The crystal structure of Anabaena PCC 7119 ferredoxin-NADP+ reductase (FNR) suggests that the carboxylate group of Glu301 may be directly involved in the catalytic process of electron and proton transfer between the isoalloxazine moiety of FAD and FNR substrates (NADPH, ferredoxin, and flavodoxin). To assess this possibility, the carboxylate of Glu301 was removed by mutating the residue to an a...

Cyclooxygenase (COX) enzymes are molecular targets of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), the most used medication worldwide. However, the COX enzymes are not the sole molecular targets of NSAIDs. Recently, we showed that two NSAIDs, diclofenac and meclofenamate, also act as openers of Kv7.2/3 K(+) channels underlying the neuronal M-current. Here we designed new derivatives of diphen...

The asymmetric unit of the title compound, [Li(C8H6N2O4)(H2O)] n , comprises three Li cations, two of which are located on a twofold rotation axis, two carboxylate anions and three water mol-ecules, of which two are situated on the twofold rotation axis being aqua ligands. Both carboxylate anions are in μ2-bridging mode. All Li ions show a trigonal-bipyramidal coordination mode; the two located...

The crystal structure of Bacillus subtilis orotidine 5'-monophosphate (OMP) decarboxylase with bound uridine 5'-monophosphate has been determined by multiple wavelength anomalous diffraction phasing techniques and refined to an R-factor of 19.3% at 2.4 A resolution. OMP decarboxylase is a dimer of two identical subunits. Each monomer consists of a triosephosphate isomerase barrel and contains a...

Aluminum(III)-modified TiO2 was prepared by sol-gel process via a sudden gelating method. The structure of the modified material and the local environment of aluminum were investigated using X-ray diffraction, HRTEM, XPS, 27Al MAS NMR, and xi-potential measurements. The effect of the aluminum modification on interaction between the dye and photocatalyst, the interfacial electron transfer proces...

Hydrothermal reactions of a lead(II) salt with 3-aminopyrazine-2-carboxylic acid (HL1) gave rise to a series of lead(II) coordination compounds (1–6) having zero, one, two and three dimensional structures. X-ray diffraction structural analyses reveal that complexes [Pb(L1)2]2 (1) and [Pb(L1)(OCHNH2)(η-OCHO)]2 (2) possess dinuclear structures, containing a centre of symmetry. Complexes [Pb2(L1)4...

Contradictory descriptions for the aqueous solution conformation of the glycosaminoglycan hyaluronan (HA) exist in the literature. According to hydrodynamic and simulation data, HA molecules are stiffened by a rapidly interchanging network of transient hydrogen bonds at the local level and do not significantly associate at the global level. In marked contrast, models derived from NMR data sugge...

Three new thiodiacetato-Cu(II) chelates have been synthesized and studied by X-ray crystallography and by thermal, spectral and magnetic methods. [Cu(tda)]n (1) is a 3D-polymer with a pentadentate tda, which acts with a fac-O2 + S(apical)-tridentate chelating conformation and as a twofold anti, syn-l–g:g carboxylate bridge. In its square pyramidal Cu(II) coordination (type 4 + 1) four O(carboxy...

In the search of molecules that can serve as leads in the design of a new drug for the treatment of Chagas' disease, we found that some brevifolin carboxylate derivatives isolated from Geranium bellum Rose, inactivate triosephosphate isomerase from Trypanosoma cruzi (TcTIM) in a species-specific manner. After spectroscopic characterization, these compounds were identified as methylbrevifolin ca...

Diastereomers of y-fluoroglutamate tentatively assigned the D configuration at the or-carbon are substrates for Dglutamate cyclase purified from mouse liver. In order to elucidate properties of these potentially useful analogues of glutamate as well as to gain some insight into the mechanism of the enzyme, the kinetics and thermodynamics of the reaction of these analogues have been compared to ...