Trypsin

Hereditary elliptocytosis (HE) is a heterogeneous disorder of red blood cells frequently associated with abnormal limited tryptic digestion of the alpha I domain of spectrin and impaired spectrin dimer self- association. We studied two related individuals with poikilocytic hereditary elliptocytosis (HE) of different severity. Limited tryptic digestion of spectrin from these individuals showed the presence of a variant alpha I/50b Kd peptide at the expense of the normal alpha I/80 Kd peptide. Amino acid sequence analysis of the abnormal peptide showed that the proteolytic cleavage occurred after the arginine at position 470 of the alpha spectrin chain. Spectrin from these patients had an impaired ability to undergo self-association, as evidenced by increased amounts of spectrin dimers in 4 degrees C extracts of erythrocyte membrane from affected individuals. The polymerase chain reaction was used to study the DNA sequence of the alpha spectrin gene encoding the region of the alpha sp...

The study of membrane proteins remains a challenging task, and approaches to unravel their dynamics are scarce. Here, we applied hydrogen/deuterium exchange (HDX) coupled to mass spectrometry to probe the motions of a bacterial multidrug ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter, BmrA, in the inward-facing (resting state) and outward-facing (ATP-bound) conformations. Trypsin digestion and global or local HDX support the transition between inward- and outward-facing conformations during the catalytic cycle of BmrA. However, in the resting state, peptides from the two intracellular domains, especially ICD2, show a much faster HDX than in the closed state. This shows that these two subdomains are very flexible in this conformation. Additionally, molecular dynamics simulations suggest a large fluctuation of the Cα positions from ICD2 residues in the inward-facing conformation of a related transporter, MsbA. These results highlight the unexpected flexibility of ABC exporters in the resting ...

Liquid chromatography is applied in biology, medicine, the environment, forensics, and other fields, making it an essential separation method. Liquid chromatography is a technique used to separate and analyze components of a liquid mixture based on their interactions with a stationary phase and a mobile liquid phase. The aim of the present review is to explore different On-Chip liquid chromatographic methods for the analysis of drugs. Liquid chromatography miniaturization has advanced significantly in order to provide reduced sample and minimal eluent consumption as well as simple electrospray-mass accessibility. Because microfluidics requires small sample volumes, quick analysis, and simple integration, it has garnered a lot of attention lately in the shrinking of HPLC systems. For polymer materials, grafting procedures, sol-gel processes, and traditional silane chemistry are frequently employed. The ease of preparation and the comparatively low pressures needed for driving are the main benefits of the open channel configuration. The on-chip microvalve, packedparticle analytical column, enrichment column, and nanospray emitter are the different types of columns used for on-chip liquid chromatography. The utilization of pillar array columns, packed-particle, open-tubular, and monolithic structures have been increased recently in the analysis of drugs with lowest concentration. These techniques have been used in proteomics and drug and small molecule analysis in a variety of biological samples. This technique has been successfully applied for proteome studies and analysis of small molecules like 7aminoflunitrazepam in human urine, 8-isoprostaglandin F2α in human urine, hepcidin (a peptide marker of clinical disorders related to iron metabolism) in human plasma, pharmaceutical drugs with a wide range of hydrophilicities, fluoxetine and norfluoxetine in rat serum, illicit drugs and metabolites in human hair, and 7-ethyl-10-hydroxycamptothecin (SN38) in mouse plasma.

Unusually large von Willebrand factor (ULVWF), the first responder to vascular injury in primary hemostasis, is designed to capture platelets under the high shear stress of rheological blood flow. In type 2M von Willebrand disease (VWD), two rare mutations (G1324A and G1324S) within the platelet GPIbα binding interface of the VWF A1 domain impair the hemostatic function of VWF. We investigate structural and conformational effects of these mutations on the A1 domain's efficacy to bind collagen and adhere platelets under shear flow. These mutations enhance the thermodynamic stability, reduce the rate of unfolding, and enhance the A1 domain's resistance to limited proteolysis. Collagen binding is not significantly affected indicating that the primary stabilizing effect of these mutations is to diminish the platelet binding efficiency under shear flow. The enhanced stability stems from the steric consequences of adding a side chain (G1324A) and additionally a hydrogen bond (G132...

We report new structural data about the rat liver angiotensin II receptor, which belongs to the AT1 subclass. This receptor has been purified at analytical or semi-preparative levels by a previously described strategy involving its photolabelling with a biotinylated azido probe and selective adsorption of the covalent probe-receptor complexes to immobilized streptavidin [Marie, Seyer, Lombard, Desarnaud, Aumelas, Jard and Bonnafous (1990) Biochemistry 29, 8943-8950]. Chemical or enzymic deglycosylation of the purified receptor has shown a shift in its molecular mass from 65 kDa to 40 kDa. Fragmentation of the purified receptor was carried out with V8 protease from Staphylococcus aureus, CNBr and trypsin. It was possible to find trypsin-treatment conditions which allowed production of a 6 kDa probe-fragment complex with a satisfactory yield. Attempts to localize this small fragment (5 kDa after subtraction of the probe contribution) in the recently published rat AT1 receptor sequence...

Proteolytic Activity in the Midgut of the Crimson Speckled MothUtethesia PulchellaL. (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae)Samples were prepared from the midgut of 4th instar larvae of the crimson speckled mothUtethesia pulchellaL. to find proteolytic activity and properties. Result revealed the presence of high proteolytic activity in the midgut when taking into account specific proteinases including trypsin-like, chymotrypsin-like, elastase and two exopeptidase (aminopeptidase and carboxipeptidase). The optimal pH of general protease was 8 and 7 when using azocasein and hemoglobin as general substrates, respectively. The optimal temperature of the total proteolytic activity in the midgut ofU. pulchellawas 25°C and 30°C when using azocasein and hemoglobin, respectively. Proteolytic activity was inhibited significantly by soybean trypsin inhibitor (SBTI), phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride (PMSF), trypsin inhibitor (TLCK), chymotrypsin inhibitor (TPCK) and Phenanthroline. These results provide evidenc...

An efficient procedure for the isolation of the complement-system control protein beta 1H (Factor H) from human plasma was developed. The chemical composition and physical characteristics of the protein were studied, and a sequence of 17 amino acid residues at the N-terminus was determined. Factor H is a single-polypeptide-chain glycoprotein of mol.wt. 155 000 containing 9.3% carbohydrate. Factor H is cleaved by plasma proteinases to a two-chain form. This cleavage can be mimicked by trypsin, and the two-chain form retains fully the C3b-inactivator cofactor activity of Factor H. The proteolytic fragments of Factor H are compared with those of other proteins (C4b-binding protein and erythrocyte C3b-receptor) that act as cofactors for C3b-inactivator.

The Mexican bean weevil, Zabrotes subfasciatus, feeds on several seeds such as Vigna unguiculata, Phaseolus vulgaris, and Pisum sativum, causing severe crop losses. This ability to obtain essential compounds from different diets could possibly be explained due to a wide variability of digestive proteinases present in the weevil's midgut. These may improve digestion of many different dietary proteins. Coleopteran serine‐like proteinases have not been thoroughly characterized at the molecular level. In this report, a full‐length cDNA encoding a trypsin‐like protein, named ZsTRYP, was isolated from Z. subfasciatus larvae using RT‐PCR, 5′ and 3′ RACE techniques. The quantitative real‐time PCR analysis strongly correlated the Zstryp transcript accumulation to the major feeding developmental larval stage. Zstryp cDNA was subcloned into pET101 vector and expressed in a Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) strain. Nickel‐nitrilotriacetic acid (Ni‐NTA) affinity chromatography was used to purify a ...