The activating NKG2D receptor plays a critical role in innate and adaptive immune responses by natural killer cells and subpopulations of T cells. The human receptor assembles with the DAP10 signaling dimer, and it is thought that one NKG2D homodimer pairs with a single DAP10 dimer by formation of two salt bridges between charged transmembrane (TM) residues. However, direct stoichiometry measur...

Suppose we cover the set of vertices of a graph G by non-overlapping monomers (singleton sets) and dimers (pairs of vertices corresponding to an edge). Each way to do this is called a monomer-dimer configuration. If G is finite and λ > 0, we define the monomer-dimer distribution for G (with parameter λ) as the probability distribution which assigns to each monomer-dimer configuration a probabil...

We investigate the critical nuclei morphology in phase transformation by combining two effective ingredients, with the first being the phase field modeling of the relevant energetics which has been a popular approach for phase transitions and the second being shrinking dimer dynamics and its variants for computing saddle points and transition states. In particular, the newly formulated generali...

The electrochemical reduction of 1,8-dihydroxy-9,10-anthracenedione (Q) has been investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV). Both 9,10-anthroquinone (AQ) and 1,8-methoxy-9,10-anthracenedione (DMeAQ) are reduced in two steps. First, they are reduced to the anion radical. Next, the anion radicals are reduced to the dianion. However, the CV of Q shows more cathodic and anodic peaks, which suggests th...

The normally monomeric 01 subunit of Escherichia coti tryptophan synthetase forms dimers and higher order aggregates following exposure to high urea concentrations and removal of the urea by dialysis. The maximum yield of cx chain dimers is approximately 2%. Dimers of certain combinations of different enzymatically inactive mutant (Y monomers exhibit the missing enzymatic activity. In such hete...

Interferon-inducible p47 GTPases are critical mediators of cell-autonomous resistance against several intracellular pathogens. Here we present the first crystal structure of a member of this novel GTPase family, IIGP1, in its nucleotide-free, GDP-, and GppNHp-bound form. The structure shows a Ras-like G domain between an N-terminal three-helix bundle and a complex system of C-terminal helices a...

BRCA1 accumulation at DNA damage sites is an important step for its function in the DNA damage response and in DNA repair. BRCA1-BRCT domains bind to proteins containing the phosphorylated serine-proline-x-phenylalanine (pSPxF) motif including Abraxas, Bach1/FancJ, and CtIP. In this study, we demonstrate that ionizing radiation (IR)-induces ATM-dependent phosphorylation of serine 404 (S404) nex...

During the asymmetric division of Drosophila neuroblasts (NBs), the scaffold Miranda (Mira) coordinates the subcellular distribution of cell-fate determinants including Staufen (Stau) and segregates them into the ganglion mother cells (GMCs). Here we show the fifth double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-binding domain (dsRBD5) of Stau is necessary and sufficient for binding to a coiled-coil region of Mira...

Coupling of ubiquitin conjugation to ER degradation (CUE) domains are approximately 50 amino acid monoubiquitin binding motifs found in proteins of trafficking and ubiquitination pathways. The 2.3 A structure of the Vps9p-CUE domain is a dimeric domain-swapped variant of the ubiquitin binding UBA domain. The 1.7 A structure of the CUE:ubiquitin complex shows that one CUE dimer binds one ubiquit...

G protein-coupled receptor kinase 1 (GRK1 or rhodopsin kinase) phosphorylates activated rhodopsin and initiates a cascade of events that results in the termination of phototransduction by the receptor. Although GRK1 seems to be a monomer in solution, seven prior crystal structures of GRK1 revealed a similar domain-swapped dimer interface involving the C-terminus of the enzyme. The influence of ...