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A Structurally Driven Analysis Of Thiol Reactivity In Mammalian Albumins, Ottavia Spiga, Domenico Summa, Simone Cirri, Andrea Bernini, Vincenzo Venditti, Matteo De Chiara, Raffaella Priora, Simona Frosail, Antonios Margaritis, Danila Di Giuseppe, Paolo Di Simplicio, Neri Niccolai Jan 2011

A Structurally Driven Analysis Of Thiol Reactivity In Mammalian Albumins, Ottavia Spiga, Domenico Summa, Simone Cirri, Andrea Bernini, Vincenzo Venditti, Matteo De Chiara, Raffaella Priora, Simona Frosail, Antonios Margaritis, Danila Di Giuseppe, Paolo Di Simplicio, Neri Niccolai

Vincenzo Venditti

Understanding the structural basis of protein redox activity is still an open question. Hence, by using a structural genomics approach, different albumins have been chosen to correlate protein structural features with the corresponding reaction rates of thiol exchange between albumin and disulfide DTNB. Predicted structures of rat, porcine, and bovine albumins have been compared with the experimentally derived human albumin. High structural similarity among these four albumins can be observed, in spite of their markedly different reactivity with DTNB. Sequence alignments offered preliminary hints on the contributions of sequence-specific local environments modulating albumin reactivity. Molecular dynamics simulations performed on experimental …


Right-Handed 14-Helix In Β3-Peptides From L-Aspartic Acid Monomers, Kamaljit Kaur, Tara Sprules, Wael Soliman, Reem Beleid, Sahar Ahmed Jan 2008

Right-Handed 14-Helix In Β3-Peptides From L-Aspartic Acid Monomers, Kamaljit Kaur, Tara Sprules, Wael Soliman, Reem Beleid, Sahar Ahmed

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

β-Peptides made from L-aspartic acid monomers form a new class of β3-peptides. Here we report the first three-dimensional NMR solution structure of a β3-hexapeptide (1) from L-aspartic acid monomers in 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol (TFE). We show that 1 forms a right-handed 14-helical structure in TFE. α-peptides from naturally occurring L-amino acids adopt a right-handed α-helix whereas β3-peptides formed from β3-amino acids derived from naturally occurring L-amino acids form left-handed 14-helices. The right-handed 14-helical conformation of 1 is a better mimic of α-peptide conformations. Using the NMR structure of 1 in TFE, we …