The structural conversion of the prion protein (PrP) from the normal cellular isoform (PrP(C)) to the posttranslationally modified form (PrP(Sc)) is thought to relate to Cu²⁺ binding to histidine (H) residues. Traditionally, the binding of metals to PrP has been investigated by monitoring the conformational conversion using circular dichroism (CD). In this study, the metal-binding ability of 21...

Metal ion binding domains are found in proteins that mediate transport, buffering or detoxification of metal ions. In this study, we have performed an in silico analysis of metal binding proteins and have identified putative metal binding motifs for the ions of cadmium, cobalt, zinc, arsenic, mercury, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum and nickel. A pattern search against the UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot...

Fulvic acid, isolated from the Suwannee River, Georgia, was assessed for its ability to bind Ca2+, Cd2+, Cu2+, Ni2+, and Zn2+ ions at pH 6 before and after extensive fractionation that was designed to reveal the nature of metal binding functional groups. The binding constant for Ca2+ ion had the greatest increase of all the ions in a metal binding fraction that was selected for intensive charac...

Metallothionein is a ubiquitous protein with a wide range of proposed physiological roles, including the transport, storage and detoxification of essential and nonessential trace metals. The amino acid sequence of isoform 2a of rabbit liver metallothionein, the isoform used in our spectroscopic studies, includes 20 cysteinyl groups out of 62 amino acids. Metallothioneins in general represent an...

Despite commonly being used as the hosts for gases, solvents and other neutral molecules, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have received recent attention supramolecular anion binding with a broad range of environmental biological applications. The review summarizes development this area, anion-binding MOFs categorized based on different design strategies including cationic anion-exchange capabil...

Adsorption of cadmium and lead ions to floc-type biosorbents was reported in this work. Two types of biosorbents containing a marine microalga, Heterosigma akashiwo (Hada) Hada, or a purple non-sulfur bacterium, Rhodobacter sphaeroides, were prepared. The micro-organisms inactivated by steam sterilization were immobilized in casein floc and cross-linked with glutaraldehyde. In the present immob...

The collision-induced dissociation of lasalocid and monensin A bound to alkali metal cations has been investigated using electrospray MS/MS. The binding affinity for the metal cations, as measured with collision-induced dissociation, was found to depend on their ionic radius, decreasing with increasing radius. Monensin A was observed to have a greater binding affinity for alkali metal cations t...

Quantifying metal-binding by force: A quantitative single-molecule force-spectroscopy-based assay is developed to measure the binding affinity of metal ions to proteins. The method uses the unfolding force of a protein as a direct probe to distinguish the apo and metal-ion-bound forms of that protein and quantify the partitioning between the two forms (see figure).