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Background: Under moderate pressure, xenon can bind to proteins and form weak but specific interactions. Such protein-xenon complexes can be used as isomorphous derivatives for phase determination in X-ray crystallography.Results Investigation of the serine proteinase class of enzymes shows that the catalytic triad, the common hydrolytic motif of these enzymes, is a specific binding site for one xenon...
Background: Over three thousand species of plants, including important food crops such as cassava, use cyanogenesis, the liberation of HCN upon tissue damage, as a defense against predation. Detoxification of cyanogenic food crops requires disruption of the cyanogenic pathway. Hydroxynitrile lyase is one of the key enzymes in cyanogenesis, catalyzing the decomposition of an acyanohydrin to form HCN...
Background The human α-interferon (huIFN-α) family displays broad spectrum antiviral, antiproliferative and immunomodulatory activities on a variety of cell types. The diverse biological activities of the IFN-α's are conveyed to cells through specific interactions with cell-surface receptors. Despite considerable effort, no crystal structure of a member of this family has yet been reported, because...
Background: Staphylococcal epidermolytic toxins A and B (ETA and ETB) are responsible for the staphylococcal scalded skin syndrome of newborn and young infants; this condition can appear just a few hours after birth. These toxins cause the disorganization and disruption of the region between the stratum spinosum and the stratum granulosum - two of the three cellular layers constituting the epidermis...
Background: Parvoviruses infect vertebrates, insects and crustaceans. Many arthropod parvoviruses (densoviruses) are highly pathogenic and kill approximately 90% of the host larvae within days, making them potentially effective as selective pesticides. Improved understanding of densoviral structure and function is therefore desirable. There are four different initiation sites for translation of the...
Background: The bifunctional enzyme formiminotransferase-cyclodeaminase (FTCD) contains two active sites at different positions on the protein structure. The enzyme binds a γ-linked polyglutamylated form of the tetrahydrofolate substrate and channels the product of the transferase reaction from the transferase active site to the cyclodeaminase active site. Structural studies of this bifunctional enzyme...
Background: Type I collagen contains specific lysine and hydroxylysine residues that are critical in the formation of intermolecular cross-links crucial for the normal configuration and stability of the 67 nm axial repeat of collagen fibrils in the extracellular matrix. The major cross-linkage sites are believed to occur between the non-helical terminal regions (telopeptides) and helical segments...
Background: Protein targeting to the endoplasmic reticulum in eukaryotes and to the cell membrane in prokaryotes is mediated by the signal recognition particle (SRP) and its receptor (SR). Both contain conserved GTPase domains in the signal-peptide-binding proteins (SRP54 and Ffh) and the SR proteins (SRα and FtsY). These GTPases are involved in the regulation of protein targeting. Most studies so...
Background: The proteins belonging to the collagen family are ubiquitous throughout the animal kingdom. The most abundant collagen, type I, readily forms fibrils that convey the principal mechanical support and structural organization in the extracellular matrix of connective tissues such as bone, skin, tendon, and vasculature. An understanding of the molecular arrangement of collagen in fibrils is...
Diffraction quality crystals are essential for crystallographic studies of protein structure, and the production of poorly diffracting crystals is often regarded as a dead end in the process. Here we show a dramatic improvement of poorly diffracting DsbG crystals allowing high-resolution diffraction data measurement. Before dehydration, the crystals are fragile and the diffraction pattern is streaky,...
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