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Racemic Crystallography
Racemic crystallography is a technique used in structural biology where crystals of a protein molecule are developed from an equimolar mixture of an L-protein molecule of natural chirality and its D-protein mirror image. L-protein molecules consist of 'left-handed' L-amino acids and the achiral amino acid glycine, whereas the mirror image D-protein molecules consist of 'right-handed' D-amino acids and glycine. Typically, both the L-protein and the D-protein are prepared by total chemical synthesis. Manufacturing Native chemical ligation of unprotected peptide segments is used to prepare the protein's polypeptide chain, which is then folded to form a protein molecule. In native chemical ligation a peptide C-terminal thioester reacts with a second peptide that has a cysteine residue at its N-terminus, to give a product with a peptide bond at the ligation site. Multiple unprotected peptide segments can be linked in this way to give the full length polypeptide chain, which is fold ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Racemic Crystal Structure Of Rv1738 From Mycobacterium Tuberculosis
In chemistry, a racemic mixture, or racemate (), is one that has equal Amount of substance, amounts of left- and right-handed enantiomers of a Chirality (chemistry), chiral molecule or salt. Racemic mixtures are rare in nature, but many compounds are produced industrially as racemates. History The first known racemic mixture was racemic acid, which Louis Pasteur found to be a mixture of the two enantiomeric isomers of tartaric acid. He manually separated the crystals of a mixture by hand, starting from an aqueous solution of the sodium ammonium salt of racemate tartaric acid. Pasteur benefited from the fact that ammonium tartrate salt that gives enantiomeric crystals with distinct crystal forms (at 77 °F). Reasoning from the macroscopic scale down to the molecular, he reckoned that the molecules had to have non-superimposable mirror images. A sample with only a single enantiomer is an ''enantiomerically pure'' or ''enantiopure'' compound. Etymology From racemic acid fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Structural Biology
Structural biology is a field that is many centuries old which, and as defined by the Journal of Structural Biology, deals with structural analysis of living material (formed, composed of, and/or maintained and refined by living cells) at every level of organization. Early structural biologists throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries were primarily only able to study structures to the limit of the naked eye's visual acuity and through magnifying glasses and light microscopes. In the 20th century, a variety of experimental techniques were developed to examine the 3D structures of biological molecules. The most prominent techniques are X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance, and electron microscopy. Through the discovery of X-rays and its applications to protein crystals, structural biology was revolutionized, as now scientists could obtain the three-dimensional structures of biological molecules in atomic detail. Likewise, NMR spectroscopy allowed information about p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chirality (chemistry)
In chemistry, a molecule or ion is called chiral () if it cannot be superposed on its mirror image by any combination of rotation (geometry), rotations, translation (geometry), translations, and some Conformational isomerism, conformational changes. This geometric property is called chirality (). The terms are derived from Ancient Greek χείρ (''cheir'') 'hand'; which is the canonical example of an object with this property. A chiral molecule or ion exists in two stereoisomers that are mirror images of each other, called enantiomers; they are often distinguished as either "right-handed" or "left-handed" by their absolute configuration or some other criterion. The two enantiomers have the same chemical properties, except when reacting with other chiral compounds. They also have the same physics, physical properties, except that they often have opposite optical activity, optical activities. A homogeneous mixture of the two enantiomers in equal parts is said to be racemic mixtu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amino Acid
Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha amino acids appear in the genetic code. Amino acids can be classified according to the locations of the core structural functional groups, as Alpha and beta carbon, alpha- , beta- , gamma- or delta- amino acids; other categories relate to Chemical polarity, polarity, ionization, and side chain group type (aliphatic, Open-chain compound, acyclic, aromatic, containing hydroxyl or sulfur, etc.). In the form of proteins, amino acid '' residues'' form the second-largest component (water being the largest) of human muscles and other tissues. Beyond their role as residues in proteins, amino acids participate in a number of processes such as neurotransmitter transport and biosynthesis. It is thought that they played a key role in enabling life ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D-Amino Acid
D-Amino acids are amino acids where the stereogenic carbon alpha to the amino group has the D-configuration. For most naturally-occurring amino acids, this carbon has the L-configuration. D-Amino acids are occasionally found in nature as residues in proteins. They are formed from ribosomally-derived D-amino acid residues. Amino acids, as components of peptides, peptide hormones, structural and immune proteins, are the most important bioregulators involved in all life processes along with nucleic acids, carbohydrates and lipids. "Environmental D-amino acids are thought to be derived from organic diagenesis such as racemization and release from bacterial cell walls and even from microbial production." Discovery Their discovery was in the 1950s. "Auclair and Patton (1950) first reported their presence in the blood of insects and mollusks" Furthermore, they also have been identified in various mammalian tissues. The two major types of D-amino acids synthesized in and by mamm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convergent Synthesis
In chemistry a convergent synthesis is a strategy that aims to improve the efficiency of multistep synthesis, most often in organic synthesis. In this type of synthesis several individual pieces of a complex molecule are synthesized in stage one, and then in stage two these pieces are combined to form the final product. In linear synthesis the overall yield quickly drops with each reaction step: :A → B → C → D Suppose the yield is 50% for each reaction; the overall yield of D is only 12.5% from A. In a convergent synthesis :A → B (50%) :C → D (50%) :B + D → E (25%) the overall yield of E (25%) looks much better. Convergent synthesis is applied in the synthesis of complex molecules and involves fragment coupling and independent synthesis. This technique is more useful if the compound is large and symmetric, where at least two aspects of the molecule can be formed separately and still come together. Examples: * Convergent synthesis is encountered in dendrimer s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rubredoxin
Rubredoxins are a class of low-molecular-weight iron-containing proteins found in sulfur-metabolizing bacteria and archaea. Sometimes rubredoxins are classified as iron-sulfur proteins; however, in contrast to iron-sulfur proteins, rubredoxins do not contain inorganic sulfide. Like cytochromes, ferredoxins and Rieske proteins, rubredoxins participate in electron transfer in biological systems. Structure The 3-D structures of a number of rubredoxins have been solved. The fold belongs to the α+β class, with 2 α-helices and 2-3 β-strands. Rubredoxin active site contains an iron ion which is coordinated by the sulfurs of four conserved cysteine residues forming an almost regular tetrahedron. This is sometimes denoted as a Fe-0Sor an Fe1S0 system, in analogy to the nomenclature for iron-sulfur proteins. While the vast majority of rubredoxins are soluble, there exists a membrane-bound rubredoxin, referred to as rubredoxin A, in oxygenic photoautotrophs. Rubredoxins perform on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Centrosymmetry
In crystallography, a centrosymmetric point group contains an inversion center as one of its symmetry elements. In such a point group, for every point (x, y, z) in the unit cell there is an indistinguishable point (-x, -y, -z). Such point groups are also said to have ''inversion'' symmetry. Point reflection is a similar term used in geometry. Crystals with an inversion center cannot display certain properties, such as the piezoelectric effect. The following space groups have inversion symmetry: the triclinic space group 2, the monoclinic 10-15, the orthorhombic 47-74, the tetragonal 83-88 and 123-142, the trigonal 147, 148 and 162-167, the hexagonal 175, 176 and 191-194, the cubic 200-206 and 221-230. Point groups lacking an inversion center (non-centrosymmetric) can be ''polar'', ''chiral'', both, or neither. A ''polar'' point group is one whose symmetry operations leave more than one common point unmoved. A polar point group has no unique origin because each of those un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Racemic Mixture
In chemistry, a racemic mixture, or racemate (), is one that has equal amounts of left- and right-handed enantiomers of a chiral molecule or salt. Racemic mixtures are rare in nature, but many compounds are produced industrially as racemates. History The first known racemic mixture was racemic acid, which Louis Pasteur found to be a mixture of the two enantiomeric isomers of tartaric acid. He manually separated the crystals of a mixture by hand, starting from an aqueous solution of the sodium ammonium salt of racemate tartaric acid. Pasteur benefited from the fact that ammonium tartrate salt that gives enantiomeric crystals with distinct crystal forms (at 77 °F). Reasoning from the macroscopic scale down to the molecular, he reckoned that the molecules had to have non-superimposable mirror images. A sample with only a single enantiomer is an ''enantiomerically pure'' or ''enantiopure'' compound. Etymology From racemic acid found in grapes; from Latin ''racemus'', meani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mycobacterium Tuberculosis
''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (M. tb) is a species of pathogenic bacteria in the family Mycobacteriaceae and the causative agent of tuberculosis. First discovered in 1882 by Robert Koch, ''M. tuberculosis'' has an unusual, waxy coating on its cell surface primarily due to the presence of mycolic acid. This coating makes the cells impervious to Gram staining, and as a result, ''M. tuberculosis'' can appear weakly Gram-positive. Acid-fastness, Acid-fast stains such as Ziehl–Neelsen stain, Ziehl–Neelsen, or Fluorescence, fluorescent stains such as Auramine O, auramine are used instead to identify ''M. tuberculosis'' with a microscope. The physiology of ''M. tuberculosis'' is highly aerobic organism, aerobic and requires high levels of oxygen. Primarily a pathogen of the mammalian respiratory system, it infects the lungs. The most frequently used diagnostic methods for tuberculosis are the Mantoux test, tuberculin skin test, Acid-Fast Stain, acid-fast stain, Microbiological cultu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ubiquitin
Ubiquitin is a small (8.6 kDa) regulatory protein found in most tissues of eukaryotic organisms, i.e., it is found ''ubiquitously''. It was discovered in 1975 by Gideon Goldstein and further characterized throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. Four genes in the human genome code for ubiquitin: UBB, UBC, UBA52 and RPS27A. The addition of ubiquitin to a substrate protein is called ubiquitylation (or, alternatively, ubiquitination or ubiquitinylation). Ubiquitylation affects proteins in many ways: it can mark them for degradation via the proteasome, alter their cellular location, affect their activity, and promote or prevent protein interactions. Ubiquitylation involves three main steps: activation, conjugation, and ligation, performed by ubiquitin-activating enzymes (E1s), ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes (E2s), and ubiquitin ligases (E3s), respectively. The result of this sequential cascade is to bind ubiquitin to lysine residues on the protein substrate via an isopeptide bond, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A
Vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''VEGFA'' gene. Function This gene is a member of the platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)/vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family and encodes a protein that is often found as a disulfide linked homodimer. This protein is a glycosylated mitogen that specifically acts on endothelial cells and has various effects, including mediating increased vascular permeability, inducing angiogenesis, vasculogenesis and endothelial cell growth, promoting cell migration, and inhibiting apoptosis. Alternatively spliced transcript variants, encoding either freely secreted or cell-associated isoforms, have been characterized. VEGF-A shows prominent activity with vascular endothelial cells, primarily through its interactions with the VEGFR1 and -R2 receptors found in prominently on the endothelial cell membrane. Although, it does have effects on a number of other cell types (e.g., stimulation mon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
