Despite many years of genetic and biochemical studies on the integrase (Int) recombination system, it is still not known whether the Int protein is competent for DNA cleavage as a monomer. We have addressed this question, as part of a larger study of Int functions critical for the formation of higher-order complexes, by isolating ‘‘multimer-specific’’ mutants. We identify a pair of oppositely c...

After budding, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) must 'mature' into an infectious viral particle. Viral maturation requires proteolytic processing of the Gag polyprotein at the matrix-capsid junction, which liberates the capsid (CA) domain to condense from the spherical protein coat of the immature virus into the conical core of the mature virus. We propose that upon proteolysis, the amino...

An all atom molecular dynamics simulation was used to explore the atomic detail mechanism of guanidinium induced unfolding of the protein ubiquitin. Ubiquitin unfolds through pre-unfolded (intermediate) states, i.e. guanidinium induced unfolding of ubiquitin appears to be a multi-step process, and loss of hydrophobic contacts of C-terminal residues is crucial for ubiquitin unfolding. Free-energ...

A photo-curable 3-arm starshape polyacrylic acid was synthesized via aqueous atom-transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), followed by tethering with 2isocyanatoethyl methacrylate. The purified polymer was used to formulate with water, comonomer and Fuji II LC filler to form a photocurable glass-ionomer cement. Compressive strength (CS) was used for evaluation. The effects of MW, comonomer, fill...

Bioluminescence spectra of firefly luciferases demonstrate highly pH-sensitive spectra changing the color from green to red light when pH is lowered from alkaline to acidic. This reflects a change of ratio of the green and red emitters in the bimodal spectra of bioluminescence. We show that the mutations strongly stabilizing green (Y35N) or red (H433Y) emission compensate each other leading to ...

Neuraminidase (NA) of influenza is a key target for antiviral inhibitors, and the 150-cavity in group-1 NA provides new insight in treating this disease. However, NA of 2009 pandemic influenza (09N1) was found lacking this cavity in a crystal structure. To address the issue of flexibility of the 150-loop, Hamiltonian replica exchange molecular dynamics simulations were performed on different gr...

PURPOSE Lacritin is a prosecretory mitogen in tears and, although a tear protein, it promotes basal tearing and lacrimal gland secretion. Since scale up is relevant to its potential use in the treatment of dry eye, we explored various mutagenic strategies to alter the stability, solubility, and translational efficiency of nascent lacritin, and discovered 3' clustering of rare human codons. ME...