Amino Acids

https://link.springer.com/journal/726

List of Papers (Total 413)

Proline oxidase silencing inhibits p53-dependent apoptosis in MCF-7 breast cancer cells

Proline oxidase (POX) is mitochondrial proline-degrading enzyme of dual apoptosis/survival function. POX expression and proline availability are considered an underlying mechanism for differential POX functions. The mechanism for POX-dependent regulation of cell death/survival was studied in wild-type (MCF-7WT) and shRNA POX-silenced breast cancer cells (MCF-7iPOX). Proline...

Molecular targets for antifungals in amino acid and protein biosynthetic pathways

Fungi cause death of over 1.5 million people every year, while cutaneous mycoses are among the most common infections in the world. Mycoses vary greatly in severity, there are long-term skin (ringworm), nail or hair infections (tinea capitis), recurrent like vaginal candidiasis or severe, life-threatening systemic, multiorgan infections. In the last few years, increasing...

Gamma-gliadin specific celiac disease antibodies recognize p31-43 and p57-68 alpha gliadin peptides in deamidation related manner as a result of cross-reaction

Celiac disease (CeD) is a T-cell-dependent enteropathy with autoimmune features where tissue transglutaminase (TG2)-mediated posttranslational modification of gliadin peptides has a decisive role in the pathomechanism. The humoral immune response is reported to target mainly TG2-deamidated γ-gliadin peptides. However, α-gliadin peptides, like p57-68, playing a crucial role in the...

Influence of the Dabcyl group on the cellular uptake of cationic peptides: short oligoarginines as efficient cell-penetrating peptides

Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) are promising delivery vehicles. These short peptides can transport wide range of cargos into cells, although their usage has often limitations. One of them is the endosomatic internalisation and thus the vesicular entrapment. Modifications which increases the direct delivery into the cytosol is highly researched area. Among the oligoarginines the...

Determination of amino acids in human biological fluids by high-performance liquid chromatography: critical review

The quantitation and qualification of amino acids are most commonly used in clinical and epidemiological studies, and provide an excellent way of monitoring compounds in human fluids which have not been monitored previously, to prevent some diseases. Because of this, it is not surprising that scientific interest in evaluating these compounds has resurfaced in recent years and has...

Lyophilization and homogenization of biological samples improves reproducibility and reduces standard deviation in molecular biology techniques

Lyophilization is a cost-effective method for biological specimen preservation but detailed tissue-specific reference protocols are still lacking. Moreover, data are limited on the long-term stability of proteins and nucleic acids in lyophilized samples. Here, we offer lyophilization protocols for various rat and mouse tissues (kidney, heart, liver, lung, aorta, and skin) coupled...

Cystine reduces tight junction permeability and intestinal inflammation induced by oxidative stress in Caco-2 cells

Intestinal oxidative stress produces pro-inflammatory cytokines, which increase tight junction (TJ) permeability, leading to intestinal and systemic inflammation. Cystine (Cys2) is a substrate of glutathione (GSH) and inhibits inflammation, however, it is unclear whether Cys2 locally improves intestinal barrier dysfunction. Thus, we investigated the local effects of Cys2 on...

Human cell receptors: potential drug targets to combat COVID-19

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that COVID-19 is a pandemic having a higher spread rate rather than the mortality. Identification of a potential approach or therapy against COVID-19 is still under consideration. Therefore, it is essential to have an...

Apoptosis-mediated anticancer activity in prostate cancer cells of a chestnut honey ( Castanea sativa L.) quinoline–pyrrolidine gamma -lactam alkaloid

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common malignancy in men and represents the second leading cause of cancer deaths in Western countries. PCa is initially androgen-dependent, however, this tumor inevitably progresses as castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), which represents the most aggressive phase of the pathology. In this work, in two CRPC cell lines (DU145 and PC3), we...

Solid-phase synthesis of d -fructose-derived Heyns peptides utilizing N α -Fmoc-Lysin[N ε -(2-deoxy- d -glucos-2-yl),N ε -Boc]-OH as building block

Aldoses and ketoses can glycate proteins yielding isomeric Amadori and Heyns products, respectively. Evidently, d-fructose is more involved in glycoxidation than d-glucose favoring the formation of advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs). While Amadori products and glucation have been studied extensively, the in vivo effects of fructation are largely unknown. The characterization...

How anisotropic and isotropic atomic displacement parameters monitor protein covalent bonds rigidity: isotropic B-factors underestimate bond rigidity

Under the assumption that covalent bonds are rigid, it is possible to compare the estimations of rigidity based on anisotropic and isotropic B-factors. This is done by computing the difference of the mean-square displacements (Delta-u) of atoms A and Z along the covalent bond A–Z, which must be close to zero for a rigid bond. The analysis of a high-quality set of protein...

Pellino1 deficiency reprograms cardiomyocytes energy metabolism in lipopolysaccharide-induced myocardial dysfunction

Pellino1 has been shown to regulate proinflammatory genes by activating the nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) and Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling pathways, which are important in the pathological development of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced myocarditis. However, it is still unknown whether silencing Pellino1 (si-Pellino1) has a therapeutic effect on this disease. Here, we...

Pellino1 deficiency reprograms cardiomyocytes energy metabolism in lipopolysaccharide-induced myocardial dysfunction

Pellino1 has been shown to regulate proinflammatory genes by activating the nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) and Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling pathways, which are important in the pathological development of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced myocarditis. However, it is still unknown whether silencing Pellino1 (si-Pellino1) has a therapeutic effect on this disease. Here, we...

Proline metabolism and transport in retinal health and disease

The retina is one of the most energy-demanding tissues in the human body. Photoreceptors in the outer retina rely on nutrient support from the neighboring retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), a monolayer of epithelial cells that separate the retina and choroidal blood supply. RPE dysfunction or cell death can result in photoreceptor degeneration, leading to blindness in retinal...

Thiazole–amino acids: influence of thiazole ring on conformational properties of amino acid residues

Post-translational modified thiazole–amino acid (Xaa–Tzl) residues have been found in macrocyclic peptides (e.g., thiopeptides and cyanobactins), which mostly inhibit protein synthesis in Gram + bacteria. Conformational study of the series of model compounds containing this structural motif with alanine, dehydroalanine, dehydrobutyrine and dehydrophenylalanine were performed...

Collagen metabolism as a regulator of proline dehydrogenase/proline oxidase-dependent apoptosis/autophagy

Recent studies on the regulatory role of amino acids in cell metabolism have focused on the functional significance of proline degradation. The process is catalysed by proline dehydrogenase/proline oxidase (PRODH/POX), a mitochondrial flavin-dependent enzyme converting proline into ∆1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate (P5C). During this process, electrons are transferred to electron...

Correlation between serum carnosinase concentration and renal damage in diabetic nephropathy patients

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is one of the major complications of diabetes and contributes significantly towards end-stage renal disease. Previous studies have identified the gene encoding carnosinase (CN-1) as a predisposing factor for DN. Despite this fact, the relationship of the level of serum CN-1 and the progression of DN remains uninvestigated. Thus, the proposed study...

α-Poly -l- lysine functions as an adipogenic inducer in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes

α-Poly-l-lysine (PLL) has been used for various purposes such as cell attachment, immunization, and molecular delivery, and is known to be cytotoxic to several cell lines. Here, we studied the effect of PLL on the adipogenesis of 3T3-L1 cells and investigated the underlying mechanism. Differentiation media containing PLL with a molecular weight (MW) greater than 4 kDa enhanced...

Whole-body arginine dimethylation is associated with all-cause mortality in adult renal transplant recipients

Arginine residues in proteins can be singly or doubly methylated post-translationally. Proteolysis of arginine-methylated proteins provides monomethyl arginine, asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA). ADMA and SDMA are considered cardiovascular risk factors, with the underlying mechanisms being not yet fully understood. SDMA lacks appreciable...

Age-related decline in the taurine content of the skin in rodents

Taurine, a sulfur-containing amino acid, occurs at high concentrations in the skin, and plays a role in maintaining the homeostasis of the skin. We investigated the effects of aging on the content and localization of taurine in the skin of mice and rats. Taurine was extracted from the skin samples of hairless mice and Sprague Dawley rats, and the taurine content of the skin was...

Stereochemical aspects in the synthesis of novel N -(purin-6-yl)dipeptides as potential antimycobacterial agents

The synthesis of purine conjugates with natural amino acids is one of the promising directions in search for novel therapeutic agents, including antimycobacterial agents. The purpose of this study was to synthesize N-(purin-6-yl)dipeptides containing the terminal fragment of (S)-glutamic acid. To obtain the target compounds, two synthetic routes were tested. The first of them is...

In vivo emergence of beige-like fat in chickens as physiological adaptation to cold environments

While it has been hypothesized that brown adipocytes responsible for mammalian thermogenesis are absent in birds, the existence of beige fat has yet to be studied directly. The present study tests the hypothesis that beige fat emerges in birds as a mechanism of physiological adaptation to cold environments. Subcutaneous neck adipose tissue from cold-acclimated or triiodothyronine...

Extra-platelet low-molecular-mass thiols mediate the inhibitory action of S -nitrosoalbumin on human platelet aggregation via S -transnitrosylation of the platelet surface

Nitrosylation of sulfhydryl (SH) groups of cysteine (Cys) moieties is an important post-translational modification (PTM), often on a par with phosphorylation. S-Nitrosoalbumin (ALB-Cys34SNO; SNALB) in plasma and S-nitrosohemoglobin (Hb-Cysβ93SNO; HbSNO) in red blood cells are considered the most abundant high-molecular-mass pools of nitric oxide (NO) bioactivity in the human...