Acyl-CoA:monoacylglycerol acyltransferases (MGATs) and diacylglycerol acyltransferases (DGATs) catalyze the two consecutive steps in the synthesis of triacylglycerol, a key process required for dietary fat absorption into the enterocytes of the small intestine. In this report, we investigated the tendency of MGAT2 to form an enzyme complex with DGAT1 and DGAT2 in intact cells. We demonstrated t...

A single round of Edman degradation was employed to remove the NH2-terminal valine from isolated alpha chains of human hemoglobin. Reconstitution of normal beta chains with truncated or substituted alpha chains was used to form truncated (des-Val1-alpha 1) and substituted ([[1-13C]Gly1]alpha 1) tetrameric hemoglobin analogs. Structural homology of the analogs with untreated native hemoglobin wa...

The HIV-1 restriction factor sterile α-motif/histidine-aspartate domain-containing protein 1 (SAMHD1) is a tetrameric protein that catalyzes the hydrolysis of all dNTPs to the deoxynucleoside and tripolyphosphate, which effectively depletes the dNTP substrates of HIV reverse transcriptase. Here, we establish that SAMHD1 is activated by GTP binding to guanine-specific activator sites (A1) as wel...

Hemoglobin is a tetrameric oxygen transport protein in animal bodies. However, there is a paucity of information regarding differences between alpha and beta subunits of hemoglobin in terms of oxygen affinity. The sequential model of Koshland, Nemthy and Filmer (KNF model) has attributed similar affinities to both alpha and beta subunits. The main purpose of the present study is to construct a ...

Human transthyretin (TTR) can be transformed into amyloid fibrils by partial acid denaturation to yield a monomeric amyloidogenic intermediate that self-associates into amyloid through quaternary structural intermediates, which are identified by sedimentation velocity methods. The monomeric amyloidogenic intermediate has substantial beta-sheet structure with a nonnative but intact tertiary stru...

Multidrug resistance of pathogenic bacteria has become a public health crisis that requires the urgent design of new antibacterial drugs such as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). Seeking to obtain new, lactoferricin B (LfcinB)-based synthetic peptides as viable early-stage candidates for future development as AMPs against clinically relevant bacteria, we designed, synthesized and screened three ne...