Basic Science and Pathogenesis.

Background: Oral and gut microbiomes have been associated with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). Although the role of the gut microbiome and gut dysbiosis in ADRD has been extensively studied, research on the oral microbiome is lacking. Moreover, the synergetic contribution of oral and gut microbiomes to ADRD is unexplored.

Evolutionary Couplings and Molecular Dynamic Simulations Highlight Details of GPCRs Heterodimers' Interfaces.

A growing body of evidence suggests that only a few amino acids ("hot-spots") at the interface contribute most of the binding energy in transient protein-protein interactions. However, experimental protocols to identify these hot-spots are highly labor-intensive and expensive. Computational methods, including evolutionary couplings, have been proposed to predict the hot-spots, but they generally fail to provide details of the interacting amino acids.