Proteins in the arthropod hemocyanin gene family are involved in major physiological processes, including aerobic respiration, the innate immune response, and molting. Members of this family, hemocyanin, cryptocyanin, and phenoloxidase, are multisubunit molecules that assemble into hexamers and higher aggregates. The hemocyanin hexamers show species-specific subunit heterogeneity. It is hypothe...

The green or shore crab Carcinus maenas (Linnaeus) is believed to have emigrated by ship from its native Europe to the Atlantic coast of North America. The chronological sequence of new records suggests the arrival in New York of pioneer individuals in the early 19th century, followed by gradual northward extension of the species range (Almaca, 1963; J. T. Carlton, personal communication). The ...

Mechanisms that affect thermal tolerance of ectothermic organisms have recently received much interest, mainly due to global warming and climate-change debates in both the public and in the scientific community. In physiological terms, thermal tolerance of several marine ectothermic taxa can be linked to oxygen availability, with capacity limitations in ventilatory and circulatory systems contr...

BACKGROUND The evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis during Precambrian times entailed the diversification of strategies minimizing reactive oxygen species-associated damage. Four families of oxygen-carrier proteins (hemoglobin, hemerythrin and the two non-homologous families of arthropodan and molluscan hemocyanins) are known to have evolved independently the capacity to bind oxygen reversibly,...

Glycoproteins and glycopeptides are organic compounds that are composed of both polypeptide and carbohydrate chains bonded together. For many years glycoproteins and glycopeptides have been a subject of interest; however, recently they have aroused the interest of biochemists and biologists from a wide range of fields. This increased interest is partly due to the fact that glycoproteins were di...

A coupled binuclear copper active site is present in a wide variety of proteins and enzymes which perform different biological functions utilizing 0,. In the multicopper oxidases, the Type 2 and Type 3 centers comprise a trinuclear Cu cluster which represents the active site for the multielectron reduction of 0,. A coupled binuclear copper active site is present in a wide variety of proteins an...