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Biomolecules, Volume 5, Issue 3

2015 September - 46 articles

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Articles (46)

  • Review
  • Open Access
23 Citations
8,700 Views
17 Pages

18 September 2015

Replication fork stalling generates a variety of responses, most of which cause an increase in single-stranded DNA. ssDNA is a primary signal of replication distress that activates cellular checkpoints. It is also a potential source of genome instabi...

  • Review
  • Open Access
23 Citations
8,533 Views
20 Pages

18 September 2015

The molecular mechanisms that lead to the progression of alcoholic liver disease have been actively examined for decades. Because the hepatic microtubule cytoskeleton supports innumerable cellular processes, it has been the focus of many such mechani...

  • Review
  • Open Access
68 Citations
13,592 Views
22 Pages

10 September 2015

Cellular metabolism assembles in a structurally highly conserved, but functionally dynamic system, known as the metabolic network. This network involves highly active, enzyme-catalyzed metabolic pathways that provide the building blocks for cell grow...

  • Review
  • Open Access
27 Citations
7,822 Views
28 Pages

7 September 2015

Alternative splicing plays a key role in posttranscriptional regulation of gene expression, allowing a single gene to encode multiple protein isoforms. As such, alternative splicing amplifies the coding capacity of the genome enormously, generates pr...

  • Review
  • Open Access
61 Citations
8,600 Views
12 Pages

Alcoholic Liver Disease: Role of Cytokines

  • Manuela G. Neuman,
  • Yaakov Maor,
  • Radu M. Nanau,
  • Ehud Melzer,
  • Haim Mell,
  • Mihai Opris,
  • Lawrence Cohen and
  • Stephen Malnick

28 August 2015

The present review spans a broad spectrum of topics dealing with alcoholic liver disease (ALD), including clinical and translational research. It focuses on the role of the immune system and the signaling pathways of cytokines in the pathogenesis of...

  • Article
  • Open Access
33 Citations
7,693 Views
21 Pages

28 August 2015

The RNA-binding protein tristetraprolin (TTP) promotes rapid decay of mRNAs bearing 3' UTR AU-rich elements (ARE). In many cancer types, loss of TTP expression is observed allowing for stabilization of ARE-mRNAs and their pathologic overexpression. H...

  • Review
  • Open Access
136 Citations
17,357 Views
20 Pages

21 August 2015

Proteoglycans (PGs) are glycosylated proteins of biological importance at cell surfaces, in the extracellular matrix, and in the circulation. PGs are produced and modified by glycosaminoglycan (GAG) chains in the secretory pathway of animal cells. Th...

  • Review
  • Open Access
15 Citations
7,292 Views
13 Pages

20 August 2015

Nijmegen breakage syndrome (NBS) is a recessive genetic disorder characterized by increased sensitivity to ionizing radiation (IR) and a high frequency of malignancies. NBS1, a product of the mutated gene in NBS, contains several protein interaction...

  • Article
  • Open Access
46 Citations
7,814 Views
11 Pages

Optimized Production of Xylitol from Xylose Using a Hyper-Acidophilic Candida tropicalis

  • Elena Tamburini,
  • Stefania Costa,
  • Maria Gabriella Marchetti and
  • Paola Pedrini

19 August 2015

The yeast Candida tropicalis DSM 7524 produces xylitol, a natural, low-calorie sweetener, by fermentation of xylose. In order to increase xylitol production rate during the submerged fermentation process, some parameters-substrate (xylose) concentrat...

  • Review
  • Open Access
100 Citations
15,626 Views
26 Pages

18 August 2015

Cancer treatments such as radiotherapy and most of the chemotherapies act by damaging DNA of cancer cells. Upon DNA damage, cells stop proliferation at cell cycle checkpoints, which provides them time for DNA repair. Inhibiting the checkpoint allows...

  • Review
  • Open Access
11 Citations
9,187 Views
17 Pages

18 August 2015

The expression and production of type 1 interferon is the classic cellular response to virus infection. In addition to this antiviral response, virus infection also stimulates the production of proinflammatory mediators. In this review, the pathways...

  • Review
  • Open Access
28 Citations
9,797 Views
24 Pages

18 August 2015

The NOD-like receptors (NLRs) and Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are pattern recognition receptors that are involved in the innate, pathogen pattern recognition system. The TLR and NLR receptors contain leucine-rich repeats (LRRs) that are responsible fo...

  • Review
  • Open Access
57 Citations
14,414 Views
42 Pages

Oxidative Stress and Maxi Calcium-Activated Potassium (BK) Channels

  • Anton Hermann,
  • Guzel F. Sitdikova and
  • Thomas M. Weiger

17 August 2015

All cells contain ion channels in their outer (plasma) and inner (organelle) membranes. Ion channels, similar to other proteins, are targets of oxidative impact, which modulates ion fluxes across membranes. Subsequently, these ion currents affect ele...

  • Review
  • Open Access
40 Citations
13,514 Views
15 Pages

13 August 2015

DNA damage causally contributes to aging and cancer. Congenital defects in nucleotide excision repair (NER) lead to distinct cancer-prone and premature aging syndromes. The genetics of NER mutations have provided important insights into the distinct...

  • Article
  • Open Access
14 Citations
9,736 Views
22 Pages

12 August 2015

Sialylated glycans serve as key elements of receptors for many viruses, bacteria, and bacterial toxins. The microbial recognition and their binding specificity can be affected by the linkage of the terminal sugar residue, types of underlying sugar ch...

  • Article
  • Open Access
46 Citations
9,585 Views
23 Pages

12 August 2015

Neutrophil cathepsin G (nCG) is a central serine protease in the human innate immune system, but the importance of its N-glycosylation remains largely undescribed. To facilitate such investigations, we here use complementary LC-MS/MS-based N-glycan,...

  • Review
  • Open Access
92 Citations
11,738 Views
21 Pages

11 August 2015

Bacterial genotoxins are unique among bacterial toxins as their molecular target is DNA. The consequence of intoxication or infection is induction of DNA breaks that, if not properly repaired, results in irreversible cell cycle arrest (senescence) o...

  • Review
  • Open Access
72 Citations
16,731 Views
27 Pages

Challenges in Antibody Development against Tn and Sialyl-Tn Antigens

  • Liliana R. Loureiro,
  • Mylène A. Carrascal,
  • Ana Barbas,
  • José S. Ramalho,
  • Carlos Novo,
  • Philippe Delannoy and
  • Paula A. Videira

11 August 2015

The carbohydrate antigens Tn and sialyl-Tn (STn) are expressed in most carcinomas and usually absent in healthy tissues. These antigens have been correlated with cancer progression and poor prognosis, and associated with immunosuppressive microenviro...

  • Article
  • Open Access
78 Citations
11,193 Views
21 Pages

Extracellular Vesicles from Ovarian Carcinoma Cells Display Specific Glycosignatures

  • Joana Gomes,
  • Patrícia Gomes-Alves,
  • Sofia B. Carvalho,
  • Cristina Peixoto,
  • Paula M. Alves,
  • Peter Altevogt and
  • Julia Costa

4 August 2015

Cells release vesicles to the extracellular environment with characteristic nucleic acid, protein, lipid, and glycan composition. Here we have isolated and characterized extracellular vesicles (EVs) and total cell membranes (MBs) from ovarian carcino...

  • Article
  • Open Access
49 Citations
9,089 Views
26 Pages

24 July 2015

Carbohydrate-lectin interactions are relatively weak. As they play an important role in biological recognition processes, multivalent glycan ligands are designed to enhance binding affinity and inhibitory potency. We here report on novel neo-glycopro...

  • Review
  • Open Access
29 Citations
9,969 Views
20 Pages

Direct and/or Indirect Roles for SUMO in Modulating Alpha-Synuclein Toxicity

  • Shamini Vijayakumaran,
  • Mathew B. Wong,
  • Helma Antony and
  • Dean L. Pountney

24 July 2015

α-Synuclein inclusion bodies are a pathological hallmark of several neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, and contain aggregated α-synuclein and a variety of recruited factors, including protein chaperones, proteasome components,...

  • Review
  • Open Access
72 Citations
16,156 Views
24 Pages

24 July 2015

Alternative pre-messenger RNA splicing in higher plants emerges as an important layer of regulation upon exposure to exogenous and endogenous cues. Accordingly, mutants defective in RNA-binding proteins predicted to function in the splicing process s...

  • Review
  • Open Access
34 Citations
10,245 Views
16 Pages

22 July 2015

Transcriptional regulation of inflammatory gene expression has been at the forefront of studies of innate immunity and is coordinately regulated by transcription factors, including NF-κB, and chromatin modifiers. The growing evidence for involvement...

  • Article
  • Open Access
34 Citations
9,629 Views
18 Pages

Toxic Oligomeric Alpha-Synuclein Variants Present in Human Parkinson’s Disease Brains Are Differentially Generated in Mammalian Cell Models

  • Wei Xin,
  • Sharareh Emadi,
  • Stephanie Williams,
  • Qiang Liu,
  • Philip Schulz,
  • Ping He,
  • Now Bahar Alam,
  • Jie Wu and
  • Michael R. Sierks

22 July 2015

Misfolding and aggregation of α-synuclein into toxic soluble oligomeric α-synuclein aggregates has been strongly correlated with the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Here, we show that two different morphologically distinct oligomeric α-synu...

  • Review
  • Open Access
135 Citations
15,551 Views
19 Pages

22 July 2015

Most chemotherapy regimens contain at least one DNA-damaging agent that preferentially affects the growth of cancer cells. This strategy takes advantage of the differences in cell proliferation between normal and cancer cells. Chemotherapeutic drugs...

  • Review
  • Open Access
174 Citations
19,146 Views
17 Pages

21 July 2015

Abundant evidence has demonstrated that obesity is a state of low-grade chronic inflammation that triggers the release of lipids, aberrant adipokines, pro-inflammatory cytokines, and several chemokines from adipose tissue. This low-grade inflammation...

  • Review
  • Open Access
12 Citations
8,217 Views
20 Pages

Functional Integration of mRNA Translational Control Programs

  • Melanie C. MacNicol,
  • Chad E. Cragle,
  • Karthik Arumugam,
  • Bruno Fosso,
  • Graziano Pesole and
  • Angus M. MacNicol

21 July 2015

Regulated mRNA translation plays a key role in control of cell cycle progression in a variety of physiological and pathological processes, including in the self-renewal and survival of stem cells and cancer stem cells. While targeting mRNA translatio...

  • Review
  • Open Access
8 Citations
8,477 Views
18 Pages

Transcription Blockage Leads to New Beginnings

  • Leonardo C. Andrade-Lima,
  • Artur Veloso and
  • Mats Ljungman

21 July 2015

Environmental agents are constantly challenging cells by damaging DNA, leading to the blockage of transcription elongation. How do cells deal with transcription-blockage and how is transcription restarted after the blocking lesions are removed? Here...

  • Article
  • Open Access
20 Citations
9,169 Views
23 Pages

Mammalian Cell Surface Display as a Novel Method for Developing Engineered Lectins with Novel Characteristics

  • Keisuke Soga,
  • Hirohito Abo,
  • Sheng-Ying Qin,
  • Takuya Kyoutou,
  • Keiko Hiemori,
  • Hiroaki Tateno,
  • Naoki Matsumoto,
  • Jun Hirabayashi and
  • Kazuo Yamamoto

20 July 2015

Leguminous lectins have a conserved carbohydrate recognition site comprising four loops (A–D). Here, we randomly mutated the sequence and length of loops C and D of peanut agglutinin (PNA) and expressed the proteins on the surface of mouse green fluo...

  • Review
  • Open Access
54 Citations
11,951 Views
25 Pages

The 3' to 5' Exoribonuclease DIS3: From Structure and Mechanisms to Biological Functions and Role in Human Disease

  • Sophie R. Robinson,
  • Antony W. Oliver,
  • Timothy J. Chevassut and
  • Sarah F. Newbury

17 July 2015

DIS3 is a conserved exoribonuclease and catalytic subunit of the exosome, a protein complex involved in the 3' to 5' degradation and processing of both nuclear and cytoplasmic RNA species. Recently, aberrant expression of DIS3 has been found to be i...

  • Review
  • Open Access
45 Citations
22,727 Views
13 Pages

16 July 2015

Currently, the pathophysiology of idiopathic Parkinson’s disease is explained by a loss of mainly dopaminergic nerve cells that causes a neurotransmitter deficiency. In the final stage of the disease, there is a marked loss of neurons in the substant...

  • Article
  • Open Access
49 Citations
8,629 Views
19 Pages

Characterization of Receptor Binding Profiles of Influenza A Viruses Using An Ellipsometry-Based Label-Free Glycan Microarray Assay Platform

  • Yiyan Fei,
  • Yung-Shin Sun,
  • Yanhong Li,
  • Hai Yu,
  • Kam Lau,
  • James P. Landry,
  • Zeng Luo,
  • Nicole Baumgarth,
  • Xi Chen and
  • Xiangdong Zhu

16 July 2015

A key step leading to influenza viral infection is the highly specific binding of a viral spike protein, hemagglutinin (HA), with an extracellular glycan receptor of a host cell. Detailed and timely characterization of virus-receptor binding profiles...

  • Article
  • Open Access
19 Citations
5,713 Views
16 Pages

16 July 2015

It is well known that the “free” form of glycans that are structurally related to asparagine (N)-linked glycans (“free N-glycans”) are found in a wide variety of organisms. The mechanisms responsible for the formation/degradation of high mannose-type...

  • Article
  • Open Access
29 Citations
11,391 Views
26 Pages

Comprehensive Protein Interactome Analysis of a Key RNA Helicase: Detection of Novel Stress Granule Proteins

  • Rebecca Bish,
  • Nerea Cuevas-Polo,
  • Zhe Cheng,
  • Dolores Hambardzumyan,
  • Mathias Munschauer,
  • Markus Landthaler and
  • Christine Vogel

15 July 2015

DDX6 (p54/RCK) is a human RNA helicase with central roles in mRNA decay and translation repression. To help our understanding of how DDX6 performs these multiple functions, we conducted the first unbiased, large-scale study to map the DDX6-centric pr...

  • Review
  • Open Access
201 Citations
17,457 Views
42 Pages

2 July 2015

Inflammation is considered to play a central role in a diverse range of disease outcomes associated with exposure to various types of inhalable particulates. The initial mechanisms through which particles trigger cellular responses leading to activat...

  • Review
  • Open Access
95 Citations
10,854 Views
13 Pages

1 July 2015

Interleukin-8 (IL-8) is a neutrophil chemokine that is encoded on the CXCL8 gene. Normally CXCL8 expression is repressed due to histone deacetylation, octamer-1 binding to the promoter and the inhibitory effect of nuclear factor-κB repressing factor...

  • Article
  • Open Access
8 Citations
8,363 Views
18 Pages

29 June 2015

Protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) is one of the most abundant intracellular serine/threonine (Ser/Thr) phosphatases accounting for 1% of the total cellular protein content. PP2A is comprised of a heterodimeric core enzyme and a substrate-specific regulat...

  • Review
  • Open Access
65 Citations
14,170 Views
17 Pages

29 June 2015

Appropriate innate and adaptive immune responses are essential for protection and resolution against chemical, physical or biological insults. Immune cell polarization is fundamental in orchestrating distinct phases of inflammation, specifically acut...

  • Article
  • Open Access
198 Citations
17,738 Views
20 Pages

29 June 2015

Whereas mitochondria are well established as the source of ATP in oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), it is debated if they are also the major cellular sources of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Here we describe the novel approach of combining high-re...

  • Review
  • Open Access
92 Citations
17,138 Views
47 Pages

29 June 2015

Background: The quantitative, measurable detection of drinking is important for the successful treatment of alcohol misuse in transplantation of patients with alcohol disorders, people living with human immunodeficiency virus that need to adhere to m...

  • Article
  • Open Access
20 Citations
9,785 Views
17 Pages

Knockout of RNA Binding Protein MSI2 Impairs Follicle Development in the Mouse Ovary: Characterization of MSI1 and MSI2 during Folliculogenesis

  • Jessie M. Sutherland,
  • Alexander P. Sobinoff,
  • Kara M. Gunter,
  • Barbara A. Fraser,
  • Victoria Pye,
  • Ilana R. Bernstein,
  • Evan Boon,
  • Nicole A. Siddall,
  • Luisa I. De Andres and
  • Eileen A. McLaughlin
  • + 3 authors

26 June 2015

Characterizing the mechanisms underlying follicle development in the ovary is crucial to understanding female fertility and is an area of increasing research interest. The RNA binding protein Musashi is essential for post-transcriptional regulation o...

  • Review
  • Open Access
282 Citations
36,740 Views
21 Pages

26 June 2015

Sigma factors are multi-domain subunits of bacterial RNA polymerase (RNAP) that play critical roles in transcription initiation, including the recognition and opening of promoters as well as the initial steps in RNA synthesis. This review focuses on...

  • Review
  • Open Access
396 Citations
29,164 Views
18 Pages

26 June 2015

Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are obstructive airway disorders which differ in their underlying causes and phenotypes but overlap in patterns of pharmacological treatments. In both asthma and COPD, oxidative stress contribut...

  • Review
  • Open Access
33 Citations
9,376 Views
15 Pages

25 June 2015

Transcription elongation is regulated at several different levels, including control by various accessory transcription elongation factors. A distinct group of these factors interacts with the RNA polymerase secondary channel, an opening at the enzym...

  • Review
  • Open Access
14 Citations
8,290 Views
18 Pages

25 June 2015

α-Synuclein is the aggregation-prone protein associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and related neurodegenerative diseases. Complicating both its biological functions and toxic aggregation are a variety of posttranslational modifications. These mod...

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Biomolecules - ISSN 2218-273X