0000000000017329
AUTHOR
Jesús Salgado
showing 10 related works from this author
COBALT SUBSTITUTED PROTEINS
1995
Cobalt(II) has been extensively used as a spectroscopic probe in many proteins, mainly replacing zinc, but also substituting iron, manganese and copper ions. The relatively short electronic relaxation times of high spin cobalt(II) makes this ion suitable as a paramagnetic probe for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy. A survey of the NMR studies performed in cobalt substituted proteins is shown. In the zinc enzymes Carboxypeptidase A, Carbonic Anhydrase and Superoxide Dismutase the implications of these studies on their catalytic mechanisms are commented. Finally, a further insight in the research of the blue copper protein Azurin by applying NMR to its cobalt derivative is also reporte…
Synthesis and Physical Stability of Novel Au-Ag@SiO<SUB>2</SUB> Alloy Nanoparticles
2012
The present study describes the synthesis of nanoparticles of silver-gold alloys and with their electrokinetic and spectroscopic characterisation. The synthesis was made in two steps. In the first step silver nanoparticles coated with silica (Ag@SiO2) were synthesised using a novel method assisted by laser ablation. The second step consisted on the introduction of KAuCl4 in the colloidal solution of Ag@ SiO2 nanoparticles in order to obtain silica-coated silver-gold alloy nanoparticles. The changes of colour and mean diameter of Ag@SiO2 nanoparticles caused by the introduction of the gold salt were found dependent on its concentration. Upon increasing (KAuCl4) the diameter of nanoparticles …
The Alignment of Membrane-Active Peptides Depends on the Lipid Phase State as Viewed by solid state 19F-NMR
2009
Amphipathic membrane-active peptides (antimicrobial, hemolytic, cell-penetrating, fusogenic, etc.) achieve their functions by distinct interaction with lipid bilayers. Some typical structural modes are described in terms of models like the “barrel stave”, “toroidal pore”, “carpet” etc. These models are related to the alignment states of the peptides in the lipid bilayers (surface bound “S-state”, inserted “I-state” or tilted “T-state”), which can be readily characterized by solid state NMR. When determining such alignment, factors like peptide/lipid ratio, charge of the bilayer surface, thickness of the bilayer core, presence of cholesterol, and humidity are typically investigated. Yet, the…
Experiments Meet Hydrophobic Mismatch: A Re-evaluation Of The Orientation Of Model Transmembrane Peptides From Solid-State NMR
2009
The basic physical rules underlying the organization of biological membranes can be gathered under the simple, but powerful, concept of hydrophobic mismatch. For example, the mutual adjustment of the lipid and protein hydrophobic lengths can be related with the existence of lipid rafts and explain discrete secretory pathways in the Golgi apparatus. The orientation of membrane protein fragments is predicted to follow the same hydrophobic mismatch principles, as illustrated by some experiments and molecular dynamics simulations. However, this appears to be challenged by results of solid-state 2H NMR experiments on model transmembrane peptides, displaying tilt angle values unexpectedly small a…
Structure Of Complexes Of Helix-5 From Bax With Lipid Membranes
2009
Bax is a proapoptotic protein implicated in the release of cell-death activating factors from the mitochondrial intermembrane space. Although the structure of the membrane-bound forms of Bax is unknown, it has been proposed to form proteolipidic pores. Studies with synthetic lipid vesicles have shown that fragments encompassing helix-5 of Bax retain a membrane permeabilization ability that is similar to that of the full-length protein. Here we report on the structure of peptide-membrane complexes formed by a Bax helix-5 peptide and lipid bilayers. The relative orientation of the peptide and the lipids are determined using site-specific infrared spectroscopy, assisted by isotopic labeling of…
Vanillin cell sensor
2007
Our project for iGEM 2006 consisted of designing a cellular vanillin biosensor. We used an EnvZ -E. coli strain as a chassis, and constructed two different devices: a sensor and an actuator, assembled using OmpR-P as a standardised mediator. The sensor device contained a computation- ally designed vanillin receptor and a synthetic two-component signal transduction protein (Trz). The receptor protein was based on a ribose-binding protein as scaffold. The Trz was built by fusion of the periplasmic and transmembrane domains of a Trg protein with an EnvZ kinase domain. When the receptor complex binds Trg, an allosteric motion is propagated to the cyto- plasmic EnvZ kinase domain, resulting in a…
Influence of Dynamics on The Analysis of Solid-State NMR Data From Membrane-bound Peptides
2009
By isotope labeling of membrane-bound peptides, typically with 2H, 19F, or 15N, solid-state NMR experiments can yield data from which the orientation of peptides in a native membrane environment can be determined. Such an orientation is defined by a tilt angle and an azimuthal rotation angle.Here we show that to obtain correct values of the orientation angles, it is important to include dynamics in the analysis of the NMR data. Nevertheless the effects of dynamics are different depending on the type of isotope labeling and NMR experiment considered.To analyze the influence of dynamics in detail, we generated virtual NMR observables using a model peptide undergoing explicit Gaussian fluctuat…
From Hydrophobic Matching to Interfacial Tuning: New Ideas for the Mutual Adaptation Between Membranes and Peptides
2009
It is widely accepted that membrane proteins and lipid bilayers are complementary in terms of the distribution in space of their hydrophobic and polar regions. Similarly, it is also accepted that the hydrophobic parts of the protein and the membrane must adapt to each other. Classically these ideas are rationalized under the concept of hydrophobic matching, which predicts a number of possible mechanisms by which proteins can vary their effective hydrophobic length, or membranes can change their hydrophobic thickness. Such effects have been studied in detail for simplified systems, like transmembrane peptides or protein fragments, which generally show that optimizing peptide orientation is t…
Physical-mechanical effects of Nd:YAG laser on the surface of sound dental enamel.
1993
Human dental enamel samples were irradiated using a 5 kHz Q-Switched Nd:YAG laser. An increase in Knoop microhardness and modification of the membrane permselectivity were detached. These results and the changes observed by SEM, can be connected with the fusion of the enamel surface.
A photoswitchable helical peptide with light-controllable interface/transmembrane topology in lipidic membranes
2021
Summary The spontaneous insertion of helical transmembrane (TM) polypeptides into lipid bilayers is driven by three sequential equilibria: solution-to-membrane interface (MI) partition, unstructured-to-helical folding, and MI-to-TM helix insertion. A bottleneck for understanding these three steps is the lack of experimental approaches to perturb membrane-bound hydrophobic polypeptides out of equilibrium rapidly and reversibly. Here, we report on a 24-residues-long hydrophobic α-helical polypeptide, covalently coupled to an azobenzene photoswitch (KCALP-azo), which displays a light-controllable TM/MI equilibrium in hydrated lipid bilayers. FTIR spectroscopy reveals that trans KCALP-azo folds…