Search results for "Promiscuity"
showing 7 items of 7 documents
Immunological properties of oxygen-transport proteins: hemoglobin, hemocyanin and hemerythrin
2016
It is now well documented that peptides with enhanced or alternative functionality (termed cryptides) can be liberated from larger, and sometimes inactive, proteins. A primary example of this phenomenon is the oxygen-transport protein hemoglobin. Aside from respiration, hemoglobin and hemoglobin-derived peptides have been associated with immune modulation, hematopoiesis, signal transduction and microbicidal activities in metazoans. Likewise, the functional equivalents to hemoglobin in invertebrates, namely hemocyanin and hemerythrin, act as potent immune effectors under certain physiological conditions. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the true extent of oxygen-transport protein dy…
Can life be standardized? Current challenges in biological standardization
2021
The concept of standard strongly evokes machines, industries, electric or mechanical devices, vehicles, or furniture. Indeed, our technological civilization would not be possible – at least in the terms it is structured today – without universal, reliable components, whose acknowledged use results in competitive costs, robustness and interchangeability. For example, an Ikea screw can be used in a wide set of structurally dissimilar furniture and an app can be run on many different smartphones. The very concept of standardization is linked to the industrial revolution and mass production of goods through assembly lines. The question we will try to answer in the present paper is the extent to…
Bearing gods in mind and culture
2011
Abstract Where do supernatural agents come from and why do they stay around? Within the biocultural study of religion one finds a growing tendency to answer these questions by weaving together two conceptual threads, which I will refer to as anthropomorphic promiscuity and sociographic prudery. Although descriptions of these theogonic (god-bearing) mechanisms can differ significantly, the theoretical pattern can be recognized in authors from a variety of disciplines. I illustrate this pattern using four books published in 2010: David Lewis-Williams's Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion, Pascal Boyer's The Fracture of an Illusion: Science and the Dissolution of Rel…
Theoretical Study of Primary Reaction of Pseudozyma antarctica Lipase B as the Starting Point To Understand Its Promiscuity
2014
Pseudozyma antarctica lipase B (PALB) is a serine hydrolase that catalyzes the hydrolysis of carboxylic acid esters in aqueous medium but it has also shown catalytic activity for a plethora of reactions. This promiscuous activity has found widespread applications. In the present paper, the primary reaction of PALB, its native hydrolytic activity, has been studied using hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) potentials. Free energy surfaces, obtained from QM/MM Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations, show that the reaction takes place by means of a multi-step mechanism where the first step, the activation of the carbonyl group of the substrate and the nucleophilic attack of Ser1…
Hybrid Schemes Based on Quantum Mechanics/Molecular Mechanics Simulations
2011
The development of characterization techniques, advanced synthesis methods, as well as molecular modeling has transformed the study of systems in a well-established research field. The current research challenges in biocatalysis and biotransformation evolve around enzyme discovery, design, and optimization. How can we find or create enzymes that catalyze important synthetic reactions, even reactions that may not exist in nature? What is the source of enzyme catalytic power? To answer these and other related questions, the standard strategies have evolved from trial-and-error methodologies based on chemical knowledge, accumulated experience, and common sense into a clearly multidisciplinary …
Enzyme Promiscuity in Enolase Superfamily. Theoretical Study of o-Succinylbenzoate Synthase Using QM/MM Methods
2015
The promiscuous activity of the enzyme o-succinylbenzoate synthase (OSBS) from the actinobacteria Amycolatopsis is investigated by means of QM/MM methods, using both density functional theory and semiempirical Hamiltonians. This enzyme catalyzes not only the dehydration of 2-succinyl-6R-hydroxy-2,4-cyclohexadiene-1R-carboxylate but also catalyzes racemization of different acylamino acids, with N-succinyl-R-phenylglycine being the best substrate. We investigated the molecular mechanisms for both reactions exploring the potential energy surface. Then, molecular dynamics simulations were performed to obtain the free energy profiles and the averaged interaction energies of enzymatic residues wi…
Usurping the victim's trauma narrative: Victim blaming and slut-shaming on season 1 of You
2020
The American TV series You (2018-) has been the subject of a heated debate on both social media and Academia in regard to its ambiguous approach to feminism and gender violence, due to its prioritization of the perpetrator’s voice over the victim’s (Rajiva and Patrick 2019). In the present context of feminist activism, with movements such as #MeToo and Time’s Up fostering female solidarity and giving voice to survivors of sexual violence, the series appears to have an opposite, and even sexist, agenda. Drawing on the concept of ‘trauma narratives’ (Vickroy 2004; Kohlke and Gutleben 2010), I argue that the first season of the show fails to grant the female victim, Beck, a therapeutic space w…