An immunological approach, based on both antigen binding tests and radioimmunoassay, has been used for the comparative study of ferredoxin from Halobacterium of the Dead Sea and ferredoxins from a variety of sources. The halophilic ferredoxin was not cross-reactive with the plant, and the mammalian ferredoxins tested. On the other hand, it exhibited up to 80% of antigenic crossreactivity with a...

Hepcidin, which is mainly produced by the liver, is the key regulator in iron homeostasis. Hepcidin expression is up-regulated by iron loading in vivo, but the mechanism underlying this process is not completely understood. In the present study, we investigated the mechanism, following the hypothesis that hepcidin production in response to iron loading is regulated by extra-hepatic iron sensors...

The mechanisms of allergic sensitization to milk are still elusive. The major allergen Bos d 5 belongs to the lipocalin-family and thus is able to transport numerous ligands. In this study we investigated its ability to bind to iron-siderophore complexes and tested the immune-modulatory properties of Bos d 5 in either forms. Structural and in silico docking analysis of Bos d 5 revealed that Bos...

We show a system capable of projecting a video scene onto a white-light holographic screen to obtain a kind of image that results in a plane in front of the screen. This holographic screen is mainly a diffractive lens and is constructed by holography. The image plane can be located at any azimuth angle and seen with continuous parallax and without the use of goggles or any special visualization...

Protein function annotation and rational drug discovery rely on the knowledge of binding sites for small organic compounds, and yet the quality of existing binding site predictors was never systematically evaluated. We assess predictions of ten representative geometry-, energy-, threading-, and consensus-based methods on a new benchmark data set that considers apo and holo protein structures wi...

The cellular uptake of vitamin A from its RBP4-bound circulating form (holo-RBP4) is a homeostatic process that evidently depends on the multidomain membrane protein STRA6. In humans, mutations in STRA6 are associated with Matthew-Wood syndrome, manifested by multisystem developmental malformations. Here we addressed the metabolic basis of this inherited disease. STRA6-dependent transfer of ret...

L-serine dehydratase (SDH), a member of the beta-family of pyridoxal phosphate-dependent (PLP) enzymes, catalyzes the deamination of L-serine and L-threonine to yield pyruvate or 2-oxobutyrate. The crystal structure of L-serine dehydratase from human liver (hSDH) has been solved at 2.5 A-resolution by molecular replacement. The structure is a homodimer and reveals a fold typical for beta-family...

Holo and apo adrenodoxin were studied by differential scanning calorimetry, absorption spectroscopy, limited proteolysis, and size-exclusion chromatography. To determine the conformational stability of adrenodoxin, a method was found that prevents the irreversible destruction of the iron-sulfur center. The approach makes use of a buffer solution that contains sodium sulfide and mercaptoethanol....

The 4’-phosphopantetheine hyd.rolase of rat liver, partially purified by ammonium sulfate precipitation, catalyzes the hydrolysis of the prosthetic group 4’phosphopantetheine from the holo-fatty acid synthetase. The two products of the action of this enzyme, 4’phosphopantetheine and apo-fatty acid synthetase, were isolated by DEAE-cellulose chromatography and by chromatography on a Sepharose e-...