The bacterial groups in the gut ecosystem play key role in the maintenance of host’s metabolic and structural functionality The gut microbiota enhances digestion processing, helps in digestion of complex substances, synthesizes beneficial bioactive compounds, enhances bioavailability of minerals, impedes growth of pathogenic microbes, and prevents various diseases It is, therefore, desirable to have an adequate intake of prebiotic biomolecules, which promote favorable modulation of intestinal microflora Prebiotics are non-digestible and chemically stable structures that significantly enhance growth and functionality of gut microflora The non-digestible carbohydrate, mainly oligosaccharides, covers a major part of total available prebiotics as dietary additives The review describes the types of prebiotic low molecular weight carbohydrates, ie, oligosaccharides, their structure, biosynthesis, functionality, and applications, with a special focus given to fructooligosaccharides (FOSs) The review provides an update on enzymes executing hydrolytic and fructosyltransferase activities producing prebiotic FOS biomolecules, and future perspectives

Prebiotic Oligosaccharides: Special Focus on Fructooligosaccharides, Its Biosynthesis and Bioactivity

The lytic transglycosylases (LTs) are bacterial enzymes that catalyze the non-hydrolytic cleavage of the peptidoglycan structures of the bacterial cell wall. They are not catalysts of glycan synthesis as might be surmised from their name. Notwithstanding the seemingly mundane reaction catalyzed by the LTs, their lytic reactions serve bacteria for a series of astonishingly diverse purposes. These purposes include cell-wall synthesis, remodeling, and degradation; for the detection of cell-wall-acting antibiotics; for the expression of the mechanism of cell-wall-acting antibiotics; for the insertion of secretion systems and flagellar assemblies into the cell wall; as a virulence mechanism during infection by certain Gram-negative bacteria; and in the sporulation and germination of Gram-positive spores. Significant advances in the mechanistic understanding of each of these processes have coincided with the successive discovery of new LTs structures. In this review, we provide a systematic perspective on what is known on the structure-function correlations for the LTs, while simultaneously identifying numerous opportunities for the future study of these enigmatic enzymes.

Lytic transglycosylases: concinnity in concision of the bacterial cell wall.

Maintenance of protein homeostasis is vitally important in post-mitotic cells, particularly neurons. Neurodegenerative diseases such as polyglutamine expansion disorders—like Huntington9s disease or spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA), Alzheimer9s disease, fronto-temporal dementia (FTD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson9s disease—are often characterized by the presence of inclusions of aggregated protein. Neurons contain complex protein networks dedicated to protein quality control and maintaining protein homeostasis, or proteostasis. Molecular chaperones are a class of proteins with prominent roles in maintaining proteostasis, which act to bind and shield hydrophobic regions of nascent or misfolded proteins while allowing correct folding, conformational changes and enabling quality control. There are many different families of molecular chaperones with multiple functions in proteostasis. The DNAJ family of molecular chaperones is the largest chaperone family and is defined by the J-domain, which regulates the function of HSP70 chaperones. DNAJ proteins can also have multiple other protein domains such as ubiquitin-interacting motifs or clathrin-binding domains leading to diverse and specific roles in the cell, including targeting client proteins for degradation via the proteasome, chaperone-mediated autophagy and uncoating clathrin-coated vesicles. DNAJ proteins can also contain ER-signal peptides or mitochondrial leader sequences, targeting them to specific organelles in the cell. In this review, we discuss the multiple roles of DNAJ proteins and in particular focus on the role of DNAJ proteins in protecting against neurodegenerative diseases caused by misfolded proteins. We also discuss the role of DNAJ proteins as direct causes of inherited neurodegeneration via mutations in DNAJ family genes. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Heat shock proteins as modulators and therapeutic targets of chronic disease: an integrated perspective’.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstb.2016.0534

DNAJ Proteins in neurodegeneration: essential and protective factors.

Mutations in the human LMNA gene cause muscular dystrophy by mechanisms that are incompletely understood. The LMNA gene encodes A-type lamins, intermediate filaments that form a network underlying the inner nuclear membrane, providing structural support for the nucleus and organizing the genome. To better understand the pathogenesis caused by mutant lamins, we performed a structural and functional analysis on LMNA missense mutations identified in muscular dystrophy patients. These mutations perturb the tertiary structure of the conserved A-type lamin Ig-fold domain. To identify the effects of these structural perturbations on lamin function, we modeled these mutations in Drosophila Lamin C and expressed the mutant lamins in muscle. We found that the structural perturbations had minimal dominant effects on nuclear stiffness, suggesting that the muscle pathology was not accompanied by major structural disruption of the peripheral nuclear lamina. However, subtle alterations in the lamina network and subnuclear reorganization of lamins remain possible. Affected muscles had cytoplasmic aggregation of lamins and additional nuclear envelope proteins. Transcription profiling revealed upregulation of many Nrf2 target genes. Nrf2 is normally sequestered in the cytoplasm by Keap-1. Under oxidative stress Nrf2 dissociates from Keap-1, translocates into the nucleus, and activates gene expression. Unexpectedly, biochemical analyses revealed high levels of reducing agents, indicative of reductive stress. The accumulation of cytoplasmic lamin aggregates correlated with elevated levels of the autophagy adaptor p62/SQSTM1, which also binds Keap-1, abrogating Nrf2 cytoplasmic sequestration, allowing Nrf2 nuclear translocation and target gene activation. Elevated p62/SQSTM1 and nuclear enrichment of Nrf2 were identified in muscle biopsies from the corresponding muscular dystrophy patients, validating the disease relevance of our Drosophila model. Thus, novel connections were made between mutant lamins and the Nrf2 signaling pathway, suggesting new avenues of therapeutic intervention that include regulation of protein folding and metabolism, as well as maintenance of redox homoeostasis.

/pdf/myopathic-lamin-mutations-cause-reductive-stress-and-3617dx31t3.pdf

Myopathic Lamin Mutations Cause Reductive Stress and Activate the Nrf2/Keap-1 Pathway

K(+) ions play a major role in many cellular processes. The deregulation of K(+) signaling is associated with a variety of diseases including cancer. Ether-a-go-go-1 (Eag1, Kv10.1, KCNH1) is a member of the voltage-activated potassium channel family and was the first K(+) channel to be associated with oncogenesis and tumor development. Interestingly, in healthy tissue, Kv10.1 is only detected in the central nervous system, where it is involved in the regulation of excitability under repeated stimulation. Kv10.1 is in contrast robustly expressed in over 70 % human tumors, where its expression seems to be controlled by key regulators of proliferation and survival such as p53 and E2F1, often altered in cancer. Otherwise, Kv10.1 is involved in cell proliferation, survival, angiogenesis, migration, and invasion. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current status of research on the role of Kv10.1 channel in physiopathology. Focus is placed on biophysical and pharmacological properties of Kv10.1 channel, as well as its cycling, trafficking, and its role in the neuron and cancer. The possible mechanisms by which Kv10.1 channel affects tumor cell migration and survival in breast cancer and its regulation by extracellular proteins are discussed.

Kv10.1 K+ channel: from physiology to cancer

/pdf/acta-crystallographica-section-f-structural-biology-and-14lr8n1qhi.pdf

Acta Crystallographica Section F: Structural Biology and Crystallization Communications

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

J.M. Guss

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Acta Crystallographica Section F: Structural Biology and Crystallization Communications