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Reduced Protein (reduced + protein)
Selected AbstractsAnomalous electrophoretic behavior of a very acidic protein: Ribonuclease U2ELECTROPHORESIS, Issue 18 2005Lucía García-Ortega Abstract Ribonuclease U2 is a low-molecular-weight acidic protein with three disulfide bridges. This protein displays an anomalous electrophoretic behavior on standard SDS-PAGE. The electrophoretic mobility of the nonreduced protein roughly corresponds to its molecular mass while the migration of the reduced protein would be in accordance with the expected molecular mass of the protein dimer. This study reveals that the protein does not bind SDS under the SDS-PAGE conditions, its electrophoretic mobility being only determined by its electrostatic charge and hydrodynamic properties. In addition, the nonreduced protein cannot be blotted to a membrane. Unfolding of the protein upon reduction of its disulfide bridges enables electrotransference to membranes due to a restricted diffusion along the electrophoresis gel. [source] Age-related reduction in retinal deimination levels in the F344BN ratAGING CELL, Issue 3 2008Sanjoy K. Bhattacharya Summary Increased deimination and peptidyl arginine deiminase type 2 (PAD2) expression has been observed in age-related neurodegenerative diseases without discrimination between their aging and disease component. Here, we describe reduced levels of deimination commensurate with reduced protein, mRNA and activity of peptidylarginine deiminase type 2 in the retina, optic nerve and plasma of aged rats when compared to young rats. The decrease was significant in the ganglion cell layer, inner plexiform layer and inner nuclear layer. Because our observations suggest reduced deimination is a consequence of aging, we conclude that increased deimination must be a consequence of disease. Our findings are important to understand late-onset and progressive diseases such as glaucoma, pseudoexfoliation syndrome, age-related macular degeneration and Oguchi's disease. [source] Listeriolysin O as cytotoxic component of an immunotoxinPROTEIN SCIENCE, Issue 6 2009Sabine Bergelt Abstract Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) have been developed over the past years as promising anticancer therapeutics. The conjugation of tumor specific mAbs with cytotoxic molecules has been shown to improve their efficacy dramatically. These bifunctional immunotoxins, consisting of covalently linked antibodies and protein toxins, possess considerable potential in cancer therapy. Many of them are under investigation in clinical trials. As a result of general interest in new toxic components, we describe here the suitability of the bacterial protein Listeriolysin O (LLO) as cytotoxic component of an immunotoxin. Unique characteristics of LLO, such as its acidic pH optimum and the possibility to regulate the cytolytic activity by cysteine-oxidation, make LLO an interesting toxophore. Oxidized LLO shows a substantially decreased cytolytic activity when compared with the reduced protein as analyzed by hemolysis. Both oxidized and reduced LLO exhibit a cell-type-unspecific toxicity in cell culture with a significantly higher toxicity of reduced LLO. For cell-type-specific targeting of LLO to tumor cells, LLO was coupled to the dsFv fragment of the monoclonal antibody B3, which recognizes the tumor-antigen Lewis Y. The coupling of LLO to dsFv-B3 was performed via cysteine-containing polyionic fusion peptides that act as a specific heterodimerization motif. The novel immunotoxin B3-LLO could be shown to specifically eliminate antigen positive MCF7 cells with an EC50 value of 2.3 nM, whereas antigen negative cell lines were 80- to 250-fold less sensitive towards B3-LLO. [source] Structure of the M148Q mutant of rusticyanin at 1.5,Å: a model for the copper site of stellacyaninACTA CRYSTALLOGRAPHICA SECTION D, Issue 3 2001Michael A. Hough The small blue copper protein rusticyanin from Thiobacillus ferrooxidans contains a type 1 Cu centre with a single axial ligand, Met148, which together with the His-Cys-His trigonal planar ligands produces a distorted trigonal pyramidal coordination geometry to copper. Type 1 Cu sites are found in cupredoxins and several multicopper proteins, including oxidases and nitrite reductases. The role of the axial ligand has been extensively debated in terms of its function in the fine tuning of the redox potential and spectroscopic properties of type 1 Cu sites. Numerous mutations of the Met ligand in azurins have been studied, but interpretation of the results has been complicated by the presence of the additional carbonyl oxygen ligand from Gly45, a neighbouring residue to the coordinating His46. The importance of the axial ligand has been further emphasized by the finding that the type 1 centre in Rhus vernicifera stellacyanin, with the lowest redox potential in a type 1 Cu site of 184,mV, has Gln as the axial ligand, whilst fungal laccase and ceruloplasmin, which have redox potentials of 550,800,mV, have a Leu in this position. Here, the crystal structure of the M148Q mutant of rusticyanin at 1.5,Å resolution is presented. This is a significantly higher resolution than that of the structures of native rusticyanin. In addition, the M148Q structure is that of the oxidized protein while the native structures to date are of the reduced protein. The mutant protein crystallizes with two molecules per asymmetric unit, in contrast to the one present in the native crystal form. This mutant's redox potential (550,mV at pH 3.2) is lowered compared with that of the native protein (,670,mV at pH 3.2) by about 120,mV. The type 1 Cu site of M148Q closely mimics the structural characteristics of the equivalent site in non-glycosylated cucumber stellacyanin (redox potential ,260,mV) and, owing to the absence in rusticyanin of the fifth, carbonyl ligand present in azurin, may provide a better model for the R. vernicifera stellacyanin (redox potential ,184,mV) type 1 Cu site, which also lacks the fifth ligand. Furthermore, the presence of two molecules in the asymmetric unit cell indicates a potential binding region of the redox partners. [source] Thiopropyl-agarose as a solid phase reducing agent for chemical modification of IgG and F(ab,)2BIOTECHNOLOGY PROGRESS, Issue 5 2008Natalia Ferraz Abstract Selective reduction of native disulfide bonds in immunoglobulins is one of the best methods for introducing reactive groups on to the protein surface. Additionally, the thiol groups so generated may allow oriented conjugation at a specific site of the immunoglobulin. Solid-phase reducing agents have many advantages over soluble ones (including ease of separation of excess reagent from reduced protein by filtration, and the potential for regeneration and multiple reuse). In this work we report a comparative study of the reduction of rabbit IgG and its F(ab,)2 fragments, with mercaptohydroxypropylether-agarose (thiopropyl-agarose), a solid phase reducing agent, and dithiothreitol. The effect of different parameters on the process, such as the amount of reducing agent, incubation period, and temperature, was assessed by titration of thiol groups and SDS-PAGE analysis. Optimized reduction with thiopropyl-agarose introduced six thiol groups in the F(ab,)2 fragment (mol/mol). Native IgG was less reactive, probably due to steric effects, as only an average of three thiol groups were introduced. However, by increasing reaction temperature from 22 to 37°C, six thiol groups could be introduced in native IgG (mol/mol). Reduction with dithiothreitol also introduced six thiol groups in F(ab,)2 fragments (mol/mol) but led to higher thiol content for the whole IgG. These results demonstrated that thiopropyl-agarose can be a very useful tool for exercising more precise control over the reduction treatment, and for selecting which disulfide bridges are to be broken. After 6 h incubation with reducing agent containing 8 and 16 ,moles SH per mg of protein, the resulting reduced IgG retained the same biological activity as the native immunoglobulin. The controlled modification of native disulfides achieved with thiopropyl-agarose will be useful for the development of soluble and insoluble immunoglobulin conjugates. [source] | |||||||||||||