The intersection of the amyloid cascade hypothesis and the implication of metal ions in Alzheimer's disease progression has sparked an interest in using metal-binding compounds as potential therapeutic agents. In the present work, we describe a prochelator SWH that is enzymatically activated by beta-secretase to produce a high affinity copper chelator CP. Because beta-secretase is responsible f...

In addition to biochemical, physiological and morphological analysis, molecular studies provide additional information for establishing phylogenetic relationships among different species and strains of the genus Dunaliella. In the present study, based on neighbor- joining analysis of the nuclear rDNA ITS sequence, a novel strain of the green algae Dunaliella viridis was identified from Maharlu ...

High concentrations of copper chloride solutions (in the molar range) are used in several industrial applications. In this work, we investigated the species distribution of copper chloride complexes and how to measure the copper concentration precisely at high concentrations using electrochemical methods, by including migrational effects. The latter, in fact, can be useful in determining the na...

This thesis presents a new experimental setup for surface analysis studies, incorporating chemical information from infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (IRAS) and quantitative information from quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). The integrated IRAS/QCM surface analysis system enables in situ studies to be conducted of the metal/atmosphere interaction on a sub-monolayer level. In combinat...

The emergence of bioorthogonal reactions has greatly broadened the scope of biomolecule labeling and detecting. Of all the bioorthogonal reactions that have been developed, the copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) is the most widely applied one, mainly because of its relatively fast kinetics and high efficiency. However, the introduction of copper species to in vivo systems raise...

Speciation of copper in the electrokinetic treatments of an industrial sludge was studied by in situ extended X-ray absorption fine structural (EXAFS) and X-ray absorption near-edge structural (XANES) spectroscopies in the present work. The least-square fits (LSF) of the XANES spectra indicated that the main copper species in the sludge were Cu(NO)(3) (82%) and adsorbed copper (Cu/SiO(2)) (17%)...

Prion protein consists of an N-terminal domain containing a series of octapeptide repeats with the consensus sequence PHGGGWGQ and a C-terminal domain composed of three alpha-helices and two short beta-strands. Several studies have shown that the N-terminal domain binds five Cu2+ ions. In the present study, we have investigated copper-catalysed oxidation of a recombinant mouse prion protein, Pr...

Copper(II) is known to catalyze the generation of reactive nitrogen species in the presence of hydrogen peroxide, nitrite or nitric oxide, leading to tyrosine nitration, a biomarker for free radical species associated diseases. Here, we find that biological antioxidants such as ascorbic acid can promote tyrosine nitration in the presence of copper(II) and nitrite under aerobic and weak acidic c...

Recent findings suggest that both host and pathogen manipulate copper content in infected host niches during infections. In this review, we summarize recent developments that implicate copper resistance as an important determinant of bacterial fitness at the host-pathogen interface. An essential mammalian nutrient, copper cycles between copper (I) (Cu(+)) in its reduced form and copper (II) (Cu...