Opportunities for Therapeutic Modulation of O-GlcNAc.

-Linked β--acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) is an essential, dynamic monosaccharide post-translational modification (PTM) found on serine and threonine residues of thousands of nucleocytoplasmic proteins. The installation and removal of O-GlcNAc is controlled by a single pair of enzymes, O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT) and O-GlcNAcase (OGA), respectively. Since its discovery four decades ago, O-GlcNAc has been found on diverse classes of proteins, playing important functional roles in many cellular processes.

Ubiquitin gets sweet: Sugar-mediated ubiquitination regulates Nrf1 function.

In this issue of Molecular Cell, Yoshida et al. report an unconventional sugar-dependent ubiquitination event on Nrf1 that disrupts Nrf1 transcriptional activation.

Writing and Erasing O-GlcNAc on Casein Kinase 2 Alpha Alters the Phosphoproteome.

O-GlcNAc is an essential carbohydrate modification that intersects with phosphorylation signaling pathways via crosstalk on protein substrates or by direct modification of the kinases that write the phosphate modification. Casein kinase 2 alpha (CK2α), the catalytic subunit of the ubiquitously expressed and constitutively active kinase CK2, is modified by O-GlcNAc, but the effect of this modification on the phosphoproteome in cells is unknown. Here, we apply complementary targeted O-GlcNAc editors, nanobody-OGT and -splitOGA, to selectively write and erase O-GlcNAc from a tagged CK2α to measure the effects on the phosphoproteome in cells.

Spraying Small Water Droplets Acts as a Bacteriocide.

Disinfectants are important for arresting the spread of pathogens in the environment. Frequently used disinfectants are often incompatible with certain surfaces, expensive and can produce hazardous by-products. We report that micron-sized water droplets can act as an effective disinfectant, which were formed by spraying pure bulk water with coaxial nebulizing airflow.

A Novel Element Achieves the Same Solution as an Ancestral Element During Thiamine Starvation in .

Regulatory networks often converge on very similar sequences to drive transcriptional programs due to constraints on what transcription factors are present. To determine the role of constraint loss on element evolution, we examined the recent appearance of a thiamine starvation regulated promoter in This species lacks the ancestral transcription factor Thi2, but still has the transcription factor Pdc2, which regulates thiamine starvation genes, allowing us to determine the effect of constraint change on a new promoter. We identified two different elements in - one present in the evolutionarily recent gene called , and the other element present in the other thiamine (THI) regulated genes.

Pathogen-Imprinted Organosiloxane Polymers as Selective Biosensors for the Detection of Targeted .

Early detection of pathogens requires methods that are fast, selective, sensitive and affordable. We report the development of a biosensor with high sensitivity and selectivity based on the low-cost preparation of organosiloxane (OSX) polymers imprinted with -GFP (green fluorescent protein). OSX polymers with high optical transparency, no cracking, and no shrinkage were prepared by varying several parameters of the sol-gel reaction.