Recombinant production of de novo designed miniprotein using various fusion protein tags.

Numerous designed miniprotein (4-12 kDa) binders have been developed and reported to exhibit high-affinity interactions with disease targets that show great promise as therapeutic and diagnostic candidates. Despite these advances, detailed methodologies for their production have not been thoroughly explored. We chose two de novo miniprotein binders, LCB1 and AHB2, as model proteins to study their production by recombinant technology using various fusion protein tags.

Structure-function studies on drug-reactivating β-glucuronidase from mucin-degrading gut symbiont .

Gut microbial β-glucuronidases (mGUS) not only regulate several hormones and neurotransmitters, they also impact the efficacy and toxicity of xenobiotics. On certain anticancer drugs, e.g.

Molecular basis for reduced cleavage activity and drug resistance in D30N HIV-1 protease.

Nelfinavir is one of the FDA-approved HIV-1 protease inhibitors and a part of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) for the treatment of HIV-AIDS. Nelfinavir was the first HIV-1 protease inhibitor to be approved as a paediatric formulation. The application of HAART had resulted in significant improvement in the lives of AIDS patients.

Production, characterization and in-vitro applications of single-domain antibody against thyroglobulin selected from novel T7 phage display library.

Single- domain antibodies (SdAbs) have been deployed in various biomedical applications in the recent past. However, there are no reports of their use in the immunoradiometric assays (IRMA) for thyroglobulin (Tg). Tg is the precursor molecule for the biosynthesis of thyroid hormones: thyroxine and triiodothyronine, which are essential for the regulation of normal metabolism in all vertebrates.

Phormidium phycoerythrin forms hexamers in crystals: a crystallographic study.

The crystallographic analysis of a marine cyanobacterium (Phormidium sp. A09DM) phycoerythrin (PE) that shows distinct sequence features compared with known PE structures from cyanobacteria and red algae is reported. Phormidium PE was crystallized using the sitting-drop vapour-diffusion method with ammonium sulfate as a precipitant.

Crystal Structure of Allophycocyanin from Marine Cyanobacterium Phormidium sp. A09DM.

Isolated phycobilisome (PBS) sub-assemblies have been widely subjected to X-ray crystallography analysis to obtain greater insights into the structure-function relationship of this light harvesting complex. Allophycocyanin (APC) is the phycobiliprotein always found in the PBS core complex. Phycocyanobilin (PCB) chromophores, covalently bound to conserved Cys residues of α- and β- subunits of APC, are responsible for solar energy absorption from phycocyanin and for transfer to photosynthetic apparatus.

Characterization of a plant (rice) translin and its comparative analysis with human translin.

For the first time, a plant (rice) translin was characterized. The rice translin protein, which was octameric in native state, bound efficiently to single-stranded DNA and RNA. Translin, a DNA-/RNA-binding protein, is expressed in brain, testis and in certain malignancies.

Identification of nucleic acid binding sites on translin-associated factor X (TRAX) protein.

Translin and TRAX proteins play roles in very important cellular processes such as DNA recombination, spatial and temporal expression of mRNA, and in siRNA processing. Translin forms a homomeric nucleic acid binding complex and binds to ssDNA and RNA. However, a mutant translin construct that forms homomeric complex lacking nucleic acid binding activity is able to form fully active heteromeric translin-TRAX complex when co-expressed with TRAX.