Cystatins are proteins, which inhibit cysteine proteases, such as papain. In this study, the 336-bp cystatin C gene (family II, HmCysC) of silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). HmCysC encodes mature peptide (HmCystatin C), with 111 amino acids. A typical QXXXG motif found HmCystatin it formed a cluster Cyprinus carpio Danio rerio phyl...

Chromobodies have recently drawn great attention as bioimaging nanotools. They offer high antigen binding specificity and affinity comparable to conventional antibodies, but much smaller size and higher stability. Chromobodies can be used in live cell imaging for specific spatio-temporal visualization of cellular processes. To date, functional application of chromobodies requires lengthy geneti...

In a column experiment with horizontal permeable barriers, the effects of a biodegradable chelator-nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA) on the uptake of heavy metals from municipal solid waste (MSW) compost by Festuca arundinacea and metal leaching were investigated. The use of NTA was effective in increasing Cu, Pb, and Zn uptakes in shoots of two crops of F. arundinacea. In columns with barriers and t...

Investigations of ligand-binding kinetics to membrane proteins are hampered by their poor stability and low expression levels, which often translates into sensitivity-related limitations impaired by low signal-to-noise ratios. Inspired by affinity capturing of water-soluble proteins, which utilizes water as the mobile phase, we demonstrate affinity capturing and local enrichment of membrane pro...

The iron(III) compounds with several aminocarboxylate chelates containing an aryl or furan substituent exhibit high activity in enhancement of the reactivity of hydrogen peroxide, leading to facile hydroxylation at benzene ring, and to degradation of furan ring, but no such activity was observed for the corresponding Al(III) compounds. These results were interpreted in terms of the molecular or...

Lipid analogues carrying three nitrilotriacetic acid (tris-NTA) head groups were developed for the selective targeting of His-tagged proteins into liquid ordered (lo ) or liquid disordered (ld ) lipid phases. Strong partitioning into the lo phase of His-tagged proteins bound to tris-NTA conjugated to saturated alkyl chains (tris-NTA DODA) was achieved, while tris-NTA conjugated to an unsaturate...

Conventionally, the sorption methods of rare earth elements were done with cationic ion exchangers. The present work was mainly oriented to find an alternative method for sorption of light rare earth elements (LREEs) based on anionic ion exchangers. Two different anionic exchangers have been tested including Dowex-1 and Sybron SR-7. The selection of these two exchangers was mainly done to inves...

Intracellular delivery of functional macromolecules using peptide transduction domains (PTDs) is an exciting technology with both experimental and therapeutic applications. Recent data indicate that PTD-mediated transduction occurs via fluid-phase macropinocytosis involving an intracellular pH drop to approximately 5. Nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA)-coordinated metals avidly bind hexahistidine-tagg...

Visualizing macromolecular complexes by single-particle electron microscopy (EM) entails stringent biochemical purification, specimen preparation, low-dose imaging, and 3D image reconstruction. Here, we introduce the "monolayer purification" method, which employs nickel-nitrilotriacetic acid (Ni-NTA) functionalized lipids for simultaneously purifying His-tagged complexes directly from cell lysa...

Acinetobacter baumannii is a multidrug resistant pathogenic bacteria associated with hospital acquired infections. This bacterium possesses a variety of resistance mechanisms which makes it more difficult to control the bacterium with conventional drugs, and, so far no effective drug treatment is available against it. Nucleoside diphosphate kinase is an important enzyme, which maintains the tot...