Ornithinimicrobium cerasi sp. nov., isolated from the fruit of and emended description of the genus .

Strain CPCC 203383, isolated from the surface-sterilized fruit of (Lindl.) G. Don, was taxonomically characterized based on a polyphasic investigation.

Prediction of allosteric sites on protein surfaces with an elastic-network-model-based thermodynamic method.

Allostery is a rapid and efficient way in many biological processes to regulate protein functions, where binding of an effector at the allosteric site alters the activity and function at a distant active site. Allosteric regulation of protein biological functions provides a promising strategy for novel drug design. However, how to effectively identify the allosteric sites remains one of the major challenges for allosteric drug design.

Identification of functionally key residues in AMPA receptor with a thermodynamic method.

AMPA receptor mediates the fast excitatory synaptic transmission in the central nervous system, and it is activated by the binding of glutamate that results in the opening of the transmembrane ion channel. In the present work, the thermodynamic method developed by our group was improved and then applied to identify the functionally key residues that regulate the glutamate-binding affinity of AMPA receptor. In our method, the key residues are identified as those whose perturbation largely changes the ligand binding free energy of the protein.

Nocardioides perillae sp. nov., isolated from surface-sterilized roots of Perilla frutescens.

A Gram-stain-positive, rod-shaped actinobacterium, designated strain I10A-01402(T), was isolated from surface-sterilized roots of a medicinal plant, Perilla frutescens, collected in a suburb of Beijing, China. Chemotaxonomically, the strain contained ll-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid and MK-8(H4) as the predominant menaquinone. The phospholipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylinositol.

Allonocardiopsis opalescens gen. nov., sp. nov., a new member of the suborder Streptosporangineae, from the surface-sterilized fruit of a medicinal plant.

An endophytic actinomycete, designated strain I10A-01259(T), was isolated from a surface-sterilized fruit of Lonicera maackii (Rupr.) Maxim., a medicinal plant, which was collected from a suburb of Beijing, China.