Protein-protein interactions play key roles in many cellular processes and their affinities and specificities are finely tuned to the functions they perform. Here, we present a study on the relationship between binding affinity and the size and chemical nature of protein-protein interfaces. Our analysis focuses on heterodimers and includes curated structural and thermodynamic data for 113 compl...

A model for nutrient uptake rate (V) in phytoplankton is derived: V = n A v S / ( l + h A v S ) where n is cellular number of uptake sites, A is area of the uptake site, h is time required for handling one nutrient ion, vis the mass transfer coefficient, and S i s substrate concentration. The model is based on 2 time requirements necessary for active uptake of nutrients: (i) time required for r...

Fluorescence-based endpoint detection of microarrays with 10,000 or more molecular targets is a most useful tool for high-throughput profiling of biomolecular interactions, including screening large molecular libraries for novel protein ligands. However, endpoint fluorescence data such as images of reacted microarrays contain little information on kinetic rate constants, and the reliability of ...

For many microbes, their polysaccharides (PS) are a critical part of their interaction with the mammalian immune system. Given their lower immunogenicity compared to protein peptides, PS can provide protection against both opsonization and phagocytosis, and in many cases actively protects bacteria against elements of both the innate and adaptive immune systems. Many bacterial species have tradi...

The import of basic amino acids in Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been reported to be unidirectional, which is not typical of how secondary transporters work. Since studies of energy coupling and transport kinetics are complicated in vivo, we purified the major lysine transporter (Lyp1) of yeast and reconstituted the protein into lipid vesicles. We show that the Michaelis constant (KM) of transpo...

The submillisecond kinetics for phloretin binding to unilamellar phosphatidylcholine (PC) vesicles was investigated using the temperature-jump technique. Spectrophotometric studies of the equilibrium binding performed at 328 nm demonstrated that phloretin binds to a single set of independent, equivalent sites on the vesicle with a dissociation constant of 8.0 microM and a lipid/site ratio of 4....

Nitrate utilization and ammonium utilization were studied by using three algal isolates, six bacterial isolates, and a range of temperatures in chemostat and batch cultures. We quantified affinities for both substrates by determining specific affinities (specific affinity = maximum growth rate/half-saturation constant) based on estimates of kinetic parameters obtained from chemostat experiments...

2-[125I]Iodomelatonin binds with high affinity to a site possessing the pharmacological characteristics of a melatonin receptor in chicken retinal membranes. The specific binding of 2-[125I]iodomelatonin is stable, saturable, and reversible. Saturation experiments indicated that 2-[125I]iodomelatonin labeled a single class of sites with an affinity constant (Kd) of 434 +/- 56 pM and a total num...

Apolipoprotein D (apo D) is a 30-kDa glycoprotein of unknown function that is associated with high-density lipoproteins (HDL). Because unconjugated bilirubin has been shown to bind apo D with a 0. 8:1 stoichiometry, we examined the contribution of this protein to transport of bilirubin in human plasma. Density gradient centrifugation analysis using physiological concentrations of [(14)C]bilirub...