different modes-ofaction. Current plasmodial drug discovery efforts remains lack far-reaching set of legitimated drug targets. Prerequisite of these targets (or the pathways in which they function) is that they prove to be crucial for p...

Unicellular green algae differ from plant leaves in their thioredoxin profile. Besides several thioredoxins of regular size (Mr = 12,000), the heat-stable protein fraction of extracts from Scenedesmus obliquus cells contains a large protein of molecular weight M r — 28,000 which is designated thioredoxin /o n the basis of typical properties, in particular by its capacity to stimulate spinach ch...

Thioredoxins (Trx) are ubiquitous dicysteine proteins capable of modulating enzymes and other cellular targets through specific disulfide-dithiol redox changes. They are unique in that a large number of very diverse metabolic systems are addressed and redox-regulated in bacteria, animal, and plant cells, but the finite number of thioredoxin interaction partners is still unknown. Two-hybrid meth...

We describe a protease, named "thiocalsin," that is activated by calcium but only after reductive activation by thioredoxin, a small protein with a redox-active disulfide group that functions widely in regulation. Thiocalsin appeared to be a 14-kDa serine protease that functions independently of calmodulin. The enzyme, purified from germinating wheat grain, specifically cleaved the major ind...

Two thioredoxin genes from the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae were cloned using synthetic oligonucleotide probes. The DNA sequences of the two genes were found to be 74% identical. The two genes, designated TRX1 and TRX2, were mutagenized in vitro and used to construct a set of thioredoxin deletion mutants. The loss of either thioredoxin gene alone has no effect on cell growth or morphology. Ho...

The thiol/disulfide oxidoreductase DsbA is the strongest oxidant of the thioredoxin superfamily and is required for efficient disulfide bond formation in the periplasm of Escherichia coli. To determine the importance of the redox potential of the final oxidant in periplasmic protein folding, we have investigated the ability of the most reducing thiol/disulfide oxidoreductase, E.coli thioredoxin...

Glucose regulatory protein (GRP58) is known to mediate mitomycin C (MMC)-induced DNA cross-linking. However, the mechanism remains elusive. We hypothesized that thioredoxin-like domains, one at NH2 terminus and another at COOH terminus, are required for GRP58-mediated MMC reductive activation leading to DNA cross-linking. Site-directed mutagenesis mutated cysteines in thioredoxin domains to ser...

Protein structure classification is necessary to comprehend the rapidly growing structural data for better understanding of protein evolution and sequence-structure-function relationships. Thioredoxins are important proteins that ubiquitously regulate cellular redox status and various other crucial functions. We define the thioredoxin-like fold using the structure consensus of thioredoxin homol...

The ubiquitous thioredoxin fold proteins catalyze oxidation, reduction, or disulfide exchange reactions depending on their redox properties. They also play vital roles in protein folding, redox control, and disease. Here, we have shown that a single residue strongly modifies both the redox properties of thioredoxin fold proteins and their ability to interact with substrates. This residue is adj...

An albumin fraction extracted from wheat flour contains thioredoxin reductase (Mr = 65,000) and a heat-stable thioredoxin (Mr = 15,000) which are separated on DEAE cellulose and further purified by gel filtration. W heat thioredoxin stimulates E. coli ribonucleotide reductase but not chloroplast fructose-bis-phosphatase. The enzyme is NADPH-dependent (Km = 3.2 X 10 -6 m) . In presence of the th...