Publications by authors named "Robert Busam"

Remarkable advances in high-throughput sequencing have enabled major biological discoveries and clinical applications, but achieving wider distribution and use depends critically on further improvements in scale and cost reduction. Nanopore sequencing has long held the promise for such progress, but has had limited market penetration. This is because efficient and accurate nanopore sequencing of nucleic acids has been challenged by fundamental signal-to-noise limitations resulting from the poor spatial resolution and molecular distinction of nucleobases.

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Background: Steroidogenic acute regulatory (StAR) protein related lipid transfer (START) domains are small globular modules that form a cavity where lipids and lipid hormones bind. These domains can transport ligands to facilitate lipid exchange between biological membranes, and they have been postulated to modulate the activity of other domains of the protein in response to ligand binding. More than a dozen human genes encode START domains, and several of them are implicated in a disease.

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Perturbed cell adhesion mechanisms are crucial for tumor invasion and metastasis. A cell adhesion protein, TSLC1 (tumor suppressor in lung cancer 1), is inactivated in a majority of metastatic cancers. DAL-1 (differentially expressed in adenocarcinoma of the lung protein), another tumor suppressor, binds through its FERM domain to the TSLC1 C-terminal, 4.

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Altered inositol metabolism is implicated in a number of diabetic complications. The first committed step in mammalian inositol catabolism is performed by myo-inositol oxygenase (MIOX), which catalyzes a unique four-electron dioxygen-dependent ring cleavage of myo-inositol to D-glucuronate. Here, we present the crystal structure of human MIOX in complex with myo-inosose-1 bound in a terminal mode to the MIOX diiron cluster site.

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In Escherichia coli, exonuclease I (ExoI) is a monomeric processive 3'-5' exonuclease that degrades single-stranded DNA. The enzyme has been implicated as primarily being involved in repairing frameshift mutations. The structure of the enzyme has previously been determined in a hexagonal space group at 2.

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Phosphatases are a diverse group of enzymes that regulate numerous cellular processes. Much of what is known relates to the tyrosine, threonine, and serine phosphatases, whereas the histidine phosphatases have not been studied as much. The structure of phosphohistidine phosphatase (PHPT1), the first identified eukaryotic-protein histidine phosphatase, has been determined to a resolution of 1.

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In order to further explore the tolerance of proteins to amino acid substitutions within the interior, a series of core residues was replaced by methionine within the C-terminal domain of T4 lysozyme. By replacing leucine, isoleucine, valine and phenylalanine residues a total of 10 methionines could be introduced, which corresponds to a third of the residues that are buried in this domain. As more methionines are incorporated the protein gradually loses stability.

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