Echinoderms Metabolites: Structure, Functions, and Biomedical Perspectives

Mucin structure, aggregation, physiological functions and biomedical applications

An understanding of the basic structure, viscoelastic properties and interactions of mucin glycoproteins is of considerable interest to food science because of the important protective role that these macromolecules play in gastric physiology. The polymeric/colloidal behavior of mucins is complicated due to their large size (2–50 MDa) and complex structure with domains involving hydrophilic/hyd...

Echinoderms

two fish. In the wild, kittiwakes have to learn to look for particular colours and patterns in the ocean to find the best place to fish. The researchers tried to recreate this for the captive birds by making them search for their food among a chequerboard of different coloured bowls. Chicks on the unrestricted fatty diet quickly learned which bowls contained food, but chicks on lean rations wer...

Zika Virus Methyltransferase: Structure and Functions for Drug Design Perspectives.

The Flavivirus Zika virus (ZIKV) is the causal agent of neurological disorders like microcephaly in newborns or Guillain-Barre syndrome. Its NS5 protein embeds a methyltransferase (MTase) domain involved in the formation of the viral mRNA cap. We investigated the structural and functional properties of the ZIKV MTase. We show that the ZIKV MTase can methylate RNA cap structures at the N-7 posit...

Cell Envelope Structure and Functions in Gram-negative Bacteria

Prasugrel metabolites inhibit neutrophil functions.

Clopidogrel and prasugrel belong to a thienopyridine class of oral antiplatelet drugs that, after having been metabolized in the liver, can inhibit platelet function by irreversibly antagonizing the P2Y(12) receptor. Furthermore, thienopyridines influence numerous inflammatory conditions, but their effects on neutrophils have not been evaluated, despite the important role of these cells in infl...