Publications by authors named "Aaron McGrath"

Objective: To synthesise the qualitative research related to the processes of loss and grief experienced by adults who have sustained a moderate to severe ABI.

Method: We conducted a systematic review and thematic synthesis of the experiences of loss and grief in adults with moderate to severe ABI. Five electronic database searches (PubMed, CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO and Scopus) were conducted, identifying 2434 studies, of which 25 met inclusion criteria.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The OX orexin receptor (OXR) plays a crucial role in managing wakefulness and circadian rhythms in humans, and targeting it can be effective for treating insomnia and narcolepsy type 1.
  • Recent advances using cryo-electron microscopy have allowed scientists to visualize how the first clinically tested OXR agonist, TAK-925, activates the receptor in a selective manner.
  • The study reveals that TAK-925 binds similarly to antagonists but triggers activation through unique interactions at the receptor, suggesting strategies for new treatments for narcolepsy and circadian disorders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - Metal ions, like manganese, are crucial for all living organisms, and prokaryotes use ATP-binding cassette (ABC) permeases to import these vital micronutrients.
  • - Researchers have discovered the crystal structure of the manganese transporter PsaBC, which shows a tightly closed channel that prevents water and ion leakage, along with a unique metal coordination site crucial for transporting manganese.
  • - Mutations in the extracellular gate disrupt manganese uptake, while changes to the coordination site stop its import completely, highlighting that these structural elements are conserved across various life forms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Marine pollutants bioaccumulate at high trophic levels of marine food webs and are transferred to humans through consumption of apex species. Yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) are marine predators, and one of largest commercial fisheries in the world. Previous studies have shown that yellowfin tuna can accumulate high levels of persistent organic pollutants, including Transporter Interfering Chemicals (TICs), which are chemicals shown to bind to mammalian xenobiotic transporters and interfere with their function.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Fragment screening is frequently used for hit identification. However, there was no report starting from a small fragment for the development of an anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor, despite the number of ALK inhibitors reported. We began our research with the fragment hit and our subsequent linker design, and its docking analysis yielded novel -1,2,2-trisubstituted cyclopropane .

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The radiation of angiosperms has significantly influenced the evolution of most plant species and major food crops, attributed to their advanced vascular system using vessel elements for efficient water transport.
  • The size and structure of these vessel elements are crucial for water flow and overall plant health, yet the genetic underpinnings of their dimensions remain largely unknown.
  • Research has identified a new gene that plays a role in shaping vessel element dimensions and improving hydraulic conductivity, suggesting its origins trace back to algae and that it may have undergone ancient horizontal gene transfer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Sensing and responding to environmental water deficiency and osmotic stresses are essential for the growth, development, and survival of plants. Recently, an osmolality-sensing ion channel called OSCA1 was discovered that functions in sensing hyperosmolality in Here, we report the cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) structure and function of an OSCA1 homolog from rice (; OsOSCA1.2), leading to a model of how it could mediate hyperosmolality sensing and transport pathway gating.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

About 50% of the world's arable land is strongly acidic (pH ≤ 5). The low pH solubilizes root-toxic ionic aluminium (Al) species from clay minerals, driving the evolution of counteractive adaptations in cultivated crops. The food crop Sorghum bicolor upregulates the membrane-embedded transporter protein SbMATE in its roots.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A central conserved arginine, first identified as a clinical mutation leading to sulfite oxidase deficiency, is essential for catalytic competency of sulfite oxidizing molybdoenzymes, but the molecular basis for its effects on turnover and substrate affinity have not been fully elucidated. We have used a bacterial sulfite dehydrogenase, SorT, which lacks an internal heme group, but transfers electrons to an external, electron accepting cytochrome, SorU, to investigate the molecular functions of this arginine residue (Arg78). Assay of the SorT Mo centre catalytic competency in the absence of SorU showed that substitutions in the central arginine (R78Q, R78K and R78M mutations) only moderately altered SorT catalytic properties, except for R78M which caused significant reduction in SorT activity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

RhoGTPases are important regulators of the cell cytoskeleton, controlling cell shape, migration and proliferation. Previously we showed that ARHGAP18 in endothelial cells is important in cell junctions. Here we show, using structured illumination microscopy (SIM), ground-state depletion (GSD), and total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRF) that a proportion of ARHGAP18 localizes to microtubules in endothelial cells, as well as in nonendothelial cells, an association confirmed biochemically.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The cars we drive, the homes we live in, the restaurants we visit, and the laboratories and offices we work in are all a part of the modern human habitat. Remarkably, little is known about the diversity of chemicals present in these environments and to what degree molecules from our bodies influence the built environment that surrounds us and vice versa. We therefore set out to visualize the chemical diversity of five built human habitats together with their occupants, to provide a snapshot of the various molecules to which humans are exposed on a daily basis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The world's oceans are a global reservoir of persistent organic pollutants to which humans and other animals are exposed. Although it is well known that these pollutants are potentially hazardous to human and environmental health, their impacts remain incompletely understood. We examined how persistent organic pollutants interact with the drug efflux transporter P-glycoprotein (P-gp), an evolutionarily conserved defense protein that is essential for protection against environmental toxicants.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Interprotein electron transfer underpins the essential processes of life and relies on the formation of specific, yet transient protein-protein interactions. In biological systems, the detoxification of sulfite is catalyzed by the sulfite-oxidizing enzymes (SOEs), which interact with an electron acceptor for catalytic turnover. Here, we report the structural and functional analyses of the SOE SorT from Sinorhizobium meliloti and its cognate electron acceptor SorU.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is a transporter of great clinical and pharmacological significance. Several structural studies of P-gp and its homologs have provided insights into its transport cycle, but questions remain regarding how P-gp recognizes diverse substrates and how substrate binding is coupled to ATP hydrolysis. Here, four new P-gp co-crystal structures with a series of rationally designed ligands are presented.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

FeoB is a transmembrane protein involved in ferrous iron uptake in prokaryotic organisms. FeoB comprises a cytoplasmic soluble domain termed NFeoB and a C-terminal polytopic transmembrane domain. Recent structures of NFeoB have revealed two structural subdomains: a canonical GTPase domain and a five-helix helical domain.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The X-ray crystal structure of oxidised pseudoazurin from the denitrifying plant symbiotic bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti (SmPAz2) has been solved to a resolution of 2.0 Å. The pseudoazurin from Sinorhizobium sp.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aspergillus nidulans amine oxidase (ANAO) has the unusual ability among the family of copper and trihydroxyphenylalanine quinone-containing amine oxidases of being able to oxidize the amine side chains of lysine residues in large peptides and proteins. We show here that in common with the related enzyme from the yeast Pichia pastoris, ANAO can promote the cross-linking of tropoelastin and oxidize the lysine residues in α-casein proteins and tropoelastin. The crystal structure of ANAO, the first for a fungal enzyme in this family, has been determined to a resolution of 2.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Human vascular adhesion protein 1 (VAP-1) is involved in lymphocyte-endothelial cell adhesion and has been implicated in many human inflammatory diseases. VAP-1 is a member of the copper amine oxidase family of enzymes with a trihydroxyphenylalanine quinone (TPQ) cofactor. Previously characterized crystals of VAP-1 suffered from anisotropy and contained disordered regions; in addition, one form was consistently twinned.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Copper-containing amine oxidases (CAOs) require a protein-derived topaquinone cofactor (TPQ) for activity. TPQ biogenesis is a self-processing reaction requiring the presence of copper and molecular oxygen. Recombinant human diamine oxidase (hDAO) was heterologously expressed in Drosophila S2 cells, and analysis indicates that the purified hDAO contains substoichiometric amounts of copper and TPQ.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Copper amine oxidases (CAOs) are ubiquitous in nature and catalyse the oxidative deamination of primary amines to the corresponding aldehydes. Humans have three viable CAO genes (AOC1-3). AOC1 encodes human diamine oxidase (hDAO), which is the frontline enzyme for histamine metabolism.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Humans have three functioning genes that encode copper-containing amine oxidases. The product of the AOC1 gene is a so-called diamine oxidase (hDAO), named for its substrate preference for diamines, particularly histamine. hDAO has been cloned and expressed in insect cells and the structure of the native enzyme determined by X-ray crystallography to a resolution of 1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The alternative splicing of mRNA is a critical process in higher eukaryotes that generates substantial proteomic diversity. Many of the proteins that are essential to this process contain arginine/serine-rich (RS) domains. ZRANB2 is a widely-expressed and highly-conserved RS-domain protein that can regulate alternative splicing but lacks canonical RNA-binding domains.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF