• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.539-544
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• 2004

The ability of protoberberine alkaloids, berberine and berberrubine, to act as topoisomerase II poisons is linked to the anti-cancer activity. Minor alterations in structure have a significant effect on their relative activity. Berberine, which has methoxy group at the 19-position, is significantly less potent than berberrubine. Several observations support non-specific binding to HP14 by the berberine: (i) nonspecific upfield changes in $^1H$ chemical shift for protons of the berberine; (ii) the broadening of imino protons of HP14 upon binding of the berberine; (iii) very small increases in duplex melting temperature in the presence of the berberine. Our results reveal that substitution of a hydroxyl group to a methoxy group on the 19-position, thereby converting the berberrubine to the berberine is associated with a non-specific DNA binding affinity and a reduced topoisomerase II poisoning. The presence of a bulky 19-methoxy substituent decreases intercalating properties of berberine and makes it inactive as topoisomerase II poison.

• BMB Reports
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.498-507
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• 2002

A gene that encodes a thermostable protease, coined thermicin, has been isolated from Thermoanaerobacter yonseiensis that is expressed and characterized in E. coli.. In order to elucidate the molecular characteristics on thermostability of the enzyme, molecular modeling and mutagenesis technology were applied. In the modeling structure, the structural core, including the active site, was well conserved; whereas, the two loop regions were unique when compared to thermitase. The mutant enzyme with the small loop deleted (D190-I196), based on modeling structural information, showed identical enzyme activity. However, when the large loop was deleted (P233-P244), a little lower $K_m$ and even a lower kcat was found. This indicates that the large loop could influence catalytic activity. However, the unfolding temperature ($T_m$), which was determined by a differential-scanning calorimetry for the mutant enzyme deleted the small loop, was $96^{\circ}C$. This is $14^{\circ}C$ lower than that for the parent thermicin. These results suggest that the small loop may play a role in maintaining the proper folding of the enzyme at high temperatures, whereas the large loop might be related to catalysis.

• Proceedings of the Korean Magnetic Resonance Society Conference
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• 2002.08a
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• pp.90-90
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• 2002

Syndecans, transmembrane heparan sulfate proteoglycans, are coreceptors with integrin in cell adhesion process. It forms a ternary signaling complex with protein kinase C and phosphatidylinositol 4,5 bisphosphate (PIP2) for integrin signaling. NMR data indicates that cytoplasmic domain of syndecan-4 (4L) undergoes a conformational transition in the presence of PIP2, forming oligomeric conformation. The structure based on NMR data demonstrated that syndecan-4L itself forms a compact intertwined symmetric dimer with an unusual clamp shape for residues Leu$^{186}$ -Ala$^{195}$ . The molecular surface of the syndecan-4L dimer is highly positively charged. In addition, no inter-subunit NOEs in membrane proximal amino acid resides (Cl region) has been observed, demonstrating that the Cl region is mostly unstructured in syndecan-4L dimmer. However, the complex structure in the presence of PIP2 induced a high order multimeric conformation in solution. In addition, phosphorylation of cytoplasmic domain induces conformational change of syndecan-4, resulting inhibition of PKC signaling. The NMR structural data strongly suggest that PIP2 promotes oligomerization of syndecan-4 cytoplasmic domain for PKC activation and further induces structural reorganization of syndecan for mediating signaling network in cell adhesion procedure.

• BMB Reports
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.45-52
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• 2004

The goal of interaction proteomics that studies the protein-protein interactions of all expressed proteins is to understand biological processes that are strictly regulated by these interactions. The availability of entire genome sequences of many organisms and high-throughput analysis tools has led scientists to study the entire proteome (Pandey and Mann, 2000). There are various high-throughput methods for detecting protein interactions such as yeast two-hybrid approach and mass spectrometry to produce vast amounts of data that can be utilized to decipher protein functions in complicated biological networks. In this review, we discuss recent developments in analytical methods for large-scale protein interactions and the future direction of interaction proteomics.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.3E
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• pp.126-131
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• 2002

Ultrasonic measurements are made in egg white to study the properties of the solution of the natural protein. The high-Q ultrasonic resonator method is used to get the ultrasonic absorption spectra over the range 0.2-10 ㎒ at 20℃. It is proportional to the 1.25th power of the frequency. The gelation process caused by heat is studied from the change in the velocity and the absorption. at 3 ㎒ using the pulse echo overlap technique over the range of 10-80℃. The absorption decreases with increasing temperature up to 60℃ where it turns up sharply and rapidly increases thereafter. The strong absorption in the gel region is described by the interaction between the solution and the network structure made of protein. Very slow variation in time elapse is observed after the temperature is quickly raised. It would be a real-time observation of the network building process and the characteristic time for the process is shown to be 400 min. A hysteresis phenomenon with respect to the temperature is observed. This phenomenon is associated with the memorizing effect of the network structure of protein of the gel.

• BMB Reports
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• v.50 no.9
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• pp.478-483
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• 2017

Budding yeast has dozens of prions, which are mutually dependent on each other for the de novo prion formation. In addition to the interactions among prions, transmissions of prions are strictly dependent on two chaperone systems: the Hsp104 and the Hsp70/Hsp40 (J-protein) systems, both of which cooperatively remodel the prion aggregates to ensure the multiplication of prion entities. Since it has been postulated that prions and the remodeling factors constitute complex networks in cells, a quantitative approach to describe the interactions in live cells would be required. Here, the researchers applied dual-color fluorescence cross-correlation spectroscopy to investigate the molecular network of interaction in single live cells. The findings demonstrate that yeast prions and remodeling factors constitute a network through heterogeneous protein-protein interactions.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.137-147
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• 2015

This study proposes an algorithm for predicting breast cancer prognosis based on genetic network. We identify prognosis-specific network using gene expression data and PPI(protein-protein interaction) data. To acquire the network, we calculate Pearson's correlation coefficient(PCC) between genes in all PPI pairs using gene expression data. We develop a prediction model for breast cancer patients with estrogen-receptor-negative using the network as a classifier. We compare classification performance of our algorithm with existing algorithms on independent data and shows our algorithm is improved. In addition, we make an functionality analysis on the genes in the prognosis-specific network using GO(Gene Ontology) enrichment validation.

• BMB Reports
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.33-38
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• 2001

The human PTK6 (also known as Brk) polypeptide, which is deduced from its full-length cDNA, represents a non-receptor protein tyrosine kinase (PTK). It contains SH3, SH2, and tyrosine kinase catalytic domains that are closely related to Src family members. We generated an antihuman PTK6 antibody by immunizing rabbits with a PTK6-specific oligopeptide conjugated to BSA, which corresponds to 11 amino acid residues near the C-terminus. An immunoblot analysis with the antibody detected an expected 52-kDa band in various mammalian transformed cell lines. Immunoprecipitation and immunoblot analyses demonstrated that PTK6 is phosphorylated on the tyrosine residues) and interacts with approximately a 23-kDa tyrosine-phosphorylated polypeptide (most likely a substrate of PTK6) in breast carcinoma T-47D cells. An immunofluorescence analysis demonstrated that PTK6 is localized throughout the cytoplasm of T-47D cells. These results support a possible role for PTK6 in the intracellular signal transduction through tyrosine phosphorylation.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.1816-1821
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• 2016

Protein secondary structure is important for the study of protein evolution, structure and function of proteins which play crucial roles in most of biological processes. This paper try to effectively extract protein secondary structure information from the large protein structure database in order to predict the protein secondary structure of a query protein sequence. To find more remote homologous sequences of a query sequence in the protein database, we used PSI-BLAST which can perform gapped iterative searches and use profiles consisting of homologous protein sequences of a query protein. The secondary structures of the homologous sequences are weighed combined to the secondary structure prediction according to their relative degree of similarity to the query sequence. When homologous sequences with a neural network predictor were used, the accuracies were higher than those of current state-of-art techniques, achieving a Q3 accuracy of 92.28% and a Q8 accuracy of 88.79%.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.31 no.12
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• pp.1602-1610
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• 2004

As various genome projects have produced enormous amount of biosequence data, functional sequence analysis in terms of tile nucleic acid and protein becomes very significant. In functional genomics and proteomics, the functional analysis of each individual gene and protein remains a big challenge. Contrary to traditional studies, which regard proteins as not components of a whole protein interaction network but individual entities, recent studies have focused on examining functions and roles of each individual gene and protein in view of a whole life system. In this regard, it has been recognized as an appropriate method to analyze protein function on the basis of synthetic information of its interaction and domain modularity. In this context, this paper introduces the PIVS (Protein-protein interaction Inference & Visualization System), which predicts the interaction relationship of input proteins by taking advantage of information on homology degree, domain modules which input sequences contain, and protein interaction relationship. The information on domain modules can increase the accuracy of the function and interaction relationship analysis in terms of the specificity and sensitivity.