Isoforms of transforming growth factor beta (TGFbeta) are 25 kDa homodimeric polypeptides that signal by binding and bringing together two related, functionally distinct cell surface receptors designated as TbetaR1 and TbetaR2. Here, we report the solution structure of the 13.8 kDa extracellular domain of human TbetaR2 (ecTbetaR2) as calculated from N(N)-H(N), C(alpha)-H(alpha), and C(alpha)-C(...

While there is no question that ligands can induce large-scale domain movements that narrow (close) the active-site cleft of the catalytic (C) subunit of cAMP-dependent protein kinase (cAPK), the results from small-angle X-ray scattering, protein footprinting, and thermostability studies are inconsistent with regard to which ligands induce these movements. This inconsistency suggests a greater ...

To delineate the role of peptide backbone flexibility and rapid molecular motion in acetylcholinesterase catalysis and inhibitor association, we investigated the decay of fluorescence anisotropy at three sites of fluorescein conjugation to cysteine-substitution mutants of the enzyme. One cysteine was placed in a loop at the peripheral site near the rim of the active center gorge (H287C); a seco...

Solid-state NMR spectroscopy was employed to study the molecular dynamics of the colicin Ia channel domain in the soluble and membrane-bound states. In the soluble state, the protein executes small-amplitude librations (with root-mean-square angular fluctuations of 0-10 degrees ) in the backbone and larger-amplitude motions (16-17 degrees ) in the side chains. Upon membrane binding, the motiona...

The weighted Maximum Satisfiability problem (weighted MAX-SAT) is a NP-hard problem with numerous applications arising in artificial intelligence. As an efficient tool for heuristic design, the backbone has been applied to heuristics design for many NP-hard problems. In this paper, we investigated the computational complexity for retrieving the backbone in weighted MAX-SAT and developed a new a...

The λ-backbone coloring is one of the various problems of vertex colorings in graphs. Given an integer λ ≥ 2, a graph G = (V,E), and a spanning subgraph (backbone) H = (V, EH) of G, a λ-backbone coloring of (G,H) is a proper vertex coloring V → {1, 2, ...} of G in which the colors assigned to adjacent vertices in H differ by at least λ. The λ-backbone coloring number BBCλ(G,H) of (G,H) is the s...

We study backbone colorings, a variation on classical vertex colorings: Given a graph G and a spanning subgraphH of G (the backbone of G), a backbone coloring for G and H is a proper vertex k-coloring of G in which the colors assigned to adjacent vertices in H differ by at least 2. The minimal k ∈ N for which such a coloring exists is called the backbone chromatic number of G. We show that for ...

Quantitative insights into the stress-transfer mechanisms that determine the mechanical properties of tunicate cellulose whisker/poly(vinyl acetate) nanocomposites were gained by Raman spectroscopy. The extent of stress-transfer is influenced by local orientation (or anisotropy) of the whiskers, which in turn is governed by the processing conditions used to fabricate the nanocomposites. Solutio...