Proinflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α and type I interferons (IFN) are pathogenic signatures of systemic lupus erythematosus, and plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) play a major role by predominantly producing IFN-α. Given the rise of importance in identifying tumor necrosis stimulated gene 6 (TSG-6) as a key anti-inflammatory regulator, we investigate its function and its ability to counter...

Industrial enzyme market has been projected to reach US$ 6.2 billion by 2020. Major reasons for continuous rise in the global sales of microbial enzymes are because of increase in the demand for consumer goods and biofuels. Among major industrial enzymes that find applications in baking, alcohol, detergent, and textile industries are α-amylases. These are produced by a variety of microbes, whic...

OBJECTIVES In an attempt α-amylase gene from Pyrococcus woesei was amplified and cloned into a pTYB2 vector to generate the recombinant plasmid pTY- α-amylase. METHODS Escherichia coli BL21 used as a host and protein expression was applied using IPTG. SDS-PAGE assay demonstrated the 100 kDa protein. Amylolytic activity of proteins produced by transformed E. coli cells was detected by zymograp...

Starch digestion involves the breakdown by α-amylase to small linear and branched malto-oligosaccharides, which are in turn hydrolyzed to glucose by the mucosal α-glucosidases, maltase-glucoamylase (MGAM) and sucrase-isomaltase (SI). MGAM and SI are anchored to the small intestinal brush-border epithelial cells, and each contains a catalytic N- and C-terminal subunit. All four subunits have α-1...

The Aleuria aurantia lectin (AAL) derived from orange peel fungus contains five fucose-binding sites that recognizes fucose bound in α-1,2, α-1,3, α-1,4, and α-1,6 linkages to N-acetylglucosamine and galactose. Recently, we have created several recombinant AAL (rAAL) proteins that had altered binding affinity to fucose linkages. In this report, we further characterize the binding specificity of...

The notion that human α-synuclein is an intrinsically disordered monomeric protein was recently challenged by a postulated α-helical tetramer as the physiologically relevant protein structure. The fact that this alleged conformation had evaded detection for so many years was primarily attributed to a widely used denaturation protocol to purify recombinant α-synuclein. In the present paper, we p...

Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) is a cytokine which plays opposing roles in the context of infectious disease pathogenesis. TNF-α is essential for the development of a protective immune response to some pathogens, for example, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, by synergizing with other cytokines. However, exorbitant or uncontrolled TNF-α activity may also drive pathology and disease symptoms in m...

Mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS) I is a lysosomal storage disease caused by a deficiency of α-L-iduronidase (IDUA) (EC 3.2.1.76); enzyme replacement therapy is the conventional treatment for this genetic disease. Arabidopsis cgl mutants are characterized by a deficiency of the activity of N-acetylglucosaminyl transferase I (EC 2.4.1.101), the first enzyme in the pathway of hybrid and complex N-glyca...

We present here a novel conjugated aptamer-gold nanoparticle (Apt-AuNPs) fluorescent probe and its application for specific detection of recombinant human erythropoietin-α (rHuEPO-α). In this nanobiosensor, 12 nm AuNPs function as both a nano-scaffold and a nano-quencher (fluorescent energy acceptor), on the surface of which the complementary sequences are linked (as cODN-AuNPs) and pre-hybridi...

Recent developments and re-emergence of interferon α (IFN-α) have renewed interest in the therapy for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Related molecular mechanism may be the direct effect of IFN-α on CML stem cells. Human mesenchymal stromal cells (hMSCs) are important to protect CML stem cells, and IFN-α was described as a potential inhibitor of hMSCs. However, the exact mechanism...