Insights into Cytokine–Receptor Interactions from Cytokine Engineering

Insights into kinetochore–DNA interactions from the structure of Cep3Δ

The CBF3 complex is an essential core component of the budding yeast kinetochore and is required for the centromeric localization of all other kinetochore proteins. We determined the crystal structure of a large section of the protein Cep3 from CBF3, which is the only component with obvious DNA-binding motifs. The protein adopts a roughly bilobal shape, with an extended dimerization interface. ...

Brain aging: insights into neuron-glia interactions

Aging begins at maturity and is characterized by increasing deviations from an ideal functional state. One major reason for this is thought to be oxydatif stress. The brain is particularly susceptible to oxidative damage. Besides neurons, glial cells, a major family of neural cells, are directly involved in vital brain functions and particularly in the brain antioxidant defence. This review bri...

Insights into CYP2B6-mediated drug–drug interactions

Mounting evidence demonstrates that CYP2B6 plays a much larger role in human drug metabolism than was previously believed. The discovery of multiple important substrates of CYP2B6 as well as polymorphic differences has sparked increasing interest in the genetic and xenobiotic factors contributing to the expression and function of the enzyme. The expression of CYP2B6 is regulated primarily by th...

Quantitative insights into stochastic monoallelic expression of cytokine genes.

Gene expression from both parental alleles is beneficial by masking the effects of deleterious recessive mutations and by reducing the noise in gene expression in diploid organisms. However, a class of genes are expressed preferentially or strictly from a single allele. The selective advantage of avoiding biallelic expression is clear for allelic-excluded antigen receptor and odorant receptor g...

Insights into in vitro environments for human cartilage tissue engineering