The performance of two capillary electrophoresis (CE) instruments, one commercial and one homemade device, were compared for the determination of derivatised aminated compounds with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC). The commercial CE system first uses an argon ion laser as excitation source; the homemade CE device uses an inexpensive blue-light-emitting diode (LED) as the light source and a ch...

Moringa oleifera Lam [Moringaceae] is a highly valued plant, distributed in many countries of the tropics and subtropics. It has an impressive range of medicinal uses with high nutritional value. Different parts of this plant contain a profile of important minerals, and are a good source of protein, vitamins, β -carotene, aminoacids and various phenolics. In addition to its compelling water pur...

Nitrogenase converts N2 to NH3, at one face of an Fe-Mo-S cluster (FeMo-co) buried in the protein. Through exploration of cavities in the structures of nitrogenase proteins, a pathway for the egress of ammonia from its generation site to the external medium is proposed. This pathway is conserved in the three species Azotobacter vinelandii, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Clostridium pasteurianum. A m...

The cytotoxicity of a series of aminonaphthoquinones resulting from the reaction of suitable aminoacids with 1,4-naphthoquinone was assayed against SF-295 (glioblastoma), MDAMB-435 (breast), HCT-8 (colon), HCT-116 (colon), HL-60 (leukemia), OVCAR-8 (ovarian), NCI-H358M (bronchoalveolar lung carcinoma) and PC3-M (prostate) cancer cells and also against PBMC (peripheral blood mononuclear cells). ...

Glucocorticoid-induced leucine zipper (GILZ) is a 137 amino acid protein, rapidly induced by treatment with glucocorticoids (GC), characterized by a leucine zipper (LZ) domain (76–97 aminoacids), anN-terminal domain (1–75 amino acids) and a C-terminal PER domain (98–137 amino acids) rich in proline and glutamic acid residues. We have previously shown that GILZ binds to and inhibits NF-kB activi...

Effects of excitatory aminoacids (EAAs) aspartate (ASP) and glutamate (GLU) in a low (50 ng, i.c.) and high dose (20 micrograms, i.c.), were studied on nociception, catalepsy and rectal temperature in albino rats. Both ASP and GLU altered the tail flick reaction time to thermal stimulation in a dose dependent manner, increasing it with low doses and reduced with high doses. Naloxone (10 microgr...

The Hepatitis B virus Precore protein, present in the secretory pathway as the HBeAg precursor, can associate in the cytoplasm with the Core protein to form heterocapsids, likely to favor viral persistence. Core and Precore proteins share their primary sequence except for ten additional aminoacids at the N-terminus of Precore. To address the role of this propeptide sequence in the formation of ...

Maple syrup urine disease (MSUD) is an autosomal recessive metabolic disorder caused by a deficit of oxidative decarboxylation of branched-chain aminoacids. It leads to a build-up of leucine, isoleucine, valine, and toxic metabolites in blood and urine, progressing to acute and chronic brain dysfunction. The first symptoms appear in early childhood and are characterized by sweet-smelling urine,...

Major trauma induces marked metabolic changes which contribute to the systemic immune suppression in severely injured patients and increase the risk of infection and posttraumatic organ failure. The hypercatabolic state of polytrauma patients must be recognized early and treated by an appropriate nutritional management in order to avoid late complications. Clinical studies in recent years have ...

We have studied folding mechanisms of three small globular proteins: crambin (CRN), chymotrypsin inhibitor 2 (CI2) and the fyn Src Homology 3 domain (SH3) which are modelled by a Go-like Hamiltonian with the Lennard-Jones interactions. It is shown that folding is dominated by a well-defined sequencing of events as determined by establishment of particular contacts. The order of events depends p...