Comparative pharmacokinetic properties and antitumor activity of the marine HDACi Largazole and Largazole peptide isostere.

Purpose: Largazole is a potent class I-selective HDACi natural product isolated from the marine cyanobacteria Symploca sp. The purpose of this study was to test synthetic analogs of Largazole to identify potential scaffold structural modifications that would improve the drug-like properties of this clinically relevant natural product.

Methods: The impact of Largazole scaffold replacements on in vitro growth inhibition, cell cycle arrest, induction of apoptosis, pharmacokinetic properties, and in vivo activity using a xenograft model was investigated.

Immunization with a synthetic peptide vaccine fails to protect mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) from chronic wasting disease.

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) adversely affects both wild and captive cervid populations. A vaccine to prevent CWD would be a highly desirable tool to aid in disease management. To this end, we tested in mule deer a combination of CWD vaccines consisting of cervid prion peptide sequences 168-VDQYNNQNTFVHDC-182 and 145-NDYEDRYYRENMYRYPNQ-164 that had previously been shown to delay onset of clinical disease and increase survival in a mouse-adapted scrapie model.

Prion remains infectious after passage through digestive system of American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos).

Avian scavengers, such as American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos), have potential to translocate infectious agents (prions) of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) diseases including chronic wasting disease, scrapie, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy. We inoculated mice with fecal extracts obtained from 20 American crows that were force-fed material infected with RML-strain scrapie prions. These mice all evinced severe neurological dysfunction 196-231 d postinoculation (x =198; 95% CI: 210-216) and tested positive for prion disease.

Feasibility of infectious prion digestion using mild conditions and commercial subtilisin.

Two serine protease enzymes, subtilisin 309 and subtilisin 309-v, were used to digest brain homogenates containing high levels of prion infectivity using mildly alkaline conditions to investigate prion decontamination methods. To establish that PrP(res) infectivity was eliminated, we utilized the Rocky Mountain Laboratory (RML) mouse-adapted scrapie model system for bioassay. Only one digestion condition (subtilisin 309 at 138mAU/ml, 55 degrees C and 14h digestion time pH 7.

Reconstitution of nucleosome positioning, remodeling, histone acetylation, and transcriptional activation on the PHO5 promoter.

The PHO5 gene promoter is an important model for the study of gene regulation in the context of chromatin. Upon PHO5 activation the chromatin structure is reconfigured, but the mechanism of this transition remains unclear. Using templates reconstituted into chromatin with purified recombinant yeast core histones, we have investigated the mechanism of chromatin structure reconfiguration on the PHO5 promoter, a prerequisite for transcriptional activation.