Publications by authors named "Meiruo Liu"

Bayesian statistics is an approach for learning from evidences as it accumulates, combining prior distribution with current information on a quantity of interest, in which posterior distribution and inferences are being updated each time new data become available using Bayes' Theorem. Though frequentist approach has dominated medical studies, Bayesian approach has been more and more widely recognized by its flexibility and efficiency. Research and development (R&D) on anti-cancer new drugs have been so hot globally in recent years in spite of relatively high failure rate.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Quality of life (QoL) in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) is increasingly used as an efficacy outcome in clinical studies of PD to evaluate the impact of treatment from the patient's perspective. Studies demonstrating the treatment effect of pramipexole on QoL remain inconclusive. This study aims to evaluate the effect of pramipexole on QoL in patients with PD by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of existing clinical trials.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Poorly differentiated neuroendocrine carcinomas such as small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) have poor survival and high relapse rates. DLL3 is found on these carcinomas and has become a target of increasing interest in recent years. The bispecific DLL3/CD3 T-cell engager BI 764532 has been shown to induce complete tumor regression in a human T cell-engrafted mouse model.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) is a highly conserved enzyme involved in the ubiquitous process of glycolysis and presents a loop (residues 208-215 of GAPDH) in two alternative conformations (I and II). It is uncertain what triggers this loop rearrangement, as well as which is the precise site from which phosphate attacks the thioacyl intermediate precursor of 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate (BPG). To clarify these uncertainties, we determined the crystal structures of complexes of wild-type GAPDH (WT) with NAD and phosphate or G3P, and of essentially inactive GAPDH mutants (C150S, H177A), trapping crystal structures for the thioacyl intermediate or for ternary complexes with NAD and either phosphate, BPG, or G3P.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase is one of the most important enzymes in the glycolytic pathway and catalyzes the reversible cleavage of fructose-1,6-bisphosphate to dihydroxyacetone phosphate and glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate. The full-length fbaB gene encoding fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase class I (FBPA I) was cloned from Escherichia coli strain BL21. FBPA I was overexpressed in E.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Yeast tRNA-thiouridine modification protein 1 (Tum1) plays essential role in the sulfur transfer process of Urm1 system, which in turn is involved in many important cellular processes. In the rhodanese-like domain (RLD), conserved cysteine residue is proved to be the centre of active site of sulfurtransferases and crucial for the substrate recognition. In this report, we describe the crystal structure of Tum1 protein at 1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The ubiquitin-related modifier Urm1 can be covalently conjugated to lysine residues of other proteins, such as yeast Ahp1 and human MOCS3, through a mechanism involving the E1-like protein Uba4 (MOCS3 in humans). Similar to ubiquitination, urmylation requires a thioester intermediate and forms isopeptide bonds between Urm1 and its substrates. In addition, the urmylation process can be significantly enhanced by oxidative stress.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Yeast tRNA-thiouridine modification protein 1 (Tum1p), a crucial component of the Urm1 system, is believed to play important roles in protein urmylation and tRNA-thiouridine modification. Previous studies have demonstrated that the conserved residue Cys259 in the C-terminal rhodanese-like domain of Tum1p is essential for these sulfur-transfer activities. Here, recombinant Tum1p protein has been cloned and overexpressed in Escherichia coli strain BL21 (DE3).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF