Oxysterol-binding protein (OSBP) is the founding member of a family of sterol-binding proteins implicated in vesicle transport, lipid metabolism, and signal transduction. Here, OSBP was found to function as a cholesterol-binding scaffolding protein coordinating the activity of two phosphatases to control the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling pathway. Cytosolic OSBP formed a ...

Indirubins are natural occurring alkaloids extracted from indigo dye-containing plants. Indirubins could inhibit various kinases, and might be used to treat chronic myelocytic leukemia, cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. 7-bromoindirubin-3-oxime (7Bio), an indirubin derivative derived from indirubin-3-oxime, possesses inhibitory effects against cyclin-dependent kinase-5 (CDK5) and glycogen...

DegP, a member of the HtrA family of proteins, conducts critical bacterial protein quality control by both chaperone and proteolysis activities. The regulatory mechanisms controlling these two distinct activities, however, are unknown. DegP activation is known to involve a unique mechanism of allosteric binding, conformational changes and oligomer formation. We have uncovered a novel role for t...

Catechin was oligomerized using free laccase and laccase-gum Arabic conjugate. The process of oligomerization was optimized with respect to solvent, ratio of solvent to buffer (0.2:10 to 1:10), pH of buffer (3-10), enzyme (575-18,400 U/mg) and substrate concentration (1-7mM). Maximum production of oligomer was observed in methanol at ratio 0.6:10 of methanol:buffer of pH 5 using 2300 U/mg of la...

Microtubule protein purified from porcine brain was fixed at low protein concentration with glutaraldehyde under conditions which maximize the relative concentration of the ring-shaped 30 S oligomer. Fixed oligomer was separated from glutaraldehyde and other protein species by column chromatography. The fixed, isolated oligomer was deposited on electron microscopy grids, dehydrated, and then cr...

Small heat shock proteins (sHSPs) make up a class of molecular chaperones broadly observed across organisms. Many sHSPs form large oligomers that undergo dynamic subunit exchange that is thought to play a role in chaperone function. Though remarkably heterogeneous, sHSP oligomers share three types of intermolecular interactions that involve all three defined regions of a sHSP: the N-terminal re...

Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common neurodegenerative disorder, is characterized by neurofibrillary tangles, synaptic impairments, and loss of neurons. Oligomers of β-amyloid (Aβ) are widely accepted as the main neurotoxins to induce oxidative stress and neuronal loss in AD. In this study, we discovered that fucoxanthin, a marine carotenoid with antioxidative stress properties, concentrat...

Abstract In the present work, 4-methylcatechol oligomer has been prepared by using enzyme-catalyzed polymerization in water and preliminary evaluations as stabilizing agent polypropylene (PP) was performed. comparison with intrinsic PP, oxidation onset temperature of oligomer/PP composite increased 66°C, induction time 40 min. addition, mixing a PP (i.e., formation composite) did significantly ...

Microtubule protein purified from porcine brain was fixed at low protein concentration with glutaraldehyde under conditions which maximize the relative concentration of the ring-shaped 30 S oligomer. Fixed oligomer was separated from glutaraldehyde and other protein species by column chromatography. The fixed, isolated oligomer was deposited on electron microscopy grids, dehydrated, and then cr...

A novel and facile synthetic method for h-BN films from borazine oligomer (B3N3H4)x precursors has been developed. This method only includes spin-coating of borazine oligomer onto nickel catalysts and a subsequent annealing step. Large areal and highly crystalline h-BN films were obtained. The stoichiometric B/N ratio of borazine oligomer precursor was preserved in the final h-BN product such t...