Characterization of the flexibility of the peripheral stalk of prokaryotic rotary A-ATPases by atomistic simulations

Rotary ATPases are involved in numerous physiological processes, with the three distinct types (F/A/V-ATPases) sharing functional properties and structural features. The basic mechanism involves the counter rotation of two motors, a soluble ATP hydrolyzing/synthesizing domain and a membrane-embedded ion pump connected through a central rotor axle and a stator complex. Within the A/V-ATPase family conformational flexibility of the EG stators has been shown to accommodates catalytic cycling and is considered to be important to function. For the A-ATPase three EG structures have been reported, thought to represent conformational states of the stator during different stages of rotary catalysis. Here we use long, detailed atomistic simulations to show that those structures are conformers explored through thermal fluctuations, but do not represent highly populated states of the EG stator in solution. We show that the coiled coil tail domain has a high persistence length (∼100nm), but retains the ability to adapt to different conformational states through the presence of two hinge regions. Moreover, the stator network of the related V-ATPase has been suggested to adapt to subunit interactions in the collar region and not the nucleotide occupancy of the catalytic domain. The MD simulations reported here, reinforce this observation showing that the EG stators have enough plasticity to adapt to significantly different structural re-arrangements and accommodate structural changes in the catalytic domain whilst resisting the large torque generated by catalytic cycling. These results are important to understand the role the stators play in the rotary-ATPase mechanism

PET Demonstrates Functional Recovery after Treatment by Danhong Injection in a Rat Model of Cerebral Ischemic-Reperfusion Injury

This study aimed to investigate neuroprotection of Danhong injection (DHI) in a rat model of cerebral ischemia using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG-PET). Method. Rats were divided into 5 groups: sham group, ischemia-reperfusion untreated (IRU) group, DHI-1 group (DHI 1 mL/kg/d), DHI-2 group (DHI 2 mL/kg/d), and DHI-4 group (DHI 4 mL/kg/d). AII the treated groups were intraperitoneally injected with DHI daily for 14 days. The therapeutic effects in terms of cerebral infarct volume, neurological function, and cerebral glucose metabolism were evaluated. Expression of TNF-α and IL-1β was detected with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Levels of mature neuronal marker (NeuN), glial marker (GFAP), vascular density factor (vWF), and glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1) were assessed by immunohistochemistry. Results. Compared with the IRU group, rats treated with DHI showed dose dependent reductions in cerebral infarct volume and levels of proinflammatory cytokines, improvement of neurological function, and recovery of cerebral glucose metabolism. Meanwhile, the significantly increased numbers of neurons, gliocytes, and vessels and the recovery of glucose utilization were found in the peri-infarct region after DHI treatment using immunohistochemical analysis. Conclusion. This study demonstrated the metabolic recovery after DHI treatment by micro-PET imaging with 18F-FDG and the neuroprotective effects of DHI in a rat model of cerebral ischemic-reperfusion injury

Cobalt-Catalyzed Aerobic Cross-Dehydrogenative Coupling of C–H and Thiols in Water for C–S Formation

Organosulfides have great significance and value in synthetic and biological chemistry. To establish a versatile and green methodology for C–S bond generation, we successfully developed a new aerobic cross-dehydrogenative coupling of C–H and S–H to synthesize aryl sulfides in water, utilizing CoPcS as the catalyst and O₂ as the oxidant. This protocol shows great tolerance of a wide range of substrates. A large variety of organosulfur compounds were produced in modest to excellent yields

AU4S: A novel synthetic peptide to measure the activity of ATG4 in living cells

<div><p>ATG4 plays a key role in autophagy induction, but the methods for monitoring ATG4 activity in living cells are limited. Here we designed a novel fluorescent peptide named AU4S for noninvasive detection of ATG4 activity in living cells, which consists of the cell-penetrating peptide (CPP), ATG4-recognized sequence “GTFG,” and the fluorophore FITC. Additionally, an ATG4-resistant peptide AG4R was used as a control. CPP can help AU4S or AG4R to penetrate cell membrane efficiently. AU4S but not AG4R can be recognized and cleaved by ATG4, leading to the change of fluorescence intensity. Therefore, the difference between AU4S- and AG4R-measured fluorescence values in the same sample, defined as “F-D value,” can reflect ATG4 activity. By detecting the F-D values, we found that ATG4 activity paralleled LC3B-II levels in rapamycin-treated cells, but neither paralleled LC3B-II levels in starved cells nor presented a correlation with LC3B-II accumulation in WBCs from healthy donors or leukemia patients. However, when DTT was added to the system, ATG4 activity not only paralleled LC3B-II levels in starved cells in the presence or absence of autophagy inhibitors, but also presented a positive correlation with LC3B-II accumulation in WBCs from leukemia patients (<i>R²</i> = 0.5288). In conclusion, this study provides a convenient, rapid, and quantitative method to monitor ATG4 activity in living cells, which may be beneficial to basic and clinical research on autophagy.</p></div

Construction and characterization of a recombinant whole-cell biocatalyst of Escherichia coli expressing styrene monooxygenase under the control of arabinose promoter

A recombinant Escherichia coli (pBAB1) containing styrene monooxygenase (SMO) was developed for the conversion of styrene to enantiopure (S)-styrene oxide that is an important chiral building block in organic synthesis. The styAB genes encoding SMO was cloned into a multicopy plasmid under the tightly regulated promoter of bacterial L-arabinose operon which is inducible by L-arabinose. The recombinant showed that expression level of StyA protein and whole-cell SMO activities were varied depending on the concentration of the inducer L-arabinose. The maximum SMO activity was 108 U/g cdw when the cells were induced with 0.2% L-arabinose. SDS-PAGE and Western blot analyses indicated that whole-cell SMO activity was strongly correlated with the expression level of StyA protein. Organic-aqueous two-phase experiment could yield 50 mM enantiopure (S)-styrene oxide in organic phase in 18 h, but the recombinant SMO activity was unstable during the reaction. The expression of styAB under the control Of L-arabinose promoter was significantly repressed in the presence of glucose