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Lysine Specific Demethylase (LSD1 or KDM1A) in complex with its co-repressor protein CoREST catalyzes the demethylation of the H3 histone N-terminal tail and is currently one of the most promising epigenetic t...
Intracellular transport is crucial for many cellular processes where a large fraction of the cargo is transferred by motor-proteins over a network of microtubules. Malfunctions in the transport mechanism under...
Assembly of the ribosome from its protein and RNA constituents must occur quickly and efficiently in order to synthesize the proteins necessary for all cellular activity. Since the early 1960’s, certain charac...
Keratins are important structural proteins found in skin, hair and nails. Keratin Intermediate Filaments are major components of corneocytes, nonviable horny cells of the Stratum Corneum, the outermost layer o...
Increasing applications of titanium dioxide (TiO2) fine particles (FPs) and nanoparticles (NPs) require coupled knowledge improvement concerning their biokinetic effects. Neutrophils are quickly recruited to tita...
PQS (Pseudomonas Quinolone Signal) and its precursor HHQ are signal molecules of the P. aeruginosa quorum sensing system. They explicate their role in mammalian pathogenicity by binding to the receptor PqsR that ...
Water is essential for life, but some organisms can survive complete desiccation, while many more survive partial dehydration during drying or freezing. The function of some protective molecules, such as sugar...
Drop drying is a key factor in a wide range of technical applications, including spotted microarrays. The applied nL liquid volume provides specific reaction conditions for the immobilization of probe molecule...
A recent study by Dietz et al. using single-molecule fluorescence microscopy techniques demonstrates that, in the absence of the ligand InlB, the MET receptor exists as both a monomer and a dimer on the cell memb...
The human receptor tyrosine kinase MET and its ligand hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor are essential during embryonic development and play an important role during cancer metastasis and tissue regenerat...
Biomolecules or other complex macromolecules undergo conformational transitions upon exposure to an external perturbation such as ligand binding or mechanical force. To follow fluctuations in pairwise forces b...
UV–vis spectrophotometric optical density (OD) is the most commonly-used technique for estimating chromophore formation and cell concentration in liquid culture. OD wavelength is often chosen with little thoug...
Fluctuation-induced phenomena caused by both random and deterministic stimuli have been previously studied in a variety of contexts. They are based on the interplay between the spectro-temporal patterns of the...
Transcription factories are nuclear domains where gene transcription takes placealthough the molecular basis for their formation and maintenance are unknown. In thisstudy, we explored how the properties of chr...
Regulating protein function in the cell by small molecules, provide a rapid, reversible and tunable tool of metabolic control. However, due to its complexity the issue is poorly studied so far. The effects of ...
In order to replicate within their cellular host, many viruses have developed self-assembly strategies for their capsids which are sufficiently robust as to be reconstituted in vitro. Mathematical models for viru...
Understanding the mechanical properties of chromatin is an essential step towards deciphering the physical rules of gene regulation. In the past ten years, many single molecule experiments have been carried ou...
Cholesterol is an important membrane component, but our knowledge about its transport in cells is sparse. Previous imaging studies using dehydroergosterol (DHE), an intrinsically fluorescent sterol from yeast,...
Mollusc shells are commonly investigated using high-resolution imaging techniques based on cryo-fixation. Less detailed information is available regarding the light-optical properties. Sea shells of Haliotis pulc...
Advances in computational biology allow systematic investigations to ascertain whether internal chemical gradients can be maintained in bacteria – an open question at the resolution limit of fluorescence micro...
Bacteria dynamically regulate their intricate intracellular organization involving proteins that facilitate cell division, motility, and numerous other processes. Consistent with this sophisticated organizatio...
Minor changes in protein structure induced by small organic and inorganic molecules can result in significant metabolic effects. The effects can be even more profound if the molecular players are chemically ac...
EF-hand proteins can be activated by the binding of various heavy metals other than calcium, and such complexes can disturb the calcium-signaling pathway and cause toxicity and disease causing state. So far, n...
Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations are a promising tool to generate molecular understanding of processes related to the purification of proteins. Polyethylene glycols (PEG) of various length are commonly used...
G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) are seven helical transmembrane proteins that function as signal transducers. They bind ligands in their extracellular and transmembrane regions and activate cognate G prote...
Human carbonic anhydrases (CAs) play crucial role in various physiological processes including carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon transport, acid homeostasis, biosynthetic reactions, and various pathological proce...
During elongation, multi-subunit RNA polymerases (RNAPs) cycle between phosphodiester bond formation and nucleic acid translocation. In the conformation associated with catalysis, the mobile “trigger loop” of ...
Gluten intolerance is a condition which affects an increasing percentage of the world’s population and for which the only current treatment is a restrictive gluten free diet. However could the inclusion of a p...
Accurate modeling of electrostatic potential and corresponding energies becomes increasingly important for understanding properties of biological macromolecules and their complexes. However, this is not an eas...
Cell migration plays an essential role in many biological processes, such as cancer metastasis, wound healing and immune response. Cell migration is mediated through protrusion and focal adhesion (FA) assembly...
Protein-protein recognition is of fundamental importance in the vast majority of biological processes. However, it has already been demonstrated that it is very hard to distinguish true complexes from false co...
In the classical view, cell membrane proteins undergo isotropic random motion, that is a 2D Brownian diffusion that should result in an homogeneous distribution of concentration. It is, however, far from the r...
The mechanism of action of volatile general anesthetics has not yet been resolved. In order to identify the effects of isoflurane on the membrane, we measured the steady-state anisotropy of two fluorescent pro...
Single-particle tracking is a powerful tool for tracking individual particles with high precision. It provides useful information that allows the study of diffusion properties as well as the dynamics of moveme...
The V3 loop of the glycoprotein gp120 of HIV-1 plays an important role in viral entry into cells by utilizing as coreceptor CCR5 or CXCR4, and is implicated in the phenotypic tropisms of HIV viruses. It has be...
The role of dynamics in protein functions including signal transduction is just starting to be deciphered. Eph receptors with 16 members divided into A- and B- subclasses are respectively activated by 9 A- and...
Default activation of the spindle assembly checkpoint provides severe constraints on the underlying biochemical activation rates: on one hand, the cell cannot divide before all chromosomes are aligned, but on ...
Protein-lipid interactions play essential roles in the conformational stability and biological functions of membrane proteins. However, few of the previous computational studies have taken into account the ato...
DNA is a carrier of biological information. The hybridization process, the formation of the DNA double-helix from single-strands with complementary sequences, is important for all living cells. DNA microarrays...
Along with high affinity binding of epibatidine (Kd1≈10 pM) to α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), low affinity binding of epibatidine (Kd2≈1-10 nM) to an independent binding site has been reported. St...
Robust self-organization of subcellular structures is a key principle governing the dynamics and evolution of cellular life. In fission yeast cells undergoing division, the mitotic spindle spontaneously emerges f...
We are exploring the viability of a novel approach to cardiocyte contractility assessment based on biomechanical properties of the cardiac cells, energy conservation principles, and information content measure...
The heat-shock response network controls the adaptation and survival of the cell against environmental stress. This network is highly conserved and is connected with many other signaling pathways. A key elemen...
Regulation of integrin binding to the specific complementary sites on extra-cellular matrix (ECM) proteins plays a major role in cell adhesion and migration. In addition to regulating single integrin-ligand bo...
Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) has been used as analytical tool in chemistry for many years. In addition, FTIR can also be applied as a rapid and non-invasive method to detect and identify micr...
Solutions containing high macromolecule concentrations are predicted to affect a number of protein properties compared to those properties in dilute solution. In cells, these macromolecular crowders have a lar...
Phosphopeptide-binding domains mediate many vital cellular processes such as signal transduction and protein recognition. We studied three well-known domains important for signal transduction: BRCT repeats, WW...
Although biological membranes are organized as lipid bilayers, they contain a substantial fraction of lipids that have a strong tendency to adopt a nonlamellar, most often inverted hexagonal (HII) phase. The poly...
Understanding biological networks requires identifying their elementary protein interactions and establishing the timing and strength of those interactions. Fluorescence microscopy and Förster resonance energy...
Hydrophobins are small proteins produced by filamentous fungi that have a variety of biological functions including coating of spores and surface adhesion. To accomplish these functions, they rely on unique in...