Assembling individual pieces of land into large parcels for public purposes often involves the use of eminent domain, including when the assembled land is passed into private hands. Questions of equity and efficiency arise. Firstly, the US and other Constitutions require that owners of compulsorily-acquired property receive ‘just’ compensation. As existing owners are likely to value their prope...

Viral infection triggers induction of type I interferons (IFNs), which are critical mediators of innate antiviral immune response. Mediator of IRF3 activation (MITA, also called STING) is an adapter essential for virus-triggered IFN induction pathways. How post-translational modifications regulate the activity of MITA is not fully elucidated. In expression screens, we identified RING finger pro...

This entry examines the relationship between property rights and environmental protection. According to the ‘tragedy of the commons’ model, environmental pollution and resource depletion result from the inadequate specification of property rights in environmental goods. Two solutions typically are offered for averting the ‘tragedy’: (1) specify property rights (that is, privatize the commons) o...

An unusual deubiquitinating (DUB) activity exists in HeLa cell extracts that is highly specific for cleaving K63-linked but not K48-linked polyubiquitin chains. The activity is insensitive to both N-ethyl-maleimide and ubiquitin aldehyde, indicating that it lacks an active site cysteine residue, and gel filtration experiments show that it resides in a high molecular weight (approximately 600 kD...

Ubiquitin (Ub) signaling requires the covalent passage of Ub among E1, E2, and E3 enzymes. The choice E2 enzymes combined with multiple rounds cascade leads to formation polyubiquitin chains linked through any one seven lysines on Ub. linkage type length act as a signal trigger important cellular processes such protein degradation or DNA damage response. Recently, proteomics studies have identi...

surfactant molecules are used as interesting tools to study the structure, function and stability of proteins. protonation states of amino acids may be changed in the presence of surfactants. in this work, using experimental observations and molecular dynamic simulation, the effects of sodium dodecyl sulfate on the acid dissociation constants of tryptophan was examined. the acid–base equilibriu...

to improve commercial grapevine cultivars, it is necessary to apply such methods that by cultivation of a certain number of vines in a certain area, higher yield could be harvested. to achieve such a goal, healthy stocks with resistant to pests and diseases, high fructification and high quality of vines are needed. all these properties can be obtained successfully through clonal selection. viti...