Monitoring and assessment of environmental resources in the changing landscape of Ethiopia: a focus on forests and water.

Monitoring and Assessment (M&A) of environmental resources aims to support the formulation of policies and follow up on outcomes of their implementation. In this study, the state of M&A is explored for Ethiopia with a focus on forests and water resources. The study is intended to serve as recommendations for future M&A applications in Ethiopia, as well as fulfillment of SDGs and other national and international commitments.

The activity and stability of a cold-active acylaminoacyl peptidase rely on its dimerization by domain swapping.

The study of enzymes from extremophiles arouses interest in Protein Science because of the amazing solutions these proteins adopt to cope with extreme conditions. Recently solved, the structure of the psychrophilic acyl aminoacyl peptidase from Sporosarcina psychrophila (SpAAP) pinpoints a mechanism of dimerization unusual for this class of enzymes. The quaternary structure of SpAAP relies on a domain-swapping mechanism involving the N-terminal A1 helix.

A bacterial acyl aminoacyl peptidase couples flexibility and stability as a result of cold adaptation.

Unlabelled: Life in cold environments requires an overall increase in the flexibility of macromolecular and supramolecular structures to allow biological processes to take place at low temperature. Conformational flexibility supports high catalytic rates of enzymes in the cold but in several cases is also a cause of instability. The three-dimensional structure of the psychrophilic acyl aminoacyl peptidase from Sporosarcina psychrophila (SpAAP) reported in this paper highlights adaptive molecular changes resulting in a fine-tuned trade-off between flexibility and stability.