Acutolysin A, which is isolated from the snake venom of Agkistrodon acutus, is a member of the SVMPs subfamily of the metzincin family, and it is a snake venom zinc metalloproteinase possessing only one catalytic domain. The catalytic zinc ion, in the active site, is coordinated in a tetrahedral manner with three imidazole nitrogen atoms of histidine and one oxygen atom. It is uncertain whether...

N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors belong to the family of ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGluRs) that mediate the majority of fast excitatory synaptic transmission in the mammalian brain. One of the hallmarks for the function of NMDA receptors is that their ion channel activity is allosterically regulated by binding of modulator compounds to the extracellular amino-terminal domain (ATD) di...

Neuropilin-2 is a transmembrane receptor involved in lymphangiogenesis and neuronal development. In adults, neuropilin-2 and its homologous protein neuropilin-1 have been implicated in cancers and infection. Molecular determinants of the ligand selectivity of neuropilins are poorly understood. We have identified and structurally characterized a zinc ion binding site on human neuropilin-2. The n...

Our understanding of the roles played by zinc in the physiological and pathological functioning of the brain is rapidly expanding. The increased availability of genetically modified animal models, selective zinc-sensitive fluorescent probes, and novel chelators is producing a remarkable body of exciting new data that clearly establishes this metal ion as a key modulator of intracellular and int...

Aberrant degradation of guanosine 5'-triphosphate cyclohydrolase 1 (GTPCH1) with consequent deficiency of tetrahydrobiopterin is considered the primary cause for endothelial dysfunction in diabetes. How GTPCH1 becomes susceptible to the degradation remains unknown. We hypothesized that oxidation and release of the zinc ion by peroxynitrite (ONOO(-)), a potent oxidant generated by nitric oxide a...

Difference in osteoclast responses (i.e., apoptosis, actin ring formation) to tricalcium phosphate (TCP) in culture medium supplemented with zinc and to zinc-containing tricalcium phosphate (ZnTCP) was investigated in this study. On the TCP ceramic, an increase in zinc ion in the culture medium within the range between 0.3 and 6.8 ppm significantly induced an increase in osteoclast apoptosis an...

There is considerable interest in the role of metals such as iron, copper, and zinc in amyloid plaque formation in Alzheimer's disease. However to convincingly establish their presence in plaques in vivo, a sensitive technique is required that is both quantitatively accurate and avoids isolation of plaques or staining/fixing brain tissue, since these processes introduce contaminants and redistr...

Co(II) electronic configuration allows its use as a spectroscopic probe in UV-Vis experiments to characterize the metal coordination sphere that is an essential component of the functional structure of zinc-binding proteins and to evaluate the metal ion affinities of these proteins. Here, exploiting the capability of the prokaryotic zinc finger to use different combinations of residues to prope...

Zinc-fluoride glass nanoparticles (Zinc-F) release several ions, such as fluoride, zinc and calcium through acid-base reactions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antibacterial cytotoxic properties Zinc-F. Antibacterial tests showed that a Zinc-F eluting solution significantly reduced turbidity colony-forming units Streptococcus mutans Actinomyces naeslundii, compared calcium-fluoroalum...

Zinc-fingers play crucial roles in regulating gene expression and mediating protein-protein interactions. In this article, two different proteins (Sp1f2 and FSD-1) are investigated using the Gaussian network model and anisotropy elastic network model. By using these simple coarse-grained methods, we analyze the structural stabilization and establish the unfolding pathway of the two different pr...