203 research outputs found

    A role for SUMO modification in transcriptional repression and activation

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    Since the discovery of the SUMO (small ubiquitin-like modifier) family of proteins just over a decade ago, a plethora of substrates have been uncovered including many regulators of transcription. Conjugation of SUMO to target proteins has generally been considered as a repressive modification. However, there are now a growing number of examples where sumoylation has been shown to activate transcription. Here we discuss whether there is something intrinsically repressive about sumoylation, or if the outcome of this modification in the context of transcription will prove to be largely substrate-dependent. We highlight some of the technical challenges that will be faced by attempting to answer this question

    Integration with the human genome of peptide sequences obtained by high-throughput mass spectrometry

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    A crucial aim upon the completion of the human genome is the verification and functional annotation of all predicted genes and their protein products. Here we describe the mapping of peptides derived from accurate interpretations of protein tandem mass spectrometry (MS) data to eukaryotic genomes and the generation of an expandable resource for integration of data from many diverse proteomics experiments. Furthermore, we demonstrate that peptide identifications obtained from high-throughput proteomics can be integrated on a large scale with the human genome. This resource could serve as an expandable repository for MS-derived proteome information

    Inhibition of CLIC4 Enhances Autophagy and Triggers Mitochondrial and ER Stress-Induced Apoptosis in Human Glioma U251 Cells under Starvation

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    CLIC4/mtCLIC, a chloride intracellular channel protein, localizes to mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum (ER), nucleus and cytoplasm, and participates in the apoptotic response to stress. Apoptosis and autophagy, the main types of the programmed cell death, seem interconnected under certain stress conditions. However, the role of CLIC4 in autophagy regulation has yet to be determined. In this study, we demonstrate upregulation and nuclear translocation of the CLIC4 protein following starvation in U251 cells. CLIC4 siRNA transfection enhanced autophagy with increased LC3-II protein and puncta accumulation in U251 cells under starvation conditions. In that condition, the interaction of the 14-3-3 epsilon isoform with CLIC4 was abolished and resulted in Beclin 1 overactivation, which further activated autophagy. Moreover, inhibiting the expression of CLIC4 triggered both mitochondrial apoptosis involved in Bax/Bcl-2 and cytochrome c release under starvation and endoplasmic reticulum stress-induced apoptosis with CHOP and caspase-4 upregulation. These results demonstrate that CLIC4 nuclear translocation is an integral part of the cellular response to starvation. Inhibiting the expression of CLIC4 enhances autophagy and contributes to mitochondrial and ER stress-induced apoptosis under starvation

    Histone deacetylase inhibitors: clinical implications for hematological malignancies

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    Histone modifications have widely been implicated in cancer development and progression and are potentially reversible by drug treatments. The N-terminal tails of each histone extend outward through the DNA strand containing amino acid residues modified by posttranslational acetylation, methylation, and phosphorylation. These modifications change the secondary structure of the histone protein tails in relation to the DNA strands, increasing the distance between DNA and histones, and thus allowing accessibility of transcription factors to gene promoter regions. A large number of HDAC inhibitors have been synthesized in the last few years, most being effective in vitro, inducing cancer cells differentiation or cell death. The majority of the inhibitors are in clinical trials, unlike the suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid, a pan-HDACi, and Romidepsin (FK 228), a class I-selective HDACi, which are only approved in the second line treatment of refractory, persistent or relapsed cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, and active in approximately 150 clinical trials, in monotherapy or in association. Preclinical studies investigated the use of these drugs in clinical practice, as single agents and in combination with chemotherapy, hypomethylating agents, proteasome inhibitors, and MTOR inhibitors, showing a significant effect mostly in hematological malignancies. The aim of this review is to focus on the biological features of these drugs, analyzing the possible mechanism(s) of action and outline an overview on the current use in the clinical practice

    Transcriptional and Epigenetic Substrates of Methamphetamine Addiction and Withdrawal: Evidence from a Long-Access Self-Administration Model in the Rat

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    Optical Resolution of β-Hydroxynorvaline

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    Exploring signal transduction in heteromultimeric protein based on energy dissipation model

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    Dynamic intersubunit interactions are key elements in the regulation of many biological systems. A better understanding of how subunits interact with each other and how their interactions are related to dynamic protein structure is a fundamental task in biology. In this paper, a heteromultimeric allosteric protein, Corynebacterium glutamicum aspartokinase, is used as a model system to explore the signal transduction involved in intersubunit interactions and allosteric communication with an emphasis on the intersubunit signaling process. For this purpose, energy dissipation simulation and network construction are conducted for each subunit and the whole protein. Comparison with experimental results shows that the new approach is able to predict all the mutation sites that have been experimentally proved to desensitize allosteric regulation of the enzyme. Additionally, analysis revealed that the function of the effector threonine is to facilitate the binding of the two subunits without contributing to the allosteric communication. During the allosteric regulation upon the binding of the effector lysine, signals can be transferred from the β-subunit to the catalytic site of the α-subunit through both a direct way of intersubunit signal transduction, and an indirect way: first, to the regulatory region of the α-subunit by intersubunit signal transduction and then to the catalytic region by intramolecular signal transduction. Therefore, the new approach is able to illustrate the diversity of the underlying mechanisms when the strength of feedback inhibition by the effector(s) is modulated, providing useful information that has potential applications in engineering heteromultimeric allosteric regulation
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