tuberculosis/arabidopsis thaliana

Ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) is a key enzyme for DNA synthesis since it provides cells with deoxyribonucleotides, the DNA precursors. Class I alpha2beta2 RNRs contain a dinuclear iron center and an essential tyrosyl radical in the beta2 component (protein R2). This is also true for the purified

Transgenic plants are potentially safe and inexpensive vehicles to produce and mucosally deliver protective antigens. However, the application of this technology is limited by the poor response of the immune system to non-particulate, subunit vaccines. Co-delivery of therapeutic proteins with

BACKGROUND Deoxyuridine triphosphate nucleotidohydrolase (dUTPase) hydrolyzes dUTP to dUMP and pyrophosphate to maintain the cellular thymine-uracil ratio. dUTPase is also a target for cancer chemotherapy. However, the mechanism defining its substrate affinity remains unclear. Sequence comparisons

The genome sequencing project revealed presence of two active chalcone synthase (CHS) homologues (At1g02050 and At4g34850) in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. We report herein the two genes encode closely related novel plant-specific type III polyketide synthases (PKSs) that produces long-chain

We previously reported the purification and characterization of a novel type of alkaline ceramidase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain AN17 (Okino, N., Tani, M., Imayama, S., and Ito, M. (1998) J. Biol. Chem. 273, 14368-14373). Here, we report the molecular cloning, sequencing, and expression of the

HisB, encoded by open reading frame Rv1601, possesses enzymatic activity as an imidazoleglycerol-phosphate dehydratase in the histidine-biosynthetic pathway of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A recombinant form of HisB was crystallized in three crystal forms: crystals grown using 20% PEG 1500 as a

A library of 40,000 compounds was screened for inhibitors of 2-methylerythritol 2,4-cyclodiphosphate synthase (IspF) protein from Arabidopsis thaliana using a photometric assay. A thiazolopyrimidine derivative resulting from the high-throughput screen was found to inhibit the IspF proteins of

Transgenic plants are a novel way to produce and deliver oral vaccines. Arabidopsis thaliana material shown previously to express the tuberculosis (TB) antigen ESAT-6 fused to the B subunit of Escherichia coli heat-labile enterotoxin (LTB) was fed to mice and the resulting immune response

The Biostack experiments I and II were flown on board the Apollo 16 and 17 command modules in order to obtain information on the biological damage produced by the bombardment of heavy high-energy (HZE) particles of cosmic radiation during spaceflight. Such data are required for estimating radiation

Truncated hemoglobins (trHb's) form a family of low molecular weight O2 binding hemoproteins distributed in eubacteria, protozoa, and plants. TrHb's branch in a distinct clade within the hemoglobin (Hb) superfamily. A unique globin gene has recently been identified from the complete genome sequence

The interconversion of hexose-6-phosphate and hexose-1-phosphate can be directly analyzed by high-performance anion-exchange chromatography coupled with an electrochemical detector (HPAEC-PAD). Thus, this method can be used to measure the activities of N-acetylglucosamine-phosphate mutase (AGM),

The function of a protein is of great interest in the cutting-edge research of biological mechanisms, disease development and drug/target discovery. Besides experimental explorations, a variety of computational methods have been designed to predict protein function. Among these in silico methods,

2C-Methyl-D-erythritol-4-phosphate synthase, encoded by the ispC gene (also designated dxr), catalyzes the first committed step in the nonmevalonate isoprenoid biosynthetic pathway. The reaction involves the isomerization of 1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate, giving a branched-chain aldose derivative

The unusual base composition of the genome of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum prompted us to systematically investigate the occurrence of homopolymeric DNA tracts in the P. falciparum genome and, for comparison, in the genomes of Homo sapiens , Saccharomyces cerevisiae ,

Endocannabinoid system evolution was estimated by searching for functional orthologs in the genomes of twelve phylogenetically diverse organisms: Homo sapiens, Mus musculus, Takifugu rubripes, Ciona intestinalis, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Arabidopsis