The study of thrombus formation has increasingly applied in vivo tools such as genetically modified mice and intravital microscopy to the evaluation of molecular and cellular mechanisms of thrombosis. Among several unexpected findings of this approach was the discovery that protein disulfide isomerase serves an essential role in thrombus formation at sites of vascular injury. The observation th...

The mechanism by which mechanical force regulates the kinetics of a chemical reaction is unknown. Here, we use single-molecule force-clamp spectroscopy and protein engineering to study the effect of force on the kinetics of thiol/disulfide exchange. Reduction of disulfide bonds through the thiol/disulfide exchange chemical reaction is crucial in regulating protein function and is known to occur...

To investigate the highly denatured state of ovalbumin (molecular mass of 42.7 kDa, four cysteine sulfhydryls and one cystine disulfide) using the disulfide rearrangement approach, we established the peptide-mapping procedure using a cysteine-labeling technique with a fluorescent dye that allows the quantitative analyses for the disulfide-involved half-cystines. Ovalbumin denatured at a low pro...

CD4 is a coreceptor for binding of T cells to APC and the primary receptor for HIV. The disulfide bond in the second extracellular domain (D2) of CD4 is reduced on the cell surface, which leads to formation of disulfide-linked homodimers. A large conformational change must take place in D2 to allow for formation of the disulfide-linked dimer. Domain swapping of D2 is the most likely candidate f...

Disulfide crosslinks are ubiquitous in natural peptides and proteins, providing rigidity to polypeptide scaffolds. The assignment of disulfide connectivity in multiple crosslinked systems is often difficult to achieve. Here, we show that rapid unambiguous characterisation of disulfide connectivity can be achieved through direct mass spectrometric CID fragmentation of the disulfide intact polype...

BACKGROUND Although disulfide bond formation in proteins is one of the most common types of post-translational modifications, the production of recombinant disulfide-rich proteins remains a challenge. The most popular host for recombinant protein production is Escherichia coli, but disulfide-rich proteins are here often misfolded, degraded, or found in inclusion bodies. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL ...

The evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis in cyanobacteria nearly three billion years ago provided abundant reducing power and facilitated the elaboration of numerous oxygen-dependent reactions in our biosphere. Cyanobacteria contain an internal thylakoid membrane system, the site of photosynthesis, and a typical Gram-negative envelope membrane system. Like other organisms, the extracytoplasmic ...

BACKGROUND The formation of native disulfide bonds between cysteine residues often limits the rate and yield of protein folding. The enzyme protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) catalyzes the interchange of disulfide bonds in substrate proteins. The two -Cys-Gly-His-Cys- active sites of PDI provide a thiol that has a low pKa value and a disulfide bond of high reduction potential (Eo'). RESULTS A ...

Disulfide bonds play a crucial role in proteins, modulating their stability and constraining their conformational dynamics. A particularly important case is that of proteins that need to withstand forces arising from their normal biological function and that are often disulfide bonded. However, the influence of disulfides on the overall mechanical stability of proteins is poorly understood. Her...

BACKGROUND The formation of native disulfide bonds is a complex and essential post-translational modification for many proteins. The large scale production of these proteins can be difficult and depends on targeting the protein to a compartment in which disulfide bond formation naturally occurs, usually the endoplasmic reticulum of eukaryotes or the periplasm of prokaryotes. It is currently tho...