• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.65-70
• /
• 1994

Hypoglycemic mechanism of brazilin was investigated in the streptozotocin induced diabetic rats. Plasma glucose levels of diabetic rats were significantly ame]iorated by the treatment of brazilin, but there were no changes in plasma insulin levels. Brazilin increased insulin binding capacity to epididymal adipocytes, and Scatchard analysis revealed that this increase in insulin binding was not due to the increase of insulin binding sites but that of binding affinity. 2-Deoxyglucose uptake of epididymal adipocytes was significantly augmented by the intraperitoneal administration of brazilin and the same result was obtained in in vitro study. Glucose oxidation and lipogenesis in epididymal adipocytes were significantly enhanced by the treatment of bracilin.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.184-187
• /
• 1987

ln order to develope anti-inflammatory glucocorticoids for local use without systemic side-effects, ester and amide derivatives of 20$\xi$-dihydroprednisolonic acid have been prepared. When binding affinities of these compounds to glucocorticoid receptor of rat liver cytosol were compared, all a-isomer at C-20 showed higher binding affinities than the corres¬ponding $\beta$-isomer. The size of the substituents at C-21 had significant influences on binding affinities, which were related with their lipophilicity.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.30 no.11
• /
• pp.2717-2722
• /
• 2009

The use of the classification and regression tree (CART) methodology was studied in a quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) context on a data set consisting of the binding affinities of 39 imidazobenzodiazepines for the α1 benzodiazepine receptor. The 3-D structures of these compounds were optimized using HyperChem software with semiempirical AM1 optimization method. After optimization a set of 1481 zero-to three-dimentional descriptors was calculated for each molecule in the data set. The response (dependent variable) in the tree model consisted of the binding affinities of drugs. Three descriptors (two topological and one 3D-Morse descriptors) were applied in the final tree structure to describe the binding affinities. The mean relative error percent for the data set is 3.20%, compared with a previous model with mean relative error percent of 6.63%. To evaluate the predictive power of CART cross validation method was also performed.

• BMB Reports
• /
• v.40 no.5
• /
• pp.740-748
• /
• 2007

To gain insight into the structure and function of repressor proteins of bacteriophages of gram-positive bacteria, repressor of temperate Staphylococcus aureus phage ${\phi}11$ was undertaken as a model system here and purified as an N-terminal histidine-tagged variant (His-CI) by affinity chromatography. A ~19 kDa protein copurified with intact His-CI (~ 30 kDa) at low level was resulted most possibly due to partial cleavage at its Ala-Gly site. At ~10 nM and higher concentrations, His-CI forms significant amount of dimers in solution. There are two repressor binding sites in ${\phi}11$ cI-cro intergenic region and binding to two sites occurs possibly by a cooperative manner. Two sites dissected by HincII digestion were designated operators $O_L$ and $O_R$, respectively. Equilibrium binding studies indicate that His-CI binds to $O_R$ with a little more strongly than $O_L$ and binding species is probably dimeric in nature. Interestingly His-CI binding affinity reduces drastically at elevated temperatures ($32-42^{\circ}C$). Both $O_L$ and $O_R$ harbor a nearly identical inverted repeat and studies show that ${\phi}11$ repressor binds to each repeat efficiently. Additional analyses indicate that ${\phi}11$ repressor, like $\lambda$ repressor, harbors an N-terminal domain and a C-terminal domain which are separated by a hinge region. Secondary structure of ${\phi}11$ CI even nearly resembles to that of $\lambda$ phage repressor though they differ at sequence level. The putative N-terminal HTH (helix-turn-helix) motif of ${\phi}11$ repressor belongs to the HTH -XRE-family of proteins and shows significant identity to the HTH motifs of some proteins of evolutionary distant organisms but not to HTH motifs of most S. aureus phage repressors.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
• /
• v.19 no.5
• /
• pp.381-385
• /
• 1996

Rat ventricles respond with a biphasic positive inotropic effect to ouabain, low-dose and high-dose effects but rat atria with only a monophasic high dose effect. In an effect to understand the difference in response to ouabain of two tissues between rat atria and ventricles the levels of the $a_{2}$ -isoform of the $Na^{+}$, $K^{+}$-ATPase which has higher affinity for ouabain than the $a_{1}$-iso-form were determined by a $[^{3}H]$ouabain binding assay. The yield of protein per gram wet weight was about 47 mg for atria and 100 mg for ventricles. The $K_{d}$ values of ouabain for the high-affinity ouabain binding site $(a_{2} -isoform)$ were nearly the same (230 nM) in the atria and ventricles. However, the numbers of the $a_{2}$-isoform $(B_{max})$ per mg protein were approximately half in the atria. When the binding data were expressed in unit per gram tissue wet weight, the numbers of $a_{2}$ -isoform in the atria was about 25% of that in the ventricles. THese results demonstrate that the $a_{2}$ -isoform of the $Na^{+}$, $K^{+}$-ATPase in the rat atria could be detected by $[^{3}H]$ouabain binding assay and the levels of this isoform are too low to show the low-dose effect of ouabain.

• Journal of Radiopharmaceuticals and Molecular Probes
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.73-79
• /
• 2018

In our previous study, tricarbonyl $^{99m}Tc$-labeled TSPO-binding ligand, named $^{99m}Tc$-CB256, having positively charge (+1) was investigated but did not show promising results in in vivo environment despite of a nanomolar binding affinity for TSPO. Because the overall positively charge of $^{99m}Tc$-CB256 would likely interrupt its target protein uptake, we herein designed the neutral tricarbonyl-$^{99m}Tc$ labeled TSPO-binding ligand ($^{99m}Tc$-CB257, 1). $^{99m}Tc$-CB257 was prepared by the facile incorporation of the $[^{99m}Tc(CO)_3]^+$ into a N-(hydroxycarbonylmethyl)-2-picoly moiety in CB257. The radiochemical yield of $^{99m}Tc$-CB257 after HPLC purification was $54.1{\pm}2.4%$ (decay corrected, n = 3). The authentic Re-CB257 (2) was synthesized by using $(NEt_4)_2[Re(CO)_3Br_3]$ in 69.0% yield. The binding affinity of 2 for TSPO was measured in leukocyte and showed approximately 280 times higher than that observed for the positively charged (+1) ligand, Re-CB256 ($K_i=0.57{\pm}0.06nM$ versus $159.3{\pm}8.7nM$, respectively). Our results indicated that 1 can be considered potentially as a new SPECT radiotracer for TSPO-rich cancer and provides the foundation for further in vivo evaluation related with abnormal TSPO-overexpression environments.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
• /
• v.48 no.1
• /
• pp.89-97
• /
• 2024

Background: Ginsenoside F2 (GF2), the protopanaxadiol-type constituent in Panax ginseng, has been reported to attenuate metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). However, the mechanism of action is not fully understood. Here, this study investigates the molecular mechanism by which GF2 regulates MASLD progression through liver X receptor (LXR). Methods: To demonstrate the effect of GF2 on LXR activity, computational modeling of protein-ligand binding, Time-resolved fluorescence resonance energy transfer (TR-FRET) assay for LXR cofactor recruitment, and luciferase reporter assay were performed. LXR agonist T0901317 was used for LXR activation in hepatocytes and macrophages. MASLD was induced by high-fat diet (HFD) feeding with or without GF2 administration in WT and LXRα^-/- mice. Results: Computational modeling showed that GF2 had a high affinity with LXRα. LXRE-luciferase reporter assay with amino acid substitution at the predicted ligand binding site revealed that the S264 residue of LXRα was the crucial interaction site of GF2. TR-FRET assay demonstrated that GF2 suppressed LXRα activity by favoring the binding of corepressors to LXRα while inhibiting the accessibility of coactivators. In vitro, GF2 treatments reduced T0901317-induced fat accumulation and pro-inflammatory cytokine expression in hepatocytes and macrophages, respectively. Consistently, GF2 administration ameliorated hepatic steatohepatitis and improved glucose or insulin tolerance in WT but not in LXRα^-/- mice. Conclusion: GF2 alters the binding affinities of LXRα coregulators, thereby interrupting hepatic steatosis and inflammation in macrophages. Therefore, we propose that GF2 might be a potential therapeutic agent for the intervention in patients with MASLD.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.307-314
• /
• 1999

The human muscarinic acetylcholine receptor (mAChR) subtypes Hml, Hm2 and Hm3 have been expressed in insect cells (Spodoptera frugiperda, Sf9) using the baculovirus expression system. Expression of relevant DNA, transcript and receptor proteins was identified by PCR, Northern blotting and [$^{3}H$]QNB binding, respectively. As assessed by [$^{3}H$]QNB binding sites, yields of muscarinic receptors in membrane preparations in this study were as about 5-20 times high as those in mammalian cells reported in previous studies. The [$^{3}H$]QNB competition binding studies with well-known subtype-selective mAChR antagonists showed that the receptors expressed in Sf9 cells retain the pharmacological characteristics expected for the ml , m2 and m3 muscarinic receptors. The ml-selective antagonist, pirenzepine, displayed a considerably higher affinity for Hml by 110-fold and 35-fold than for Hm2 and Hm3, respectively, The m2-selective methoctramine displayed a significantly higher affinity for Hm2 than for Hml and Hm3 (10- and 26-fold, respectively). p-F-HHSiD exhibited high affinity for Hm3 that is not significantly different from those for Hml, but 66-fold higher than its affinity for Hm2. The functional coupling of the recombinant receptors to second messenger systems was also examined. While both Hml and Hm3 stimulated phosphoinositide hydrolysis upon activation by carba-chol, Hm2 produced no response. On the other hand, activation of mAChRs induced the inhibition of forsko-lin-stimulated cyclic AMP formation in Hm2-expressing cells, whereas the significant dose-dependent increase in or poor response on cyclic AMP formation were produced in Hml or Hm3-expressing cells, respectively. These results indicate the differential coupling of recombinant Hml, Hm2 and Hm3 receptors expressed in SF9 cells to intracellular signalling system.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.87-93
• /
• 1984

The effects of ionic strength and pH on the binding of cefazolin to bovine serum albumin (BSA) were studied by UV difference spectrophotometry. As ionic strength at constant pH and temperature increases, the apparent bining constant decreased but the number of binding sites remained almost constant at 2. The constancy of the number of binding sites with increasing the ionic strength suggests that purely electrostatic forces between BSA and drug do not have great importance in the drug binding, even though there is a decrease in the apparent binding constant. Thus, the effect of ionic strength on the interaction between drug and BSA may be explained by the changes in ionic atmosphere of the aggregated BSA molecules and competitive inhibition by phosphate ions. In addition, the higher apparent binding constant at high ionic strength is explained by conformational changes of BSA from its aggregate forms into subunits. The pH effects on the afinity of interactions indicated that the binding affinity of cefazoline is higher in the neutral region than in the alkaline region. An d at high pH value, the number of binding sites decreased from 2 to 1 because of the conformational change of BSA in the alkaline region.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.51-55
• /
• 2018

Capture of non-glycoproteins during lectin affinity chromatography is frequently observed, although it would seem to be anomalous. In actuality, lectin affinity chromatography works at post-translational modification (PTM) sites on a glycoprotein which is not involved in protein-protein interactions (PPIs). In this study, serial affinity column set (SACS) using lectins followed by proteomics methods was used to identify PPI mechanisms of captured proteins in human plasma. MetaCore, STRING, Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA), and IntAct were individually used to elucidate the interactions of the identified abundant proteins and to obtain the corresponding interaction maps. The abundant non-glycoproteins were captured with the binding to the selected glycoproteins. Therefore, depletion process in sample pretreatment for abundant protein removal should be considered with more caution because it may lose precious disease-related low abundant proteins through PPIs of the removed abundant proteins in human plasma during the depletion process in biomarker discovery. Glycoproteins bearing specific glycans are frequently associated with cancer and can be specifically isolated by lectin affinity chromatography. Therefore, SACS using Lycopersicon esculentum lectin (LEL) can also be used to study disease interactomes.