Prion diseases, also known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), are a group of fatal neurodegenerative disorders infecting both humans and animals. Recent works have demonstrated that the soluble prion protein oligomer (PrPO), the intermediate of the conformational transformation from the host-derived cellular form (PrPC) to the disease-associated Scrapie form (PrPSc), exerts th...

Homo-oligomerization of proteins is abundant in nature, and is often intimately related with the physiological functions of proteins, such as in metabolism, signal transduction or immunity. Information on the homo-oligomer structure is therefore important to obtain a molecular-level understanding of protein functions and their regulation. Currently available web servers predict protein homo-oli...

GTP hydrolysis by elongation factor Tu (EF-Tu) on the ribosome is induced by codon recognition. The mechanism by which a signal is transmitted from the site of codon-anticodon interaction in the decoding center of the 30S ribosomal subunit to the site of EF-Tu binding on the 50S subunit is not known. Here we examine the role of the tRNA in this process. We have used two RNA fragments, one which...

N,N-dihydroxyethyl methylacrylamide (DHEMAA), which is a methacrylate modified by diol, has been prepared by reaction of diethylanol amine with methyl methacrylate. UV curable urethane methacrylate oligomers have been synthesized by the reaction of a series of diol, triol, DHEMAA and HEMA with TDI or IPDI in two reaction orders. The first reaction style is the TDI or IPDI reacted with HEMA firs...

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a severe muscle-wasting disease caused by mutations in the dystrophin gene that ablate functional protein expression. Although exonic deletions are the most common Duchenne muscular dystrophy lesion, duplications account for 10-15% of reported disease-causing mutations, and exon 2 is the most commonly duplicated exon. Here, we describe the in vitro evaluation of p...

Pectic oligomers induced a rapid, transient increase in ethylene biosynthesis when added to pear cells in suspension culture. The rate of ethylene biosynthesis increased within 30 to 40 minutes after oligomer addition, reached a maximum between 90 and 120 minutes after addition, and then decreased to basal rates of synthesis. Both the rapid increase and decrease in biosynthesis appear to be pre...

Pathological folding and oligomer formation of the amyloid b-protein (Ab) are widely perceived as central to Alzheimer’s disease. Experimental approaches to study Ab self-assembly provide limited information because most relevant aggregates are quasi-stable and inhomogeneous. We apply a discrete molecular dynamics approach combined with a fourbead protein model to study oligomer formation of Ab...

The conversion of a cellular prion protein (PrP(C)) to its pathogenic isoform (PrP(Sc)) is a critical event in the pathogenesis of prion diseases. Pathogenic conversion is usually associated with the oligomerization process; therefore, the conformational characteristics of the pre-oligomer state may provide insights into the conversion process. Previous studies indicate that PrP(C) is prone to ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The detection of α-synuclein in the body fluids of patients with synucleinopathy has yielded promising but inconclusive results, in part because of conformational changes of α-synuclein in response to environmental conditions. The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of using α-synuclein as a biological marker for Parkinson's disease (PD). METHODS Twenty-t...

Amyloid accumulation is commonly associated with a number of important human degenerative diseases and recent findings indicate that soluble amyloid oligomers may represent the primary pathological species in degenerative diseases. Amyloid oligomers are structurally and morphologically diverse, raising the question on whether this diversity is pathologically significant and whether different ty...