PURPOSE: The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of azaserine on cysteine influx and efflux in erythrocytes. Azaserine is a potent carcinogen and induces tumors especially in the pancreas. Azaserine structurally resembles glutamine and thus interferes with a variety biological processes including enzymatic activities and transmembrane transport of solutes. Glutamine an...

Cystine and cysteine are transported by energy-dependent, mediated processes in human gut. When either of these amino acids is transported, only cysteine is recovered intracellularly, indicating that cystine is reduced to cysteine after achieving an intracellular location. In contrast to results with cystine, cysteine uptake is not defective in gut from cystinuric patients, nor do lysine and ar...

Glutathione is a major endogenous reducing agent in cells, and cysteine is a limiting factor in glutathione synthesis. Cysteine is obtained by uptake or biosynthesis, and mammalian cells often rely on either one or the other pathway. Because of the scarcity of glutathione, blockade of cysteine uptake causes oxidative cell death known as ferroptosis. A new study suggests that tRNA synthetase sup...

The pathogenicity of Clostridium difficile is linked to its ability to produce two toxins: TcdA and TcdB. The level of toxin synthesis is influenced by environmental signals, such as phosphotransferase system (PTS) sugars, biotin, and amino acids, especially cysteine. To understand the molecular mechanisms of cysteine-dependent repression of toxin production, we reconstructed the sulfur metabol...

The effect of cysteine (alpha-amino-beta-mercaptopropionic acid) on the mutagenic activities of the proximate carcinogen, N-hydroxy-2-acetylaminofluorene, and the ultimate carcinogen, N-acetoxy-2-acetylaminofluorene, was examined by estimating the frequency of his+ revertants of Salmonella typhimurium. Nontoxic concentrations of cysteine significantly reduced the formation of revertants when it...

We report herein the development of a highly sensitive and selective colorimetric detection method for cysteine using gold nanoparticles probes. This assay relies upon the distance-dependent optical properties of gold nanoparticles, the self-assembly of cysteine on gold nanoparticles, and the interaction of a 2:1 cysteine/Cu2+ complex. In the presence of Cu2+, cysteine could rapidly induce the ...

Carbon supported Ni and NiCo catalysts are prepared for amino compounds electrooxidation. Their electrocatalytic behaviors toward 8 kinds of acids (glycine, alanine, histidine, methionine, proline, serine, tyrosine, cysteine) are...

L-cysteine is ubiquitous in all living organisms and is involved in a variety of functions, including the synthesis of iron-sulfur clusters and glutathione and the regulation of the structure, stability, and catalysis of proteins. In the protozoan parasite Entamoeba histolytica, the causative agent of amebiasis, L-cysteine plays an essential role in proliferation, adherence, and defense against...