102,033 research outputs found
Osmotic resistance of high-density erythrocytes in transglutaminase 2-deficient mice
Transglutaminase 2 (TGase 2) is a Ca(2+)-dependent enzyme responsible for the posttransttranslational modification of proteins by transamidation of specific polypeptide-bound glutamine residues. Elevating the intracellular concentration of Ca(2+)-ions in human erythrocytes leads to the formation of cytoskeletal and cytoplasmic protein polymers. The Ca(2+)-dependent TGase 2-dependent cross-linking activity has been proposed for its involvement in erythrocyte aging, by inducing irreversible modification of their cell shape and deformability. Accordingly, we found that high-density ("old") TGase 2(minus sign/minus sign) red blood cells (RBCs) were more resistant to osmotic stress-induced hemolysis than those from wild type mice. In addition, elevating the intracellular concentration of Ca(2+) by treatment of total RBCs with ionophore A23187 resulted in enhanced resistance of TGase 2-deficient erythrocytes compared to their normal counterpart. These findings indicate that TGase 2 may have a role in regulating structural flexibility of RBCs, possibly affecting their life span in physiopathological conditions, such as erythrocyte senescence, which are accompanied by increases in intracellular Ca(2+) concentration
Glutathione reductase and thioredoxin reductase at the crossroad: The structure of Schistosoma mansoni thioredoxin glutathione reductase.
Thioredoxin glutathione reductase (TGR) is a key flavoenzyme expressed by schistosomes that bridges two detoxification pathways crucial for the parasite survival in the host's organism. In this article we report the crystal structure (at 2.2 Å resolution) of TGR from Schistosoma mansoni (SmTGR), deleted in the last two residues. The structure reveals the peculiar architecture of this chimeric enzyme: the small Glutaredoxin (Grx) domain at the N-terminus is joined to the large thioredoxin reductase (TR) one via an extended complementary surface, involving residues not conserved in the Grx superfamily; the TR domain interacts with an identical partner via its C-terminal domain, forming a dimer with a twisted “W” shape. Although lacking the penultimate Selenocysteine residue (Sec), the enzyme is still able to reduce oxidized glutathione. These data update the interpretation of the interdomain communication in TGR enzymes. The possible function of this enzyme in pathogenic parasites is discussed
The chemical advantage of sulfur over selenium: controlling the switching-in-function of the moonlighting behaviour of Peroxiredoxin.
Changing patterns in the etiology of HIV-associated bacterial pneumonia in the era of highly active antiretroviral therapy
Crystal structure of Plasmodium falciparum thioredoxin reductase, a validated drug target.
Simultaneous static and dynamic light scattering approach to the characterization of the different fibrin gel structures occurring by changing chloride concentration
The structure of fibrin fibers has been investigated by simultaneous elastic and dynamic light scatteringmeasurements. This approach allows the recovery of reliable structural parameters of the fibrin fibers while checking for the reliability of the necessarily ab initio assumptions on some nonexperimentally accessible parameters. The number of protofibrils per fiber section, N, related to the fiber diameter, and the gel mass fractal dimension Dm are obtained. Since the fiber size is largely controlled by ions in the gelling solution, a detailed characterization of the fiber structure formed by changing Cl− concentration is given. While N values decrease from 6000 to 1.5 protofibrils per fiber section, going from 0 to 300 mM in CCl−,Dm increases from 1 to 1.8. This means that the overall gel structure is affected by Cl−, being the fiber size decreased and branch points per unit volume increased
Bibliographie Hilarion G. Petzold 1958 – 2009 mit Anhang als Einführung
Dieses Archiv enthält die Gesamtbibliographie der Werke des Autors nebst einiger Texte „Über H. G. Petzold“ im Schlussteil der Bibliographie sowie einen Anhang mit einer Einführung in die Architektur des Werkes in seinem wissenslogischen Aufbau als Ausarbeitung seines „Tree of Science Modells“ (2007).This archive contains the complete bibliography of the author and some texts about H. G. Petzold, moreover an epilogue with an introduction to the architecture of the works in its epistemological structure and composition and as an elaborations of Petzold’s „Tree of Science Modell (2007).https://www.fpi-publikation.de/polyloge/01-2009-petzold-h-g-gesamtbibliographie-h-g-petzold-1958-2009-updating-november2009/peerReviewedpublishedVersio
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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