Publications by authors named "Ana-Carolina Zeri"

NMR-based metabolomics has shown considerable promise in disease diagnosis and biomarker discovery because it allows one to nondestructively identify and quantify large numbers of novel metabolite biomarkers in both biofluids and tissues. Precise metabolite quantification is a prerequisite to move any chemical biomarker or biomarker panel from the lab to the clinic. Among the biofluids commonly used for disease diagnosis and prognosis, urine has several advantages.

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The metabolic composition of human biofluids can provide important diagnostic and prognostic information. Among the biofluids most commonly analyzed in metabolomic studies, urine appears to be particularly useful. It is abundant, readily available, easily stored and can be collected by simple, noninvasive techniques.

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Article Synopsis
  • Shwachman-Bodian-Diamond syndrome is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder characterized by pancreatic issues, bone marrow problems, and skeletal abnormalities due to mutations in the SBDS gene.
  • The SBDS protein is important for various cell functions, with its mutations potentially affecting RNA interactions and ribosome production, but understanding these effects in humans remains complex.
  • Using NMR spectroscopy, researchers studied the human SBDS protein's structure and dynamics, finding a significant RNA binding site linked to many associated mutations, while revealing conformational flexibility in certain regions of the protein.
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Article Synopsis
  • The SBDS gene in humans and its yeast version SDO1 are crucial for creating ribosomes, with SDO1 helping recycle factors important for ribosome assembly.
  • Researchers characterized the SBDS ortholog from Trypanosoma cruzi (TcSBDS), which shows it also plays a role in ribosome biosynthesis by co-fractionating with polysomes.
  • TcSBDS has a unique 200 amino acid long C-terminal extension that helps it interact with RNA, suggesting that this extended region could provide extra functions in ribosome biogenesis for certain organisms, especially those in the Trypanosomatidae family.
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Filamentous bacteriophages serve as model systems for the development and implementation of spectroscopic methods suitable for biological supramolecular assemblies. Not only are their coat proteins small and readily prepared in the laboratory, but they also have two primary roles as membrane proteins and as the principal structural element of the virus particles. As a bacterial system, they are readily labeled with stable isotopes, and this has opened possibilities for the many nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) studies described in this review.

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We have followed individual ribosomes as they translate single messenger RNA hairpins tethered by the ends to optical tweezers. Here we reveal that translation occurs through successive translocation--and-pause cycles. The distribution of pause lengths, with a median of 2.

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The atomic resolution structure of fd coat protein determined by solid-state NMR spectroscopy of magnetically aligned filamentous bacteriophage particles differs from that previously determined by x-ray fiber diffraction. Most notably, the 50-residue protein is not a single curved helix, but rather is a nearly ideal straight helix between residues 7 and 38, where there is a distinct kink, and then a straight helix with a different orientation between residues 39 and 49. Residues 1-5 have been shown to be mobile and unstructured, and proline 6 terminates the helix.

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Deuterium/hydrogen exchange factors (chi) were measured for the backbone amide sites of the membrane-bound forms of the 50-residue fd coat protein and the 23-residue magainin2 peptide in lipid micelles by solution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. By combining kinetic and thermodynamic effects, deuterium/hydrogen exchange factors overcome the principal limitations encountered in the measurements of kinetic protection factors and thermodynamic fractionation factors for membrane proteins. The magnitudes of the exchange factors can be correlated with the structure and topology of membrane-associated polypeptides.

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