Multiscale modeling of collagen fibril is carried out by incorporating the material properties of collagen obtained from steered molecular dynamics into the finite element model of collagen fibril with inclusion of crosslinks. The results indicate that the nonbonded interactions between collagen and mineral contribute to the significant enhancement of the elastic modulus of collagen fibril at a...

Lysine-specific chemical crosslinking in combination with mass spectrometry is emerging as a tool for the structural characterization of protein complexes and protein-protein interactions. After tryptic digestion of crosslinked proteins there are thousands of peptides amenable to MSMS, of which only very few are crosslinked peptides of interest. Here we describe how the advantage offered by off...

DNA-protein crosslinks are relatively common DNA lesions that form during the physiological processing of DNA by replication and recombination proteins, by side reactions of base excision repair enzymes, and by cellular exposure to bifunctional DNA-damaging agents such as platinum compounds. The mechanism by which pathological DNA-protein crosslinks are repaired in humans is not known. In this ...

Collagen type I is an extracellular matrix protein found in connective tissues such as tendon, ligament, bone, skin, and the cornea of the eyes, where it functions to provide tensile strength; it also serves as a scaffold for cells and other extracellular matrix components. A single collagen type I molecule is composed of three amino acid chains that form a triple helix for most of the molecule...

Self-healing polymers crosslinked by solely reversible bonds are intrinsically weaker than common covalently crosslinked networks. Introducing covalent crosslinks into a reversible network would improve mechanical strength. It is challenging, however, to apply this concept to "dry" elastomers, largely because reversible crosslinks such as hydrogen bonds are often polar motifs, whereas covalent ...

We have synthesized triple helix forming oligonucleotides (TFOs) that target a psoralen (pso) interstrand crosslink to a specific chromosomal site in mammalian cells. Mutagenesis of the targeted crosslinks results in base substitutions and deletions. Identification of the gene products involved in mutation formation is important for developing practical applications of pso-TFOs, and may be info...

BACKGROUND Lipofuscin (LF) is formed during lipid peroxidation and sugar glycosylation by carbonyl-amino crosslinks with biomacrolecules, and accumulates slowly within postmitotic cells. The environmental pollution, modern dietary culture and lifestyle changes have been found to be the major sources of reactive carbonyl compounds in vivo. Irreversible carbonyl-amino crosslinks induced by carbon...

The microscopic structures of highly crosslinked sulfonated poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene) resins have been modeled by generating atomistic microstructures using stochastic-like algorithms, which are subsequently relaxed using molecular dynamics. Two different generation algorithms have been tested. The relaxation of the microstructures generated by the first algorithm, which is based on a hom...

Fanconi anemia is characterized by hypersensitivity to DNA interstrand crosslinks (ICLs) and susceptibility to tumor formation. Despite the identification of numerous Fanconi anemia (FANC) genes, the mechanism by which proteins encoded by these genes protect a cell from DNA interstrand crosslinks remains unclear. The recent discovery of two DNA helicases that, when defective, cause Fanconi anem...

In this work we examine layer fluctuations in a smectic elastomer with quenched random disorder induced by crosslinks. The system is analyzed in a continuum model and crosslinks are introduced as a random field in a macroscopic picture. In the case of small deformations and replica symmetry the intensity profile for x-ray scattering along the layer normal was determined for layer displacements ...