Publications by authors named "Gwang Joong Kim"

Article Synopsis
  • The fabrication of functional nanostructures is crucial in nanotechnology because they have unique properties compared to their individual components.* -
  • Protein cage nanoparticles, like genetically modified lumazine synthase, serve as effective templates to create dual-functional nanobuilding blocks by covalently attaching enzymes and protein ligands.* -
  • Using layer-by-layer assembly, these building blocks form 3D nanoreaction clusters that exhibit greater enzymatic activity than flat structures, offering new possibilities for developing biosensor devices based on protein nanoparticles.*
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Heavy metal compounds are adsorbed onto biological specimen in order to enhance the contrast as well as to preserve the structural features of the specimen against electron beam-induced radiation damage. In particular, in combination with computational image processing, negative staining is widely used for structural analysis of protein complexes to moderate resolutions. Image analysis of negatively stained biological specimen is known to suffer from limited achievable resolution due to dehydration and large grain size of staining molecules although the extent of such effect remains somewhat dubious.

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Actin bundling protein 34 (ABP34) is the one of 11 actin-crosslinking proteins identified in Dictyostelium discoideum, a novel model organism for the study of actin-associated neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease. ABP34 localizes at the leading and trailing edges of locomotory cells, i.e.

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In hagfish and lampreys, two representative jawless vertebrates, the humoral immunity is directly mediated by variable lymphocyte receptors B (VLRBs). Both monomeric VLRBs are structurally and functionally similar, but their C-terminal tails differ: lamprey VLRB has a Cys-rich tail that forms disulfide-linked pentamers of dimers, contributing to its multivalency, whereas hagfish VLRB has a superhydrophobic tail of unknown structure. Here, we reveal that VLRBs obtained from hagfish plasma have a globular-shaped multimerized form (approximately 0.

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The selective detection of specific cells of interest and their effective visualization is important but challenging, and fluorescent cell imaging with target-specific probes is commonly used to visualize cell morphology and components and to track cellular processes. Multiple displays of two or more targeting ligands on a polyvalent single template would make it possible to construct versatile multiplex fluorescent cell imaging probes that can visualize two or more target cells individually without the need for a set of individual probes. To achieve this goal, we used encapsulin, a new class of protein cage nanoparticles, as a template and implanted dual targeting capability by presenting two different affibody molecules on a single encapsulin protein cage nanoparticle post-translationally.

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Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) containing various bacterial compounds are released from mainly gram-negative bacteria. Secreted OMVs play important roles in the ability of a bacterium to defend itself, and thus contribute to the survival of bacteria in a community. In this study, we collected OMVs from β-lactam antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli established by conjugation assay and the parental β-lactam antibiotic-susceptible strain, and performed comparative proteomic analysis to examine whether these OMVs carried β-lactam-resistant compounds.

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