CLC proteins underlie muscle, kidney, bone, and other organ system function by catalyzing the transport of Cl(-) ions across cell and organellar membranes. Some CLC proteins are ion channels while others are pumps that exchange Cl(-) for H(+). The pathway through which Cl(-) ions cross the membrane has been characterized, but the transport of H(+) and the principle by which their movement is co...

A series of cadmium carboxylate compounds in a sulfur-rich environment provided by the tris(2-tert-butylmercaptoimidazolyl)hydroborato ligand, namely, [Tm(Bu(t))]CdO2CR, has been synthesized via the reactions of the cadmium methyl derivative [Tm(Bu(t))]CdMe with RCO2H. Such compounds mimic aspects of cadmium-substituted zinc enzymes and also the surface atoms of cadmium chalcogenide crystals, a...

DNA molecules are attached onto carboxylate-terminated alkanethiol self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) preformed at gold surfaces via the N-hydroxysulfosuccinimide (NHS)/1-(3-(dimethylamino)propyl)-3ethylcarbodiimide hydrochloride (EDC) cross-linking reaction. Cyclic voltammetry, quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to probe the surface coverage and molecu...

L-type calcium channels are Ca(2+) binding proteins of great biological importance. They generate an essential intracellular signal of living cells by allowing Ca(2+) ions to move across the lipid membrane into the cell, thereby selecting an ion that is in low extracellular abundance. Their mechanism of selection involves four carboxylate groups, containing eight oxygen ions, that belong to the...

Antiferromagnetically coupled Mn(III)Mn(IV) dimers have been commonly used to study biological systems that exhibit complex exchange interactions. Such is the case for the oxygen evolving complex (OEC) in photosystem II (PSII), where we have studied whether the C-terminal carboxylate of D1-Ala344 is directly bound to the Mn cluster. To probe these protein-derived carboxylate hyperfine interacti...

Structural studies of tobacco mosaic tobamovirus (TMV) have identified two coat protein (CP) intersubunit carboxyl-carboxylate interactions and one CP carboxylate-RNA phosphate interaction whose electrostatic repulsion is believed to drive virion disassembly. In this study, the involvement of each interaction in the disassembly process was examined. Site-directed mutagenesis was used to replace...