Crystal structures of claudins: insights into their intermolecular interactions

Fine tuning of crystal architecture by intermolecular interactions: synthon engineering

RNA folds: insights from recent crystal structures.

An RNA fold is the result of packing together two or more coaxial helical stacks. To date, four RNA folds have been determined at near-atomic resolution by X-ray crystallography: transfer RNA, the hammerhead ribozyme, the P4-P6 domain of the Tetrahymena group I intron, and the hepatitis delta virus ribozyme. All four folds result in RNAs that are considerably more compact than isolated A-form d...

Crystal structures of S6K1 provide insights into the regulation mechanism of S6K1 by the hydrophobic motif.

The activity of S6K1 (p70 ribosomal protein subunit 6 kinase 1) is stimulated by phosphorylation of Thr389 in the hydrophobic motif by mTORC1 (mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1) and phosphorylation of Thr229 in the activation loop by PDK1 (phosphoinositide-dependent kinase 1); however, the order of the two events is still ambiguous. In the present paper we report six crystal structures of...

Crystal structures of substrate complexes of malic enzyme and insights into the catalytic mechanism.

Malic enzymes catalyze the oxidative decarboxylation of L-malate to pyruvate and CO(2) with the reduction of the NAD(P)(+) cofactor in the presence of divalent cations. We report the crystal structures at up to 2.1 A resolution of human mitochondrial NAD(P)(+)-dependent malic enzyme in different pentary complexes with the natural substrate malate or pyruvate, the dinucleotide cofactor NAD(+) or...

Intermolecular interactions of thrombospondins drive their accumulation in extracellular matrix

Thrombospondins participate in many aspects of tissue organization in adult tissue homeostasis, and their dysregulation contributes to pathological processes such as fibrosis and tumor progression. The incorporation of thrombospondins into extracellular matrix (ECM) as discrete puncta has been documented in various tissue and cell biological contexts, yet the underlying mechanisms remain poorly...