MOTIVATION The local and global aspects of metabolic network analyses allow us to identify enzymes or reactions that are crucial for the survival of the organism(s), therefore directing us towards the discovery of potential drug targets. RESULTS We demonstrate a new method ('load points') to rank the enzymes/metabolites in the metabolic network and propose a model to determine and rank the bi...

Bacterial phosphoinositide-specific phospholipases C (PI-PLCs) are the smallest members of the PI-PLC family, which includes much larger mammalian enzymes responsible for signal transduction as well as enzymes from protozoan parasites, yeast and plants. Eukaryotic PI-PLCs have calcium in the active site, but this is absent in the known structures of Gram-positive bacteria, where its role is ins...

Enzymes capable of converting L-asparagine to L-aspartate can be classified as bacterial-type or plant-type L-asparaginases. Bacterial-type L-asparaginases are further divided into subtypes I and II, defined by their intra-/extra-cellular localization, substrate affinity, and oligomeric form. Plant-type L-asparaginases are evolutionarily and structurally distinct from the bacterial-type enzymes...

background: acute bacterial meningitis is among serious infections of the central nervous system (cns). the early diagnosis and empiric antibiotic treatments have led to a reduction in morbidity and mortality rates. pcr and the enzymatic digestion of 16s rdna fragment following the pcr by universal primers led up fast and sensitive determination. the aims of the present study was to improve our...

background and objectives: urinary tract infection (uti) is one of the most common infections and a major cause of patient morbidity world wide. the gold standard for detection of bacterial pathogens in uti is culture of urine specimens. in order to facilitate identification of bacterial pathogens in clinical urine specimens we designed a molecular method to detect bacterial pathogen in uti. ma...

Mudiak Sapan hot spring, South Solok Regency, West Sumatra is one of the springs where there are various species thermophilic bacteria that produce xylanase enzymes. The enzyme a group enzymes has ability to hydrolyze xylan (hemicellulose) or polymers into xylose and xylo-oligosaccharides. purpose this study was test compatibility bacterial isolates become xylanase-producing consortium. This re...

Purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP), from calf spleen, human erythrocytes and E. coli have been examined with regard to structural requirements of substrates and inhibitors. Kinetic parameters (Km, Vmax/Km) for a variety of N(1) and/or N(7)-methylated analogues of guanosine, inosine and adenosine have been evaluated for all three enzymes. The substrate and/or inhibitor properties of purine ri...

Type II restriction-modification (R-M) systems encode a restriction endonuclease that cleaves DNA at specific sites, and a methyltransferase that modifies same sites protecting them from restriction endonuclease cleavage. Type II R-M systems benefit bacteria by protecting them from bacteriophages. Many type II R-M systems are plasmid-based and thus capable of horizontal transfer. Upon the entry...

ABSTRACT: Resistance to the various classes of antimicrobials continues to increase in virtually all clinically significant gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. In particular, rates of resistance to -lactam and macrolide antimicrobial agents are on the rise among the most common bacterial pathogens, including Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae. In the bacterial cell, the f...

Here, we compare the evolutionary routes by which bacteria and insects have evolved enzymatic processes for the degradation of four classes of synthetic chemical insecticide. For insects, the selective advantage of such degradative activities is survival on exposure to the insecticide, whereas for the bacteria the advantage is simply a matter of access to additional sources of nutrients. Nevert...