Publications by authors named "Turk V"

The discovery of the lysosome, a major cytoplasmic organelle, represents a breakthrough in the understanding of intracellular protein degradation processes-proteolysis [...

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Article Synopsis
  • Emerging RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2 pose significant health risks, with the virus entering cells through pathways that rely on cysteine cathepsins, particularly cathepsin L (CatL), a potential target for treatment.
  • * Researchers explored a range of inhibitors targeting CatL, finding that compounds such as Calpain inhibitor XII and MG-101 show strong antiviral effects at very low concentrations in specific cell lines.
  • * The study also revealed an off-target effect of some inhibitors and provided detailed crystal structures of CatL, which can help in designing better drug candidates against protease-related diseases.
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Background: Environmental monitoring of bacterial pathogens is critical for disease control in coastal marine ecosystems to maintain animal welfare and ecosystem function and to prevent significant economic losses. This requires accurate taxonomic identification of environmental bacterial pathogens, which often cannot be achieved by commonly used genetic markers (e.g.

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Papain-like cysteine proteases are composed of 11 human cysteine cathepsins, originally located in the lysosomes. They exhibit broad specificity and act as endopeptidases and/or exopeptidases. Among them, only cathepsins B, H, C, and X/Z exhibit exopeptidase activity.

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The presence of bacteria and viruses in freshwater represents a global health risk. The substantial spatial and temporal variability of microbes leads to difficulties in quantifying the risks associated with their presence in freshwater. Fine particles, including bacteria and viruses are transported and accumulated into shallow streambed (i.

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Peptidases of the papain family play a key role in protein degradation, regulated proteolysis, and the host-pathogen arms race. Although the papain family has been the subject of many studies, knowledge about its diversity, origin, and evolution in Eukaryota, Bacteria, and Archaea is limited; thus, we aimed to address these long-standing knowledge gaps. We traced the origin and expansion of the papain family with a phylogenomic analysis, using sequence data from numerous prokaryotic and eukaryotic proteomes, transcriptomes, and genomes.

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The rapid development of machine learning has increased interest in the use of deep learning methods in medical research. Deep learning in the medical field is used in disease detection and classification problems in the clinical decision-making process. Large amounts of labeled datasets are often required to train deep neural networks; however, in the medical field, the lack of a sufficient number of images in datasets and the difficulties encountered during data collection are among the main problems.

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COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes acute respiratory syndrome, is a contagious and deadly disease that has devastating effects on society and human life. COVID-19 can cause serious complications, especially in patients with pre-existing chronic health problems such as diabetes, hypertension, lung cancer, weakened immune systems, and the elderly. The most critical step in the fight against COVID-19 is the rapid diagnosis of infected patients.

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Machine learning has been recently used especially in the medical field. In the diagnosis of serious diseases such as cancer, deep learning techniques can be used to reduce the workload of experts and to produce quick solutions. The nuclei found in the histopathology dataset are an essential parameter in disease detection.

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Nano-dimensional materials have become a focus of multiple clinical applications due to their unique physicochemical properties. Magnetic nanoparticles represent an important class of nanomaterials that are widely studied for use as magnetic resonance (MR) contrast and drug delivery agents, especially as they can be detected and manipulated remotely. Using magnetic cobalt ferrite spinel (MCFS) nanoparticles, this study was aimed at developing a multifunctional drug delivery platform with MRI capability for use in cancer treatment.

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Coastal zones are exposed to various anthropogenic impacts, such as different types of wastewater pollution, e.g., treated wastewater discharges, leakage from sewage systems, and agricultural and urban runoff.

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Cancer is among the common causes of death around the world. Skin cancer is one of the most lethal types of cancer. Early diagnosis and treatment are vital in skin cancer.

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The novel antibiotic-exploiting strategy in the treatment of Alzheimer's (AD) and Parkinson's (PD) disease has emerged as a potential breakthrough in the field. The research in animal AD/PD models provided evidence on the antiamyloidogenic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antiapoptotic activity of tetracyclines, associated with cognitive improvement. The neuroprotective effects of minocycline and doxycycline in animals initiated investigation of their clinical efficacy in AD and PD patients which led to inconclusive results and additionally to insufficient safety data on a long-standing doxycycline and minocycline therapy in these patient populations.

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The present knowledge of the carbonate system in the northern Adriatic is described in this short overview. Its buffer capacity is rather high, due to riverine input of carbonates dissolved from Alpine and Karstic watersheds, and the waters should have a higher resilience to acidification. In the shallow eutrophic areas, the combined effect of rising atmospheric CO2, warming and river-induced anthropogenic CO2 with the associated decrease in buffer capacity could act to acidification process.

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Background: Cathepsin H (CatH) is a lysosomal cysteine protease with a unique aminopeptidase activity. Its expression level is increased in activated immune cells including dendritic cells, macrophages, and microglia. We have previously reported that CatH deficiency impairs toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3)-mediated activation of interferon regulatory factor 3 (IRF3), and the subsequent secretion of interferon (IFN)-β from dendritic cells.

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Article Synopsis
  • In 2008, guidelines were established for researching autophagy, which has since gained significant interest and new technologies, necessitating regular updates to monitoring methods across various organisms.
  • The new guidelines emphasize selecting appropriate techniques to evaluate autophagy while noting that no single method suits all situations; thus, a combination of methods is encouraged.
  • The document highlights that key proteins involved in autophagy also impact other cellular processes, suggesting genetic studies should focus on multiple autophagy-related genes to fully understand these pathways.
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Human cathepsin X belongs to the cathepsin family of 11 lysosomal cysteine proteases. We expressed recombinant procathepsin X in Pichia pastoris in vitro and cleaved it into its active mature form using aspartic cathepsin E. We found, using size exclusion chromatography, X-ray crystallography, and small-angle X-ray scattering, that cathepsin X is a biologically active homodimer with a molecular weight of ~53 kDa.

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Despite accumulating evidence of the importance of the jellyfish-associated microbiome to jellyfish, its potential relevance to blue biotechnology has only recently been recognized. In this review, we emphasize the biotechnological potential of host⁻microorganism systems and focus on gelatinous zooplankton as a host for the microbiome with biotechnological potential. The basic characteristics of jellyfish-associated microbial communities, the mechanisms underlying the jellyfish-microbe relationship, and the role/function of the jellyfish-associated microbiome and its biotechnological potential are reviewed.

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The majority of lysosomal cysteine cathepsins are ubiquitously expressed enzymes. However, some of them differ in their specific cell or tissue distribution and substrate specificity, suggesting their involvement in determining normal cellular processes, as well as pathologies. Their proteolytic activities are potentially harmful if uncontrolled.

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Jellyfish are a prominent component of the plankton community. They frequently form conspicuous blooms which may interfere with different human enterprises. Among the aspects that remain understudied are jellyfish associations with microorganisms having potentially important implications for organic matter cycling.

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During normal aging, innate immunity progresses to a chronic state. However, how oxidative stress and chronic neuroinflammation arise during aging remains unclear. In this study, we found that genetic ablation of cathepsin B (CatB) in mice significantly reduced the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and neuroinflammation and improved cognitive impairment during aging.

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