The protective antigen component (PA) of anthrax toxin binds to receptors on target cells and conveys the toxin's edema factor (EF) and lethal factor (LF) components into the cytoplasm. PA (83 kDa) is processed by a cellular protease, yielding a 63-kDa fragment (PA63), which binds EF and/or LF. When exposed to acidic pH, PA63 inserts into membranes and forms ion-conductive channels. By electron...

Pertussis toxin (PT) has an AB(5) structure that is typical of many bacterial protein toxins; however, this toxin is more complex than many toxins since it is composed of five different subunit types, subunits S1 to S5. Little is known about how PT assembles in vivo and how and when it interacts with its secretion apparatus, known as the Ptl transporter. In order to better understand these even...

Oligonucleotides consisting of the isonucleoside repeating unit 2',5'-anhydro-3'-deoxy-3'-(thymin-1-yl)-D-mannitol (4) were synthesized with the monomeric unit 4 incorporated into oligonucleotides as 1'-->4' linkage 4a (oligomer I) or 6'-->4' linkage 4b (oligomer II). The hybrid properties of the two oligonucleotides I and II with their complementary strands were investigated by thermal denatur...

Clostridium perfringens iota-toxin is a binary toxin consisting of two individual proteins, the binding component (Ib) and the enzyme component (Ia). Wild-type Ib bound to Vero cells at 4 and 37 degrees C and formed oligomers at 37 degrees C but not at 4 degrees C. The Ib-induced K(+) release from the cells was dependent on the oligomer formation of Ib in the cells, but the oligomer formation d...

Vinylidene fluoride [VDF] oligomer is a novel substance with a smaller number of VDF units and lower molecular weight than poly(vinylidene fluoride) [PVDF]. We previously reported that the piezoelectric coefficient of VDF oligomer was greater than that of vinylidene fluoride/trifluoroethylene copolymer [P(VDF/TrFE)], and that a film composed of VDF oligomer was thin and uniform. However, the pi...

We report the development of a programmable surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-based micro-network gradient platform to simultaneously detect two different types of DNA oligomer mixtures. The utility of this platform was demonstrated by quantitative analysis of two breast cancer-related (BRCA1) DNA oligomer mixtures. To generate on-demand concentration gradients, the microfluidic circuit ...

An oral colon specific drug delivery platform has been developed to facilitate targetted release of therapeutic proteins as well as small molecule drugs. A simple enzymatic procedure is used to modify the molecular architecture of a lightly chemically crosslinked galactomannan hydrogel as well as a model drug-galactomannan oligomer conjugate, fluoroisocynate (FITC) tagged guar oligomer, to entr...

Several age-related neurodegenerative disorders are associated with protein misfolding and aggregation of toxic peptides. α-synuclein (α-syn) aggregation and the resulting cytotoxicity is a hallmark of Parkinson's disease (PD) as well as dementia with Lewy bodies. Rising evidence points to oligomeric and pre-fibrillar forms as the pathogenic species, and oligomer secretion seems to be crucial f...

BACKGROUND An arg120gly (R120G) missense mutation in HSPB5 (alpha-beta-crystallin ), which belongs to the small heat shock protein (HSP) family, causes desmin-related cardiomyopathy (DRM), a muscle disease that is characterized by the formation of inclusion bodies, which can contain pre-amyloid oligomer intermediates (amyloid oligomer). While we have shown that small HSPs can directly interrupt...

Amyloid oligomers, similar to the toxic entities found in Alzheimer's disease patients and in other amyloid-based diseases, are present in cardiomyocytes derived from human heart-failure patients and in animal models of desmin-related cardiomyopathy (DRM). The R120G mutation in alpha-B-crystallin (CryAB) causes DRM and is characterized by aggresomes containing CryAB(R120G) and amyloid oligomer....