neuroserpin, a member of the serine proteinase inhibitor (serpin) superfamily, is known to be a neuroprotective factor in the focal ischemic stroke followed by reducing the microglial activation. neuroserpin is a protein rich of methionine residues that can scavenge the free radical species which may increase its neuroprotective effect. on the other hand, the oxidative modifications of the amin...

introduction: congenital long qt syndrome (lqts) is a cardiac disorder characterized by qt interval prolongation at basal ecg. different lqts genes encode ion channel subunits or proteins involved in regulating cardiac ionic currents. long qt syndrome type 6 (lqt6) is caused by mutation in the kcne2 gene. our research aimed to analyze genetic variants of kcne2 gene causing the disease in irania...

To promote our better understanding of the dynamic stability of the bovine cathepsin B structure, which is characterized by an extra disulfide bond at Cys148-Cys252 from the other species, and of the binding stability of CA074 (a cathepsin B-specific inhibitor), molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed for the enzyme and its CA074 complex, assuming a system in aqueous solution at 300 ...

The origin, range, and structure of prions causing the most common human prion disease, sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD), are largely unknown. To investigate the molecular mechanism responsible for the broad phenotypic variability of sCJD, we analyzed the conformational characteristics of protease-sensitive and protease-resistant fractions of the pathogenic prion protein (PrP(Sc)) usin...

Buried and well-ordered solvent molecules are an integral part of each folded protein. For a few individual water molecules, the exchange kinetics with solvent have been described in great detail. So far, little is known about the energetics of this exchange process. Here, we present an experimental approach to investigate water-mediated intramolecular protein-protein interactions by use of dou...

RNA pseudoknots play a critical role in RNA-related biology from the assembly of ribosome to the regulation of viral gene expression. A predictive model for pseudoknot structure and stability is essential for understanding and designing RNA structure and function. A previous statistical mechanical theory allows us to treat canonical H-type RNA pseudoknots that contain no intervening loop betwee...