The ubiquitin-proteasome system plays a central role in cellular regulation and protein quality control (PQC). The system is built as a pyramid of increasing complexity, with two E1 (ubiquitin activating), few dozen E2 (ubiquitin conjugating) and several hundred E3 (ubiquitin ligase) enzymes. By collecting and analyzing E3 sequences from the KEGG BRITE database and literature, we assembled a co...

A protein undergoes conformational dynamics with multiple time scales, which results in fluctuating enzyme activities. Recent studies in single-molecule enzymology have observe this "age-old" dynamic disorder phenomenon directly. However, the single-molecule technique has its limitation. To be able to observe this molecular effect with real biochemical functions in situ, we propose to couple th...

Raman spectroscopy is used to examine the effects of temperature, surface coverage, nature of the alkylsilane precursor (octadecyltrichlorosilane, methyloctadecyldichlorosilane, or dimethyloctadecylchlorosilane), and surface grafting method (surface or solution polymerized) on alkyl chain conformational order in a series of high-density octadecylsilane stationary phases ranging in surface cover...

We analyzed the correlation between the conformational strain and the binding kinetics in antigen-antibody interactions. The catalytic antibodies 6D9, 9C10, and 7C8 catalyze the hydrolysis of a nonbioactive chloramphenicol monoester derivative to generate a bioactive chloramphenicol. The crystal structure of 6D9 complexed with a transition-state analog (TSA) suggests that 6D9 binds the substrat...

Acoustic wave biosensors are a real-time, label-free biosensor technology, which have been exploited for the detection of proteins and cells. One of the conventional biosensor approaches involves the immobilization of a monolayer of antibodies onto the surface of the acoustic wave device for the detection of a specific analyte. The method described within includes at least two immobilizations o...

We have studied the pH dependence of the rate of termination of bacterial protein synthesis catalyzed by a class-1 release factor (RF1 or RF2). We used a classical quench-flow technique and a newly developed stopped-flow technique that relies on the use of fluorescently labeled peptides. We found the termination rate to increase with increasing pH and, eventually, to saturate at about 70 s(-1) ...

OxyR, a bacterial peroxide sensor, is a LysR-type transcriptional regulator (LTTR) that regulates the transcription of defense genes in response to a low level of cellular H2O2. Consisting of an N-terminal DNA-binding domain (DBD) and a C-terminal regulatory domain (RD), OxyR senses H2O2 with conserved cysteine residues in the RD. However, the precise mechanism of OxyR is not yet known due to t...

ATP-binding cassette (ABC)-type ATPases are chemomechanical engines involved in diverse biological pathways. Recent genomic information reveals that ABC ATPase domains/subunits act not only in ABC transporters and structural maintenance of chromosome proteins, but also in iron-sulfur (Fe-S) cluster biogenesis. A novel type of ABC protein, the SufBCD complex, functions in the biosynthesis of nas...

The side-chain conformations have been analyzed in the antimicrobial peptide, Neutrophil Peptide-5 (NP-5), whose structure was independently generated from nmr-derived distance constraints using a distance geometry algorithm. The side-chain and peptide dihedral angle distributions in the nmr structures were compared with those constructed from a data base of high-resolution protein crystal stru...

Bacterial α-2-macroglobulins have been suggested to function in defence as broad-spectrum inhibitors of host proteases that breach the outer membrane. Here, the X-ray structure of protease-cleaved Escherichia coli α-2-macroglobulin is described, which reveals a putative mechanism of activation and conformational change essential for protease inhibition. In this competitive mechanism, protease c...