Hydrophobic Gating and 1/ Noise of the Anthrax Toxin Channel.

"Pink" or 1/ noise is a natural phenomenon omnipresent in physics, economics, astrophysics, biology, and even music and languages. In electrophysiology, the stochastic activity of a number of biological ion channels and artificial nanopores could be characterized by current noise with a 1/ power spectral density. In the anthrax toxin channel (PA), it appears as fast voltage-independent current interruptions between conducting and nonconducting states.

Synthesis of Amido Sulfonamido Heteroaromatics Under Ultrasonication and Their Antimicrobial Activity.

A convenient and facile methodology for N-sulfonylation of heteroaryl amines with ethyl chlorosulfonylacetate in the presence of dispersed sodium in THF under ultrasonication is reported. The corresponding heteroaryl sulfonamido esters are directly condensed with heteroaryl amines to get amido sulfonamido heteroaromatics in the presence of a mild base in THF under ultrasonication. Utilization of easy reaction conditions, shorter reaction times, and isolation of products in high yields under ultrasonication make this process as economically viable.

Effect of endosomal acidification on small ion transport through the anthrax toxin PA channel.

Tight regulation of pH is critical for the structure and function of cells and organelles. The pH environment changes dramatically along the endocytic pathway, an internalization transport process that is 'hijacked' by many intracellularly active bacterial exotoxins, including the anthrax toxin. Here, we investigate the role of pH on single-channel properties of the anthrax toxin protective antigen (PA ).

Impact of Dendrimer Terminal Group Chemistry on Blockage of the Anthrax Toxin Channel: A Single Molecule Study.

Nearly all the cationic molecules tested so far have been shown to reversibly block K⁺ current through the cation-selective PA channels of anthrax toxin in a wide nM-mM range of effective concentrations. A significant increase in channel-blocking activity of the cationic compounds was achieved when multiple copies of positively charged ligands were covalently linked to multivalent scaffolds, such as cyclodextrins and dendrimers. Even though multivalent binding can be strong when the individual bonds are relatively weak, for drug discovery purposes we often strive to design multivalent compounds with high individual functional group affinity toward the respective binding site on a multivalent target.