It is not entirely clear why, at some stage in its evolution, terrestrial life adopted double-stranded DNA as the hereditary material. To explain this, we propose that small, double-stranded, polynucleotide circlets have special catalytic properties. We then use this proposal as the basis for a 'view from here' that we term the Circlet hypothesis as part of a broader Ring World.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProtein-protein interactions (PPIs) outnumber proteins and are crucial to many fundamental processes; in consequence, PPIs are associated with several pathological conditions including neurodegeneration and modulating them by drugs constitutes a potentially major class of therapy. Classically, however, the discovery of small molecules for use as drugs entails targeting individual proteins rather than targeting PPIs. This is largely because discovering small molecules to modulate PPIs has been seen as extremely challenging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA novel coronavirus discovered in 2019 is a new strain of the family (CoVs) that had not been previously identified in humans. It is known as SARS-CoV-2 for , whilst COVID-19 is the name of the disease associated with the virus. SARS-CoV-2 emerged over one year ago and still haunts the human community throughout the world, causing both healthcare and socioeconomic problems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Hyperstructures are large assemblies of molecules and macromolecules that perform functions such as metabolism (including RNA and protein synthesis and degradation), transport, DNA replication, cell division, signalling and chemotaxis.
Methods: Such hyperstructures might be manipulated by hybrid metabolites or hybolites made by a pairwise, covalently linked combination of the thousands of small molecules involved in metabolism and signalling.
Results: Here, we review recent evidence for hyperstructures in prokaryotes and for interactions between hyperstructures as a determinant of the phenotype.
There are several ways that our species might try to send a message to another species separated from us by space and/or time. Synthetic biology might be used to write an epitaph to our species, or simply "Kilroy was here", in the genome of a bacterium via the patterns of either (1) the codons to exploit Life's non-equilibrium character or (2) the bases themselves to exploit Life's quasi-equilibrium character. We suggest here how DNA movies might be designed using such patterns.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent Pat Antiinfect Drug Discov
June 2009
The scarcity of new molecules that can act on bacteria is a major problem. New strategies for developing such molecules might be based on recent concepts in microbiology. Hyperstructures are large assemblies of molecules and macromolecules that perform functions such as DNA replication, RNA degradation and chemotaxis and the interactions between hyperstructures have been proposed to constitute an intermediate level of organisation in cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe lipids that are essential to the functioning of the bacterial membrane exist in hundreds of different forms. The reasons for this diversity are far from clear but are presumably related to the roles of these lipids in both facilitating enzymic activities and generating proteolipid domains. A full understanding of bacterial physiology therefore requires characterization of lipids in different strains in a variety of environmental conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInformation about abiotic conditions is stored for long periods in plants and, in flax seedlings, can lead to the production of meristems. To investigate the underlying mechanism, flax seedlings were given abiotic stimuli that included a mechanical stimulus (by manipulation), one or two cold shocks, a slow cold treatment and a drought stress and, if these seedlings were then subjected to a temporary (1 to 3 days) depletion of calcium, epidermal meristems were produced in the seedling hypocotyls. This production was inhibited by the addition to the nutrient media of EGTA, ruthenium red, lanthanum or gadolinium that affect calcium availability or calcium transport.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC/ESI-MS/MS) method using reversed-phase chromatography was developed for the analysis of phospholipids from bacterial extracts of a wild-type strain of Escherichia coli. Product ion mass spectra from [M--H](-) precursor ions allowed an identification of individual phospholipid species that includes both fatty acid composition and fatty acyl location on the glycerol backbone using diagnostic product ions. Thus, complete assignment, including sn-1/sn-2 fatty acyl position, was achieved for this strain of E.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEmbedding a simple Michaelis-Menten enzyme in a gel slice may allow the catalysis of not only scalar processes but also vectorial ones, including uphill transport of a substrate between two compartments, and may make it seem as if two enzymes or transporters are present or as if an allosterically controlled enzyme/transporter is operating. The values of kinetic parameters of an enzyme in a partially hydrophobic environment are usually different from those actually measured in a homogeneous aqueous solution. This implies that fitting kinetic data (expressed in reciprocal co-ordinates) from in vivo studies of enzymes or transporters to two straight lines or a sigmoidal curve does not prove the existence of two different membrane mechanisms or allosteric control.
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