FOG-3, the single Caenorhabditis elegans Tob/BTG protein, directs germ cells to adopt the sperm fate at the expense of oogenesis. Importantly, FOG-3 activity must be maintained for the continued production of sperm that is typical of the male sex. Vertebrate Tob proteins have antiproliferative activity and ERK phosphorylation of Tob proteins has been proposed to abrogate "antiproliferative" act...

Proteins interact with ions in various ways. The surface of proteins has an innate capability to bind ions, and it is also influenced by the screening of the electrostatic potential owing to the presence of salts in the bulk solution. Alkali metal ions and chlorides interact with the protein surface, but such interactions are relatively weak and often transient. In this paper, computer simulati...

Local and Long-Range Electrostatic Interactions in Denatured Ribonuclease Sa: Comparing the Denatured Protein with Model Peptides (April 2002) Michael Douglas Daily Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics Texas A&M University Fellows Advisor: Dr. J. Martin Scholtz Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics The folding ol'proteins into three-dimensional, biologically active conformations demand...

The secreted phospholipase A(2) from bee venom (bvPLA(2)) contains a membrane binding surface composed mainly of hydrophobic residues and two basic residues that come in close contact with the membrane. Previous studies have shown that the mutant in which these two basic residues (K14 and R23) as well as three other nearby basic residues were collectively changed to glutamate (charge reversal),...

Photochemical release (uncaging) of bioactive messengers with three-dimensional spatial resolution in light-scattering media would be greatly facilitated if the photolysis could be powered by pairs of IR photons rather than the customary single UV photons. The quadratic dependence on light intensity would confine the photolysis to the focus point of the laser, and the longer wavelengths would b...

Tn5 transposase (Tnp), a 53.3-kDa protein, enables the movement of transposon Tn5 by a conservative mechanism. Within the context of a protein and DNA synaptic complex, a single Tnp molecule catalyzes four sequential DNA breaking and joining reactions at the end of a single transposon. The three amino acids of the DDE motif (Asp-97, Asp-188, and Glu-326), which are conserved among transposases ...

The presence of oligopeptides often has a drastic impact on the nucleation and crystal growth of calcium-containing minerals. Molecular simulation of complexes of peptides with Ca ions can give mechanistic insight into how the pre-alignment of ions from solution by additives may steer the crystallization of calcium rich minerals into different polymorphs. We exploit advanced molecular modeling ...