Identification of a Fragment-Based Scaffold that Inhibits the Glycosyltransferase WaaG from Escherichia coli.

WaaG is a glycosyltransferase that is involved in the biosynthesis of lipopolysaccharide in Gram-negative bacteria. Inhibitors of WaaG are highly sought after as they could be used to inhibit the biosynthesis of the core region of lipopolysaccharide, which would improve the uptake of antibiotics. Herein, we establish an activity assay for WaaG using (14)C-labeled UDP-glucose and LPS purified from a ∆waaG strain of Escherichia coli.

Organellar oligopeptidase (OOP) provides a complementary pathway for targeting peptide degradation in mitochondria and chloroplasts.

Both mitochondria and chloroplasts contain distinct proteolytic systems for precursor protein processing catalyzed by the mitochondrial and stromal processing peptidases and for the degradation of targeting peptides catalyzed by presequence protease. Here, we have identified and characterized a component of the organellar proteolytic systems in Arabidopsis thaliana, the organellar oligopeptidase, OOP (At5g65620). OOP belongs to the M3A family of peptide-degrading metalloproteases.

Anionic lipid binding to the foreign protein MGS provides a tight coupling between phospholipid synthesis and protein overexpression in Escherichia coli.

Certain membrane proteins involved in lipid synthesis can induce formation of new intracellular membranes in Escherichia coli, i.e., intracellular vesicles.

Expression, purification, crystallization and preliminary diffraction studies of the mammalian DAG kinase homologue YegS from Escherichia coli.

yegS is a gene encoding a 32 kDa cytosolic protein with unknown function but with strong sequence homology to a family of structurally uncharacterized eukaryotic non-protein kinases: diacylglycerol kinases, sphingosine kinases and ceramide kinases. Here, the overexpression, crystallization and preliminary diffraction analysis of Escherichia coli YegS are reported. The crystals belong to space group P2(1), with unit-cell parameters a = 42.