Search results for "BCE"
showing 10 items of 260 documents
Modulation of lipid-induced ER stress by fatty acid shape.
2011
IF : 5,709; International audience; Exposure of pancreatic β cells to long-chain saturated fatty acids (SFA) induces a so-called endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress that can ultimately lead to cell death. This process is believed to participate in insulin deficiency associated with type 2 diabetes, via a decrease in β-cell mass. By contrast, some unsaturated fatty acid species appear less toxic to the cells and can even alleviate SFA-induced ER stress. In the present study, we took advantage of a simple yeast-based model, which brings together most of the trademarks of lipotoxicity in human cells, to screen fatty acids of various structures for their capacity to counter ER stress. Here we dem…
Influence of Whole-Body Dynamics on 15N PISEMA NMR Spectra of Membrane Proteins: A Theoretical Analysis
2009
AbstractMembrane proteins and peptides exhibit a preferred orientation in the lipid bilayer while fluctuating in an anisotropic manner. Both the orientation and the dynamics have direct functional implications, but motions are usually not accessible, and structural descriptions are generally static. Using simulated data, we analyze systematically the impact of whole-body motions on the peptide orientations calculated from two-dimensional polarization inversion spin exchange at the magic angle (PISEMA) NMR. Fluctuations are found to have a significant effect on the observed spectra. Nevertheless, wheel-like patterns are still preserved, and it is possible to determine the average peptide til…
Orientational landscapes of peptides in membranes: prediction of (2)H NMR couplings in a dynamic context.
2009
Unlike soluble proteins, membrane polypeptides face an anisotropic milieu. This imposes restraints on their orientation and provides a reference that makes structure prediction tractable by minimalistic thermodynamic models. Here we use this framework to build orientational distributions of monomeric membrane-bound peptides and to predict their expected solid-state (2)H NMR quadrupolar couplings when labeled at specific side chain positions. Using a complete rigid-body sampling of configurations relative to an implicit lipid membrane, peptide free energy landscapes are calculated. This allows us to obtain probability distributions of the peptide tilt, azimuthal rotation, and depth of membra…
Ion transport and selectivity in nanopores with spatially inhomogeneous fixed charge distributions
2007
Polymeric nanopores with fixed charges show ionic selectivity when immersed in aqueous electrolyte solutions. The understanding of the electrical interaction between these charges and the mobile ions confined in the inside nanopore solution is the key issue in the design of potential applications. The authors have theoretically described the effects that spatially inhomogeneous fixed charge distributions exert on the ionic transport and selectivity properties of the nanopore. A comprehensive set of one-dimensional distributions including the skin, core, cluster, and asymmetric cases are analyzed on the basis of the Nernst-Planck equations. Current-voltage curves, nanopore potentials, and tr…
Field theoretic study of bilayer membrane fusion: I. Hemifusion mechanism
2003
Self-consistent field theory is used to determine structural and energetic properties of metastable intermediates and unstable transition states involved in the standard stalk mechanism of bilayer membrane fusion. A microscopic model of flexible amphiphilic chains dissolved in hydrophilic solvent is employed to describe these self-assembled structures. We find that the barrier to formation of the initial stalk is much smaller than previously estimated by phenomenological theories. Therefore its creation it is not the rate limiting process. The barrier which is relevant is associated with the rather limited radial expansion of the stalk into a hemifusion diaphragm. It is strongly affected by…
Molecular Rearrangement of an Aza-Scorpiand Macrocycle Induced by pH: A Computational Study †
2016
Rearrangements and their control are a hot topic in supramolecular chemistry due to the possibilities that these phenomena open in the design of synthetic receptors and molecular machines. Macrocycle aza-scorpiands constitute an interesting system that can reorganize their spatial structure depending on pH variations or the presence of metal cations. In this study, the relative stabilities of these conformations were predicted computationally by semi-empirical and density functional theory approximations, and the reorganization from closed to open conformations was simulated by using the Monte Carlo multiple minimum method Financial support by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitiv…
Protein search for multiple targets on DNA
2016
Protein-DNA interactions are crucial for all biological processes. One of the most important fundamental aspects of these interactions is the process of protein searching and recognizing specific binding sites on DNA. A large number of experimental and theoretical investigations have been devoted to uncovering the molecular description of these phenomena, but many aspects of the mechanisms of protein search for the targets on DNA remain not well understood. One of the most intriguing problems is the role of multiple targets in protein search dynamics. Using a recently developed theoretical framework we analyze this question in detail. Our method is based on a discrete-state stochastic appro…
Monolayer curvature stabilizes nanoscale raft domains in mixed lipid bilayers
2013
According to the lipid raft hypothesis, biological lipid membranes are laterally heterogeneous and filled with nanoscale ordered "raft" domains, which are believed to play an important role for the organization of proteins in membranes. However, the mechanisms stabilizing such small rafts are not clear, and even their existence is sometimes questioned. Here we report the observation of raft-like structures in a coarse-grained molecular model for multicomponent lipid bilayers. On small scales, our membranes demix into a liquid ordered (lo) and a liquid disordered (ld) phase. On large scales, phase separation is suppressed and gives way to a microemulsion-type state that contains nanometer si…
Structural Characterization of Set1 RNA Recognition Motifs and their Role in Histone H3 Lysine 4 Methylation
2006
Departament de Bioquimica iBiologia Molecular, Universitatde Valencia, C/Dr Moliner 50,46100, Burjassot, SpainThe yeast Set1 histone H3 lysine 4 (H3K4) methyltransferase contains, inaddition to its catalytic SET domain, a conserved RNA recognition motif(RRM1). We present here the crystal structure and the secondary structureassignment in solution of the Set1 RRM1. Although RRM1 has the expectedβαββαβ RRM-fold, it lacks the typical RNA-binding features of thesemodules. RRM1 is not able to bind RNA by itself in vitro, but a constructcombining RRM1 with a newly identified downstream RRM2 specificallybinds RNA. Invivo,H3K4 methylation isnot affectedbyapoint mutation inRRM2 that preserves Set1 s…
Tetraspan vesicle membrane proteins: Synthesis, subcellular localization, and functional properties
2002
Tetraspan vesicle membrane proteins (TVPs) are characterized by four transmembrane regions and cytoplasmically located end domains. They are ubiquitous and abundant components of vesicles in most, if not all, cells of multicellular organisms. TVP-containing vesicles shuttle between various membranous compartments and are localized in biosynthetic and endocytotic pathways. Based on gene organization and amino acid sequence similarities TVPs can be grouped into three distinct families that are referred to as physins, gyrins, and secretory carrier-associated membrane proteins (SCAMPs). In mammals synaptophysin, synaptoporin, pantophysin, and mitsugumin29 constitute the physins, synaptogyrin 1-…