Physicochemical principles that regulate the competition between functional and dysfunctional association of proteins

To maintain protein homeostasis, a variety of quality control mechanisms, such as the unfolded protein response and the heat shock response, enable proteins to fold and to assemble into functional complexes while avoiding the formation of aberrant and potentially harmful aggregates. We show here that a complementary contribution to the regulation of the interactions between proteins is provided by the physicochemical properties of their amino acid sequences. The results of a systematic analysis of the protein-protein complexes in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) show that interface regions are more prone to aggregate than other surface regions, indicating that many of the interactions that promote the formation of functional complexes, including hydrophobic and electrostatic forces, can potentially also cause abnormal intermolecular association. We also show, however, that aggregation-prone interfaces are prevented from triggering uncontrolled assembly by being stabilized into their functional conformations by disulfide bonds and salt bridges. These results indicate that functional and dysfunctional association of proteins are promoted by similar forces but also that they are closely regulated by the presence of specific interactions that stabilize native states

Self-healing behavior of a polyelectrolyte-based lubricant additive for aqueous lubrication of oxide materials

We report on the self-healing behavior of a polyelectrolyte-based aqueous lubricant additive, poly(l-lysine)-graft-poly(ethylene glycol) (PLL-g-PEG), during aqueous lubrication of an oxide-based tribosystem. Combined pin-on-disk tribometry and fluorescence microscopy experiments have shown that stable lubricating performance was enabled by means of rapid healing of the worn tribopair surface by polymers dissolved in the adjoining bulk lubricant. This rapid ‘self-healing' of PLL-g-PEG is attributed to electrostatic interactions between the polycationic poly(l-lysine) (PLL) backbone of the polymer and negatively charged oxide surface. In contrast, a similar healing effect was not readily achievable in the case of methoxy-poly(ethylene glycol)-trimethylsilylether (Sil-PEG), a lubricant additive that is covalently bonded to the surface prior to tribological stres

Gene content evolution in the arthropods

Arthropods comprise the largest and most diverse phylum on Earth and play vital roles in nearly every ecosystem. Their diversity stems in part from variations on a conserved body plan, resulting from and recorded in adaptive changes in the genome. Dissection of the genomic record of sequence change enables broad questions regarding genome evolution to be addressed, even across hyper-diverse taxa within arthropods. Using 76 whole genome sequences representing 21 orders spanning more than 500 million years of arthropod evolution, we document changes in gene and protein domain content and provide temporal and phylogenetic context for interpreting these innovations. We identify many novel gene families that arose early in the evolution of arthropods and during the diversification of insects into modern orders. We reveal unexpected variation in patterns of DNA methylation across arthropods and examples of gene family and protein domain evolution coincident with the appearance of notable phenotypic and physiological adaptations such as flight, metamorphosis, sociality, and chemoperception. These analyses demonstrate how large-scale comparative genomics can provide broad new insights into the genotype to phenotype map and generate testable hypotheses about the evolution of animal diversity

Myosin VI Drives Clathrin-Mediated AMPA Receptor Endocytosis to Facilitate Cerebellar Long-Term Depression

Myosin VI is an actin-based cytoskeletal motor implicated in various steps of membrane trafficking. Here, we investigated whether this myosin is crucial for synaptic function and plasticity in neurons. We find that myosin VI localizes at cerebellar parallel fiber to Purkinje cell synapses and that the myosin is indispensable for long-term depression of AMPA-receptor-mediated synaptic signal transmission at this synapse. Moreover, direct visualization of GluA2-containing AMPA receptors in Purkinje cells reveals that the myosin drives removal of AMPA receptors from the surface of dendritic spines in an activity-dependent manner. Co-immunoprecipitation and super-resolution microscopy indicate that specifically the interaction of myosin VI with the clathrin adaptor component alpha-adaptin is important during long-term depression. Together, these data suggest that myosin VI directly promotes clathrin-mediated endocytosis of AMPA receptors in Purkinje cells to mediate cerebellar long-term depression. Our results provide insights into myosin VI function and the molecular mechanisms underlying synaptic plasticity

Estudo comparativo entre métodos de coloração para a pesquisa do bacilo álcool-ácido resistente em secreções pulmonares

Apresentação do resultado comparativo entre dois métodos de coloração Osol e Ziehl-Neelsen para a pesquisa do bacilo álcool-ácido resistente, em 337 amostras secreção pulmonar. Foi realizada uma avaliação cultural de 287 amostras, mostrando que o método de Osol apresenta-se melhor nas baciloscopias discordantes e que há tendência em apresentar maior riqueza de germe.The comparative results obtained with the study of two staining methods, the Ziehl-Neelsen and the Osol ones, are presented. The study was performed with the alcohol acid resistant bacilli of 337 pulmonary secretion specimens. Evaluation cultures of 287 of these specimens were made. The Osol method proved to be better than the Ziehl-Neelsen one when dealing with discordant baciloscopic evidence. There tended to be a larger ammount of bacilli, too, when the former was used

Mechanism of Protein Kinetic Stabilization by Engineered Disulfide Crosslinks

The impact of disulfide bonds on protein stability goes beyond simple equilibrium thermodynamics effects associated with the conformational entropy of the unfolded state. Indeed, disulfide crosslinks may play a role in the prevention of dysfunctional association and strongly affect the rates of irreversible enzyme inactivation, highly relevant in biotechnological applications. While these kinetic-stability effects remain poorly understood, by analogy with proposed mechanisms for processes of protein aggregation and fibrillogenesis, we propose that they may be determined by the properties of sparsely-populated, partially-unfolded intermediates. Here we report the successful design, on the basis of high temperature molecular-dynamics simulations, of six thermodynamically and kinetically stabilized variants of phytase from Citrobacter braakii (a biotechnologically important enzyme) with one, two or three engineered disulfides. Activity measurements and 3D crystal structure determination demonstrate that the engineered crosslinks do not cause dramatic alterations in the native structure. The inactivation kinetics for all the variants displays a strongly non-Arrhenius temperature dependence, with the time-scale for the irreversible denaturation process reaching a minimum at a given temperature within the range of the denaturation transition. We show this striking feature to be a signature of a key role played by a partially unfolded, intermediate state/ensemble. Energetic and mutational analyses confirm that the intermediate is highly unfolded (akin to a proposed critical intermediate in the misfolding of the prion protein), a result that explains the observed kinetic stabilization. Our results provide a rationale for the kinetic-stability consequences of disulfide-crosslink engineering and an experimental methodology to arrive at energetic/structural descriptions of the sparsely populated and elusive intermediates that play key roles in irreversible protein denaturation.This work was supported by grants BIO2009-09562, CSD2009-00088 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and FEDER Funds (JMS-R)

An Evolutionary Trade-Off between Protein Turnover Rate and Protein Aggregation Favors a Higher Aggregation Propensity in Fast Degrading Proteins

We previously showed the existence of selective pressure against protein aggregation by the enrichment of aggregation-opposing ‘gatekeeper’ residues at strategic places along the sequence of proteins. Here we analyzed the relationship between protein lifetime and protein aggregation by combining experimentally determined turnover rates, expression data, structural data and chaperone interaction data on a set of more than 500 proteins. We find that selective pressure on protein sequences against aggregation is not homogeneous but that short-living proteins on average have a higher aggregation propensity and fewer chaperone interactions than long-living proteins. We also find that short-living proteins are more often associated to deposition diseases. These findings suggest that the efficient degradation of high-turnover proteins is sufficient to preclude aggregation, but also that factors that inhibit proteasomal activity, such as physiological ageing, will primarily affect the aggregation of short-living proteins