Design of artificial metalloenzymes for the reduction of nicotinamide cofactors.

Artificial metalloenzymes result from the insertion of a catalytically active metal complex into a biological scaffold, generally a protein devoid of other catalytic functionalities. As such, their design requires efforts to engineer substrate binding, in addition to accommodating the artificial catalyst. Here we constructed and characterised artificial metalloenzymes using alcohol dehydrogenase as starting point, an enzyme which has both a cofactor and a substrate binding pocket.

An unusual case of cervical lipoblastoma with review of literature.

Lipoblastoma is a rare, benign, soft tissue neoplasm most commonly seen in children less than 3 years. It is usually seen on the trunk and on the limbs and rarely in the head and neck. In our case, a child of age 1 year and 3 months presented with a swelling over the nape of the neck.

Diversity of bone matrix adhesion proteins modulates osteoblast attachment and organization of actin cytoskeleton.

Interaction of cells with extracellular matrix is an essential event for differentiation, proliferation and activity of osteoblasts. In bone, binding of osteoblasts to bone matrix is required to determine specific activities of the cells and to synthesize matrix bone proteins. Integrins are the major cell receptors involved in the cell linkage to matrix proteins such as fibronectin, type I collagen and vitronectin, via the RGD-sequences.

Thiazolidinediones cause compaction of nuclear heterochromatin in the pluripotent mesenchymal cell line C3H10T1/2 when inducing an adipogenic phenotype.

Objective: To characterize the nuclear changes induced in vitro by thiazolidinediones (TZDs) in a murine pluripotent mesenchymal cell line.

Study Design: The C3H10T1/2 cell line, which can differentiate either in osteoblast or in adipocyte, was cultured in the presence of pioglitazone (5 microM) or rosiglitazone (0.5 microM) for 6, 8 and 9 days (D).