Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Life Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Mutagenesis Of Human Alpha-Galactosidase A For The Treatment Of Fabry Disease, Erin Stokes Sep 2017

Mutagenesis Of Human Alpha-Galactosidase A For The Treatment Of Fabry Disease, Erin Stokes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Fabry disease is an X-linked lysosomal storage disorder caused by the deficiency of the enzyme, α-galactosidase A, which results in the accumulation of the lipid substrate. This accumulation results in obstruction of blood flow in patients and early demise at approximately 40-60 years of age. There is currently only one FDA approved treatment (Fabrazyme) classified as an enzyme replacement therapy. However, approximately 88% of patients experience a severe immune response that, rarely, can be fatal and is a huge cost burden at average $250,000 a year per patient. The structure of α-galactosidase A has been previously determined to be a …


Mutagenic And Spectroscopic Investigation Of Ph Dependent Cooa Dna Binding, Brian R. Weaver Apr 2017

Mutagenic And Spectroscopic Investigation Of Ph Dependent Cooa Dna Binding, Brian R. Weaver

Chemistry Honors Papers

The carbon monoxide (CO) sensing heme protein, CooA, is a transcription factor which exists in several bacteria that utilize CO as an energy source. CooA positively regulates the expression of coo genes in the presence of CO such that the corresponding proteins may metabolize CO. The present studies have yielded the unexpected result that Fe(III) CooA binds DNA tightly at pH < 7, deviating from all previously reported work which indicate that CooA DNA binding is initiated only when the exogenous CO effector reacts with the Fe(II) CooA heme. This observation suggests that the disruption of one or more salt bridges upon effector binding may be a critical feature of the normal CooA activation mechanism. To test this possibility, several protein variants that eliminated a selected salt bridge for the CooA homolog from Rhodospirillum rubrum were prepared via site-directed mutagenesis. Samples of these variant proteins, which were overexpressed in Escherichia coli, were then characterized by spectroscopic methods and functional assays to investigate the impact these mutations had on CooA heme coordination …


Dissecting The Histone-Binding Mechanism Of A Phd Finger Subtype, Daniel Boamah Jan 2017

Dissecting The Histone-Binding Mechanism Of A Phd Finger Subtype, Daniel Boamah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Disordered tails of histones are critical information retrieval hub and thus, aberrations in the flow of information through these hubs are associated with a number of pathological consequences in human. Mechanism for retrieval of information from these hubs is achieved by protein-protein interaction, i.e. proteins dock onto histone tails to initiate chromatin signaling. Eukaryotes have a number of small peptide binding domains that have evolved to specifically interact with histone tails, and these domains called histone readers as they read the information encoded on histone tails. Plant homeodomain (hereafter PHD) finger, a binucleated zinc finger, family is one such histone …