Solution structure of LC4 transmembrane segment of CCR5.

CC-chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) is a specific co-receptor allowing the entry of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). The LC4 region in CCR5 is required for HIV-1 entry into the cells. In this study, the solution structure of LC4 in SDS micelles was elucidated by using standard 1H two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy, circular dichroism, and fluorescence quenching.

The creation of the artificial RING finger from the cross-brace zinc finger by alpha-helical region substitution.

The creation of the artificial RING finger as ubiquitin-ligating enzyme (E3) has been demonstrated. In this study, by the alpha-helical region substitution between the EL5 RING finger and the Williams-Beuren syndrome transcription factor (WSTF) PHD finger, the artificial E3 (WSTF PHD_RING finger) was newly created. The experiments of the chemical modification of residues Cys and the circular dichroism spectra revealed that the WSTF PHD_RING finger binds two zinc atoms and adopts the zinc-dependent ordered-structure.

Solution structure of LC5, the CCR5- derived peptide for HIV-1 inhibition.

The synthetic peptide fragment (LC5: LRCRNEKKRHRAVRLIFTI) inhibits human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection of MT-4 cells. In this study, the solution structure of LC5 in SDS micelles was elucidated by using the standard (1)H two-dimensional NMR spectroscopic method along with circular dichroism and fluorescence quenching. The peptide adopts a helical structure in the C-terminal region (residues 13-16), whereas the N-terminal part remains unstructured.

In silico approach to identify the expression of the undiscovered molecules from microarray public database: identification of odorant receptors expressed in non-olfactory tissues.

Although both genomic sequencing and expression analysis are becoming indispensable for biological research, methods that can effectively survey large public gene expression repositories remain to be established. In this study, we developed an approach for the retrieval of tissue-specific expression information for certain genes from public databases; our approach was based on performance of a basic local alignment search tool search against probes on DNA microarray chips. To test the effectiveness of this approach, we examined the expression of human odorant receptors in non-olfactory tissues, as recent studies showed that such non-olfactory odorant receptors have physiological and pathophysiological significance.