• Environmental Mutagens and Carcinogens
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.13-18
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• 1996

One mechanism of free-radical production by ethanol is suggested to be through the intracellular conversion of XDH to XO by increased ratio of NADH to NAD. The major mechanism for physiological compensation of cytosolic NADH/NAD balance is the malate/aspartate shutfie. Therefore, it is important to develop the method to improve the efficiency of malate/aspartate shuttle in ethanol metabolism. In the present study, various amino acids and organic acid involved in the shuttle were tested for their functional efficiency in modulating shuttle in the ethanol-perfused rat liver. The rate of ethanol oxidation in the liver perfused with aspartate alone or aspartate in combination with pyruvate, respectively, was increased by about 10% compared to control liver, but not in the tissues perfused with glummate, cysteine or pyruvate alone. Though glummate, cysteine and pyravate did not affect the ethanol oxidation significanfiy, they showed some suppresive effect on the ethanol-induced radical generation monitored by protein carbonylation analysis. Among the tested components, aspartate is confirmed to be the most efficient as a metabolic regulator for both ethanol oxidation and ethanol-induced oxidative stress in our perfusion system. These effects of aspartate would result from NAD recycling by its supplementation through the coupled aspartate aminotransferase/malate dehydrogenase reactions and the malate-aspartate shuttle.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.362-368
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• 2006

SH group modifying chemicals were used to characterize the eight cysteine residues of cabbage PLD. 5,5-dithiobis(2-nitrobenzoate)(DTNB) was used to titrate the SH group of cysteine residues . Based on the optical density at 412nm due to the reduced DTNB, 4 SH groups are found to be present in a native PLD while 8 SH groups in the denatured PLD whose tertiary structure was perturbed by 8M urea. The results imply that among the 8 cysteine residues of PLD, the half(4) are exposed on the surface whereas the other half are present at the interior of the enzyme tertiary structure. The PLD was inactivated by SH modifying reagents such as p-chloromercuribenzoate(PCMB), iodoacetate, iodoacetamide, and N-ethylmaleimide. At the addition of dithiothreitol(DTT) only the PCMB inhibited PLD activity was recovered reversibly. The micro-environment of the exposed SH group of cysteine residues was examined with various disulfide compounds with different functional groups and we found that anionic or neutral disulfides appear to be more effective than the positively charged cystamine for inactivating the PLD activity. The effect of redox state of cysteine residues on the PLD activity was further explored with H2O2. The oxidation of SH groups by H2O2 inhibited the PLD activity more than 70%, which was mostly recovered by DTT. From these results, we could confirm chemically that all the cysteine residues of PLD are present as in their reduced SH forms and the 4 SH groups exposed on the surface of the enzyme may play important roles in the regulation of PLD activity.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.422-429
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• 1997

For the complete and accurate amino acid determination of protein and food samples, 3 different hydrolysis procedures have been conducted in parallel for each sample, which include the alkaline hydrolysis for tryptophan determination, performic acid oxidation prior to the acid hydrolysis for the determination of cysteine and cystine, and the 6N HCl hydrolysis for the determination of the rest of amino acids. In the present study, amino acid concentrations obtained from the modified single hydrolysis procedure were compared with the values from the conventional hydrolysis procedures in casein and nine food and composite dish samples. In most of the samples tested, the modified single hydrolysis procedure gave significantly higher values of cysteins and cystein compared to the performic acid oxidation method, but resulted in a considerable destruction of tryptophan in food and composited dish samples. There was no consistent difference in the rest of amino acid concentrations between the two hydrolysis systems. Therefore, for complete amino acid determination of various foods and composite dishes, the single hydrolysis method may replace the 6N HCl hydrolysis and performic acid oxidation methods, and thereby reduces 3 hydrolyses to 2 steps with much higher recoveries of the sulfur containing amino acids.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.151-155
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• 2004

The self-assembled mololayers(SAMs)were prepared with cysteine(cys) and subsequently coupled with dopamine(dopa) containing quinone functionality on the gold modified electrodes. The SAMs annealed in ethanol for 6 hours gave a better shaped cyclic voltammogram which had a 0.28 V of formal potential and same redox potential in 0.1M phosphate buffer(pH=7.10). The electrodes were employed to determine concentration of HADH with the result that calibration curve exhibited an excellent correlation(${\geq}$ 0.993) for the concentrations ranging up to 5.0${\times}10^{-4}$ M.

• Textile Coloration and Finishing
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.86-92
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• 2003

It is already known that the color of wool fabric dyed with disazo acid dyes could be changed in dyeing process and this is accelerated under alkaline condition. Focus was given to figuring out the mechanism of this color change, through the LC-MS analysis. In this study, no color change was seen in wool fabrics dyed with C. I. Acid Blue 113 under weak acidic, neutral and weak alkaline conditions for 1hour. However, the wool fabrics dyed under weak alkaline condition for a long time over 3 hours fumed reddish orange. When the wool fabrics dyed under weak acidic, neutral and weak alkaline conditions were treated with $0.5g/L\;Na_2C0_3$ solution, all of them turned reddish orange. On the other hand, the color of silk fabrics dyed with C. I. Acid Blue 113 were not changed after the same alkaline treatment. Wool contains cystine and cysteine, whereas silk does not. Due to the reversible reduction/oxidation process of cystine and cysteine in wool dyeing, the C. I. Acid Blue 113 of the dis-azo type is decomposed by reduction and consequently turned them into the reddish orange mono-azo types dye.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.68-76
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• 2001

We have employed chemical modification to identify amino acids essential for the catalytic activity of alliinase (EC 4.4.1.4) from garlic (Allium sativum). Alliinase degrades S-alkyl-L cysteine sulfoxides, causing the characteristic odor of garlic. The activity of alliinase was rapidly and completely inactivated by N-bromosuccinimide(NBS) and slightly decreased by succinic anhydride and N-acetylimidazole. These results indicate that tryptophanyl, lysyl, and tyrosyl residues play an important role in enzyme catalysis. The reaction of alliinase with NBA yielded a characteristic decrease in both the absorbance at 280 nm and the intrinsic fluorescence at 332 nm with increasing reagent concentration of NBS, consistent with the oxidation of tryptophan residues. Kinetic analysis, fluorometric titration of tryptophans and correlation to residual alliinase activity showed that modification of only one residue present on alliinase led to complete inhibition of alliinase activity. To identify this essential tryptophan residue, we employed chemical modification by NBS in the presence and absence of the protecting substrate analogue, S-ethyl-L-cysteine (SEC) and N-terminal sequence analysis of peptide fragment isolated by reverse phase-HPLC. A fragment containing residues 179-188 was isolated. We conclude that Trp182 is essential for alliinase activity.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.514-521
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• 2022

We report the effect of pH on the supramolecular complexation of two biothiols, viz., homocysteine (Hcy) and cysteine (Cys), with cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]). Under basic pH conditions, Cys did not complex with CB[7], whereas Hcy efficiently complexed with CB[7], as confirmed by ¹H NMR spectroscopy and Ellman's reagent (5,5'-dithio-bis(2-nitrobenzoic acid), DTNB) assay. ¹H NMR and Raman spectroscopic studies revealed that, in the absence of CB[7], Hcy auto-oxidized slowly (~36 h) to homocystine (HSSH) under basic pH conditions. However, the rate of Hcy oxidation increased by up to 150 fold in the presence of CB[7], as suggested by the DTNB assay. Thus, supramolecular complexation under basic pH conditions led to the formation of a HSSH-CB[7] complex, and not Hcy-CB[7]. The results indicate that Hcy is rapidly oxidized to HSSH under the catalysis of CB[7], which acts as a reaction chamber, in basic pH conditions. Our studies suggest that Hcy concentration, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, can be selectively and more easily quantified by supramolecular complexation with CB [7].

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.1573-1576
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• 2010

Bacillus subtilis PerR is a metal-dependent peroxide-sensing transcription factor which uses metal-catalyzed histidine oxidation for peroxide-sensing. PerR contains two metal binding sites, one for structural $Zn^{2+}$ and the other for the regulatory/peroxide-sensing metal. Here we investigated the effect of mutations at both the structural and regulatory metal binding sites on the oxidation of either H37 or H91, two of the peroxide-sensing ligands. All four serine substitution mutants at the structural $Zn^{2+}$ site (C96S, C99S, C136S and C139S) exhibited no detectable oxidation at histidine residues. Two of the alanine substitution mutants at regulatory metal site (H37A and D85A) exhibited selective oxidation preferentially at the H91-containing tryptic peptide, whereas no oxidation was detected in the other mutants (H91A, H93A and D104A). Our results suggest that the cysteine residues coordinating structural $Zn^{2+}$ are essential for peroxide sensing by PerR, and that the C-terminal regulatory metal binding site composed of H91, H93 and D104 can bind $Fe^{2+}$, providing a possible explanation for the peroxide sensing mechanisms by PerR.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.181-187
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• 2011

Transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 (TRPV1) receptor plays an important role as a molecular detector of noxious signals in primary sensory neurons. Activity of TRPV1 can be modulated by the change in the environment such as redox state and extracellular cations. In the present study, we investigated the effect of the mercury chloride ($HgCl_2$) on the activity of TRPV1 in rat dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons using whole-cell patch clamp technique. Extracellular $HgCl_2$ reversibly reduced the magnitudes of capsaicin-activated currents ($I_{cap}$) in DRG neurons in a dose-dependent manner. The blocking effect of $HgCl_2$ was prevented by pretreatment with the reducing agent dithiothreitol (DTT). Inhibition of $I_{cap}$ by $HgCl_2$ was abolished by point mutation of individual cysteine residues located on the extracellular surface of TRPV1. These results suggest that three extracellular cysteines of TRPV1, Cys616, Cys634 and Cys621, are responsible for the oxidative modulation of $I_{cap}$ by $HgCl_2$.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.6-19
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• 2016

Redox signalling comprises the biology of molecular signal transduction mediated by reactive oxygen (or nitrogen) species. By specific and reversible oxidation of redoxsensitive cysteines, many biological processes sense and respond to signals from the intracellular redox environment. Redox signals are therefore important regulators of cellular homeostasis. Recently, it has become apparent that the cellular redox state oscillates in vivo and in vitro, with a period of about one day (circadian). Circadian timekeeping allows cells and organisms to adapt their biology to resonate with the 24-hour cycle of day/night. The importance of this innate biological timekeeping is illustrated by the association of clock disruption with the early onset of several diseases (e.g. type II diabetes, stroke and several forms of cancer). Circadian regulation of cellular redox balance suggests potentially two distinct roles for redox signalling in relation to the cellular clock: one where it is regulated by the clock, and one where it regulates the clock. Here, we introduce the concepts of redox signalling and cellular timekeeping, and then critically appraise the evidence for the reciprocal regulation between cellular redox state and the circadian clock. We conclude there is a substantial body of evidence supporting circadian regulation of cellular redox state, but that it would be premature to conclude that the converse is also true. We therefore propose some approaches that might yield more insight into redox control of cellular timekeeping.