tREPs-A New Class of Functional tRNA-Encoded Peptides.

We asked if transfer RNA (tRNA) ever got an opportunity of translating its own sequence during evolution, what would have been the function of such tRNA-encoded peptides (tREPs)? If not, could one artificially synthesize tREPs to study the corresponding functional outcomes? Here, we report a novel, first-in-the-class, chemically synthesized tREP-18 molecule originating from the tRNA sequence showing potent antileishmanial property. As a first step, tRNAs were computationally translated into peptide sequence equivalents and a database of full-length hypothetical tREPs was created. The tREP sequences were sent into sequence, structure, and energy filters to narrow down potential peptides for experimental validation.

miR-145 supports cancer cell survival and shows association with DDR genes, methylation pattern, and epithelial to mesenchymal transition.

Background: Despite several reports describing the dual role of miR-145 as an oncogene and a tumor suppressor in cancer, not much has been resolved and understood.

Method: In this study, the potential targets of miR-145 were identified bio-informatically using different target prediction tools. The identified target genes were validated in vitro by dual luciferase assay.

HHV-5 epitope: A potential vaccine candidate with high antigenicity and large coverage.

Outbreak of Human Herpes virus-5 (HHV-5) infection in emerging countries has raised worldwide health concern owing to prevalence of congenital impairments and life threatening consequences in immunocompromised individuals. Thus, there lies an impending need to develop vaccine against HHV-5. HHV-5 enters into host cells with the help of necessary components glycoprotein B (gB) and H/L.

Exploring the potential of genome editing CRISPR-Cas9 technology.

CRISPR-Cas9 is an RNA-mediated adaptive immune system that protects bacteria and archaea from viruses or plasmids. Herein we discuss the recent development of CRISPR-Cas9 into a key technology for genome editing, targeting, and regulation in a wide range of organisms and cell types. It requires a custom designed single guide-RNA (sgRNA), a Cas9 endonuclease, and PAM sequences in the target region.

Metabolic engineering of biosynthetic pathway for production of renewable biofuels.

Metabolic engineering is an important area of research that involves editing genetic networks to overproduce a certain substance by the cells. Using a combination of genetic, metabolic, and modeling methods, useful substances have been synthesized in the past at industrial scale and in a cost-effective manner. Currently, metabolic engineering is being used to produce sufficient, economical, and eco-friendly biofuels.

Identification of hub proteins from sequence.

Identification of hub proteins from sequence is a challenge in molecular biology. Therefore, it is of interest to predict protein hubs in networks. We describe the prediction of protein "hub" using physiochemical, thermodynamic and conformational properties of amino acid residues in sequence.

Collaborative roles of gammaH2AX and the Rad51 paralog Xrcc3 in homologous recombinational repair.

One of the earliest events in the signal transduction cascade that initiates a DNA damage checkpoint is the phosphorylation on serine 139 of histone H2AX (gammaH2AX) at DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs). However, the role of gammaH2AX in DNA repair is poorly understood. To address this question, we generated chicken DT40 cells carrying a serine to alanine mutation at position 139 of H2AX (H2AX(-/S139A)) and examined their DNA repair capacity.

Genome reduction in prokaryotic obligatory intracellular parasites of humans: a comparative analysis.

Obligatory intracellular parasites have undergone significant genome reduction by gene loss over time in the context of their obligate associations with the host. The flux, streamlining and elimination of genes in these genomes constitute a selective and ongoing process. Comparative analyses of five completely sequenced obligatory intracellular parasite genomes reveal that these genomes display marked similarities in patterns of protein length and frequency distribution, with substantial sharing of a 'backbone genome'.