Escherichia coli leader peptidase, which catalyzes the cleavage of signal peptides from pre-proteins, is an essential, integral membrane serine peptidase that has its active site residing in the periplasmic space. It contains a conserved lysine residue that has been proposed to act as the general base, abstracting the proton from the side chain hydroxyl group of the nucleophilic serine 90. To h...

Understanding of protease specificity is essential in proteomics strategies to correctly compare peptide fragmentation spectra with spectra predicted from data extracted from sequence databases. Here we evaluate the specificities of two proteolytic enzymes Lys-C and Lys-N, which cleave peptide-bonds at, respectively, the C- and N-terminal side of a lysine residue.

It has recently been shown that open reading frames in the 3' long terminal repeats of mouse mammary tumor viruses encode superantigens. These viral superantigens (vSAGs) stimulate most T cells expressing appropriate V beta s almost regardless of the rest of the variable components of the T cell receptors (TCR) expressed by those cells. vSAGs produce a type II integral membrane protein with a n...

It has recently been shown that open reading frames in the 3' long terminal repeats of mouse mammary tumor viruses encode superantigens. These viral superantigens (vSAGs) stimulate most T cells expressing appropriate V3s almost regardless of the rest of the variable components of the T cell receptors (TCR) expressed by those cells, vSAGs produce a type II integral membrane protein with a noness...

A tentative but almost complete amino acid sequence for the subunit peptide chain of bovine liver glutamate dehydrogenase indicates a minimal size of 506 residues with a molecular weight of 56,100, in accord with the physical size of the subunit of 55,900. Inactivation with pyridoxal 5'-phosphate, followed by reduction with sodium borohydride, has permitted identification of the essential lysin...

Glutamine synthetase (Escherichia coli) was incubated with three different reagents that react with lysine residues, viz. pyridoxal phosphate, 5'-p-fluorosulfonylbenzoyladenosine, and thiourea dioxide. The latter reagent reacts with the epsilon-nitrogen of lysine to produce homoarginine as shown by amino acid analysis, nmr, and mass spectral analysis of the products. A variety of differential l...

We have addressed the question of how keratin intermediate filaments are associated with the cell envelope at the periphery of cornified epidermal cells. Many peptides from human epidermal cell envelopes containing isopeptide crosslinks inserted by transglutaminases in vivo have been characterized. A major subset involves the type II keratin chains keratin 1, 2e, 5, or 6 crosslinked to several ...

Sodium/proton exchangers of the SLC9 family mediate the transport of protons in exchange for sodium to help regulate intracellular pH, sodium levels, and cell volume. In electrogenic Na+/H+ antiporters, it has been assumed that two ion-binding aspartate residues transport the two protons that are later exchanged for one sodium ion. However, here we show that we can switch the antiport activity ...