The thermal stability of proteins was studied, 195 single amino acid residue replacements reported elsewhere being analysed for several protein conformational characteristics: type of residue replacement; conservative versus nonconservative substitution; replacement being in a homologous stretch of amino acid residues; change in hydrogen bond, van der Waals and secondary structure propensities; solvent-accessible versus inaccessible replacement; type of secondary structure involved in the substitution; the physico-chemical characteristics to which the thermostability enhancement can be attributed; and the relationship of the replacement site to the folding intermediates of the protein, when known. From the above analyses, some general rules arise which suggest where amino acid substitutions can be made to enhance protein thermostability: substitutions are conservative according to the Dayhoff matrix; mainly occur on conserved stretches of residues; preferentially occur on solvent-accessible residues; maintain or enhance the secondary structure propensity upon substitution; contribute to neutralize the dipole moment of the caps of helices and strands; and tend to increase the number of potential hydrogen bonding or van der Waals contacts or improve hydrophobic packing.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/protein/9.3.265 | DOI Listing |
Nanotechnology
January 2025
Department of Biotechnology, Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education (Deemed to be University), Anand Nagar, School of Bio, Chemical & Process Enginneering, Krishnankoil, Krishnan Kovil, Tamil Nadu, 626126, INDIA.
Significant progress has been made in cancer therapy with protein-based nanocarriers targeted directly to surface receptors for drug delivery. The nanocarriers are a potentially effective solution for the potential drawbacks of traditional chemotherapy, such as lack of specificity, side effects, and development resistance. Peptides as nanocarriers have been designed based on their biocompatible, biodegradable, and versatile functions to deliver therapeutic agents into cancer cells, reduce systemic toxicity, and maximize therapy efficacy through utilizing targeted ligands such as antibodies, amino acids, vitamins, and other small molecules onto protein-based nanocarriers and thus ensuring that drugs selectively accumulate in the cancer cells instead of healthy organs/drug release at a target site without effects on normal cells, which inherently caused less systemic toxicity/off-target effect.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS Biol
January 2025
Laboratory for Synthetic Biology, RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, Osaka, Japan.
Antibodies are extensively used in biomedical research, clinical fields, and disease treatment. However, to enhance the reproducibility and reliability of antibody-based experiments, it is crucial to have a detailed understanding of the antibody's target specificity and epitope. In this study, we developed a high-throughput and precise epitope analysis method, DECODE (Decoding Epitope Composition by Optimized-mRNA-display, Data analysis, and Expression sequencing).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenome Biol Evol
January 2025
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California-Merced, Merced, CA 95343.
Eukaryotic genome size varies considerably, even among closely related species. The causes of this variation are unclear, but weak selection against supposedly costly "extra" genomic sequences has been central to the debate for over 50 years. The mutational hazard hypothesis, which focuses on the increased mutation rate to null alleles in superfluous sequences, is particularly influential, though challenging to test.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Pharm Pharmacol
January 2025
Department of Cell Biology, School of Life Sciences, Central South University; Changsha, Hunan, 410013, P.R. China.
Objectives: Pancreatic cancer, a highly invasive and prognostically unfavorable malignant tumor, consistently exhibits resistance to conventional chemotherapy, leading to substantial side effects and diminished patient quality of life. This highlights the critical need for the discovery of novel, effective, and safe chemotherapy drugs. This study aimed to explore bioactive compounds, particularly natural products, as an alternative for JAK2 protein inhibitor in cancer treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Syst Evol Microbiol
January 2025
Department of Research and Innovation, MATIS, Reykjavk, Iceland.
A novel bacterium, designated 19SA41, was isolated from the air of the Icelandic volcanic island Surtsey. Cells of strain 19SA41 are Gram-stain-negative, strictly aerobic, non-motile rods and form pale yellow-pigmented colonies. The strain grows at 4-30 °C (optimum, 22 °C), at pH 6-10 (optimum, pH 7.
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