Pardaxin permeabilizes vesicles more efficiently by pore formation than by disruption.

Pardaxin is a 33-amino-acid neurotoxin from the Red Sea Moses sole Pardachirus marmoratus, whose mode of action shows remarkable sensitivity to lipid chain length and charge, although the effect of pH is unclear. Here we combine optical spectroscopy and dye release experiments with laser scanning confocal microscopy and natural abundance (13)C solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance to provide a more complete picture of how pardaxin interacts with lipids. The kinetics and efficiency of release of entrapped calcein is highly sensitive to pH.

Divorcing folding from function: how acylation affects the membrane-perturbing properties of an antimicrobial peptide.

Many small cationic peptides, which are unstructured in aqueous solution, have antimicrobial properties. These properties are assumed to be linked to their ability to permeabilize bacterial membranes, accompanied by the transition to an alpha-helical folding state. Here we show that there is no direct link between folding of the antimicrobial peptide Novicidin (Nc) and its membrane permeabilization.

Enantioselective proteins: selection, binding studies and molecular modeling of antibodies with affinity towards hydrophobic BINOL derivatives.

In this paper, the initial steps towards the design of novel artificial metalloenzymes that exploit proteins as a second coordination sphere for traditional metal-ligand catalysis are described. Phage display was employed to select and study antibody fragments capable of recognizing hydrophobic BINOL derivatives designed to mimic BINAP, a widely used ligand in asymmetric metal-catalyzed reactions. The binding affinities of the selected antibodies towards a series of haptens were evaluated by using ELISA assays.

On the mechanism of electron-capture-induced dissociation of peptide dications from 15n-labeling and crown-ether complexation.

15N-labeling of di- and tripeptides reveals that electron capture to doubly protonated peptides results almost exclusively in ammonia loss from the N-terminal end, which clearly shows that a significant fraction of electron capture occurs at this end. In accordance with this finding, the competing channel of N-Calpha bond breakage leads to z+* ions and neutral c fragments after electron capture to small dications. In larger peptides that live long enough for internal proton exchanges to occur, c+ ions are also formed and in some cases in dominant yield.