Search results for "circular"

The Market’s Maturity for Public Procurement of Circular Furniture: A Study from Latvia

2021

Public procurement plays an important role in the market by making up 14% of the Gross Domestic Product in the European Union, therefore it is seen as an important instrument to promote such products and services that better meet society’s demands, for example, sustainability. Starting from 2015, circularity is an important aspect of sustainability. Furniture is among the product groups with a significant impact on the material footprint, therefore approaches to increase material efficiency and circularity are of high value. With this research, the authors investigate the market’s maturity, i.e. the readiness of suppliers to offer circular furniture and services, as well as the readiness o…

The interaction of recombinant subdomains of the procollagen C-proteinase with procollagen I provides a quantitative explanation for functional diffe…

2006

The procollagen C-proteinase (PCP) is a zinc peptidase of the astacin family and the metzincin superfamily. The enzyme removes the C-terminal propeptides of fibrillar procollagens and activates other matrix proteins. Besides its catalytic protease domain, the procollagen C-proteinase contains several C-terminal CUB modules (named after complement factors C1r and C1s, the sea urchin UEGF protein, and BMP-1) and EGF-like domains. The two major splice forms of the C-proteinase differ in their overall domain composition. The longer variant, termed mammalian tolloid (mTld, i.e., PCP-2), has the protease- CUB1-CUB2-EGF1-CUB3-EGF2-CUB4-CUB5 composition, whereas the shorter form termed bone morphog…

A complex unfolding pathway of α-helical membrane proteins in SDS-containing micelles

2021

PLA2-mediated catalytic activation of its inhibitor 25-acetyl-petrosaspongiolide M: serendipitous identification of a new PLA2 suicide inhibitor.

2004

Abstract25-Acetyl-petrosaspongiolide M (PMAc) (1), a mild non-covalent PLA2 inhibitor, unexpectedly recovers, after incubation with bvPLA2, the ability to covalently modify the enzyme target. This study demonstrates the catalytic effect of bvPLA2 in converting 1 in its deacetylated congener petrosaspongiolide M (PM) (2), a strong covalent PLA2 inhibitor whose molecular mechanism of inhibition has already been clarified. Moreover, our findings outline the potential role of PMAc as anti-inflammatory pro-drug, by virtue of its ability of delivering the active PM agent at the site of inflammation, functioning as a suicide inhibitor.

Peptides Derived from the Transmembrane Domain of Bcl-2 Proteins as Potential Mitochondrial Priming Tools

2014

The Bcl-2 family of proteins is crucial for apoptosis regulation. Members of this family insert through a specific C-terminal anchoring trans membrane domain (TMD) in the mitochondrial outer membrane where they hierarchically interact to determine cell fate. While the mitochondrial membrane has been proposed to actively participate in these protein protein interactions, the influence of the TMD in the membrane-mediated interaction is poorly understood. Synthetic peptides (TMD-pepts) corresponding to the putative TMD of antiapoptotic (Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, Bcl-w, and Mcl-1) and pro-apoptotic (Bax, Bak) members were synthesized and characterized. TMD-pepts bound more efficiently to mitochondria-like…

Conformational changes involved in thermal aggregation processes of bovine serum albumin

2003

We report a kinetic study on thermal aggregation process of the model protein bovine serum albumin (BSA) in low concentration regime. Aim of this study is to provide information on relationship between conformational changes and initial step of aggregation. The experimental approach is based on steady-state fluorescence spectra of the two tryptophans located in two different domains, in way to study conformational changes in the surrounding of these residues. We also follow emission spectra of Fluorescein-5-Maleimide dye bound to the single free cysteine of BSA. Complementary information on the extent of aggregation and on the structural changes is obtained by Rayleigh scattering and circul…

Functional and dysfunctional conformers of human neuroserpin characterized by optical spectroscopies and Molecular Dynamics

2015

Neuroserpin (NS) is a serine protease inhibitor (SERPIN) involved in different neurological pathologies, including the Familial Encephalopathy with Neuroserpin Inclusion Bodies (FENIB), related to the aberrant polymerization of NS mutants. Here we present an in vitro and in silico characterization of native neuroserpin and its dysfunctional conformation isoforms: the proteolytically cleaved conformer, the inactive latent conformer, and the polymeric species. Based on circular dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy, we present an experimental validation of the latent model and highlight the main structural features of the different conformers. In particular, emission spectra of aromatic res…

Might exogenous circular RNAs act as protein-coding transcripts in plants?

2021

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are regulatory molecules involved in the modulation of gene expression. Although originally assumed as non-coding RNAs, recent studies have evidenced that animal circRNAs can act as translatable transcripts. The study of plant-circRNAs is incipient, and no autonomous coding plant-circRNA has been described yet. Viroids are the smallest plant-pathogenic circRNAs known to date. Since their discovery 50 years ago, viroids have been considered valuable systems for the study of the structure-function relationships in RNA, essentially because they have not been shown to have coding capacity. We used two pathogenic circRNAs (Hop stunt viroid and Eggplant latent viroid) as …

A characterization of regular circular languages generated by marked splicing systems

2009

AbstractSplicing systems are generative devices of formal languages, introduced by Head in 1987 to model biological phenomena on linear and circular DNA molecules. A splicing system is defined by giving an initial set I and a set R of rules. Some unanswered questions are related to the computational power of circular splicing systems. In particular, a still open question is to find a characterization of circular languages generated by finite circular splicing systems (i.e., circular splicing systems with both I and R finite sets). In this paper we introduce a special class of the latter systems named marked systems. We prove that a marked system S generates a regular circular language if an…

The role of the committee of the regions (CoR) to implement the Green Deal at the local level: an overview of Italy

2021

<abstract> <p>The contribution focuses on the role of cities in the implementation of the so-called Green Deal, the ambitious program proposed by the European Commission, in accordance with the objectives set by the Paris Agreements, to implement the use of clean energy resources, favour the circular economy, restore biodiversity and reduce pollution. The Plan, which for the seven-year period 2021-2027 has a budget of economic resources of 100 billion Euro, aims to involve in transcalar perspective all territorial and administrative levels of the Member States and thus contribute to the achievement, in 2050, of climate neutrality. The main objective of the work is then to concen…