WHO recommends artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) as the most effective choice to treat malaria. For developing transgenic plants with high accumulation of artemisinin (by introducing genes encoding enzymes which regulate the biosynthetic pathway of artemisinin), an efficient protocol for tissue culture and plant regeneration is necessary. In the present study, leaf explants of ...

Plastidic uracil salvage is essential for plant growth and development. So far, PLUTO, the plastidic nucleobase transporter from Arabidopsis thaliana is the only known uracil importer at the inner plastidic membrane which represents the permeability barrier of this organelle. We present the first homology model of PLUTO, the sole plant NCS1 member from Arabidopsis based on the crystal structure...

When exposed to high osmolarity, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) restores its growth and establishes a new steady state by accumulating the osmoprotectant metabolite betaine. Effective osmoregulation has also been implicated in the acquirement of a profound antibiotic resistance by MRSA. Betaine can be obtained from the bacterial habitat or produced intracellularly from choli...

In vitro propagation method was developed for obtaining large number of plantlets of Valeriana wallichii DC. (Valerianaceae), an indigenous high value medicinal and aromatic plant species of Indian Himalayan region, using nodes of in vitro grown seedlings. High frequency shoot proliferation was induced in explants cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with different concentra...

Targeting of the Hsp function in tumor cells is currently being assessed as potential anticancer therapy. An improved understanding of the molecular signals that trigger or attenuate the stress protein response is essential for advances to be made in this field. The present study provides evidence that the membrane fluidizer benzyl alcohol (BA), a documented nondenaturant, acts as a chaperone i...

When massively expressed in bacteria, recombinant proteins often tend to misfold and accumulate as soluble and insoluble nonfunctional aggregates. A general strategy to improve the native folding of recombinant proteins is to increase the cellular concentration of viscous organic compounds, termed osmolytes, or of molecular chaperones that can prevent aggregation and can actively scavenge and c...

WHO recommends artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) as the most effective choice to treat malaria. For developing transgenic plants with high accumulation of artemisinin (by introducing genes encoding enzymes which regulate the biosynthetic pathway of artemisinin), an efficient protocol for tissue culture and plant regeneration is necessary. In the present study, leaf explants of Arte...

We present evidence that the size of an active site side chain may modulate the degree of hydrogen tunneling in an enzyme-catalyzed reaction. Primary and secondary kH/kT and kD/kT kinetic isotope effects have been measured for the oxidation of benzyl alcohol catalyzed by horse liver alcohol dehydrogenase at 25 degrees C. As reported in earlier studies, the relationship between secondary kH/kT a...