scholarly journals Protein Modifications: From Chemoselective Probes to Novel Biocatalysts

Catalysts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1466
Author(s):  
Tomás Bohn Pessatti ◽  
Hernán Terenzi ◽  
Jean Borges Bertoldo

Chemical reactions can be performed to covalently modify specific residues in proteins. When applied to native enzymes, these chemical modifications can greatly expand the available set of building blocks for the development of biocatalysts. Nucleophilic canonical amino acid sidechains are the most readily accessible targets for such endeavors. A rich history of attempts to design enhanced or novel enzymes, from various protein scaffolds, has paved the way for a rapidly developing field with growing scientific, industrial, and biomedical applications. A major challenge is to devise reactions that are compatible with native proteins and can selectively modify specific residues. Cysteine, lysine, N-terminus, and carboxylate residues comprise the most widespread naturally occurring targets for enzyme modifications. In this review, chemical methods for selective modification of enzymes will be discussed, alongside with examples of reported applications. We aim to highlight the potential of such strategies to enhance enzyme function and create novel semisynthetic biocatalysts, as well as provide a perspective in a fast-evolving topic.

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-161
Author(s):  
Nusrat Shafiq ◽  
Uzma Arshad ◽  
Gul Zarren ◽  
Shagufta Parveen ◽  
Irum Javed ◽  
...  

In our present work, we emphasized on the potential of barbituric acid (1) derivatives as drugs like anti-bacterial, hypnotic, sedative, anti-microbial and antifungal agents. As naturally occurring, barbituric acid (1) is inactive but in the derivative form, it has a large number of medicinal uses and nowadays, it has a great demand in the pharmaceutical industry. Barbituric acid has a wide range of applications in the synthesis of a diverse class of compounds like heterocyclic, carbocyclic, synthetic alkaloids, and due to its broad-spectrum applications, barbituric acid acquired the position of building blocks in synthetic chemistry. Through the history of humanity, a number of bioactive agents have been applied to cure the disease related to hypnotics and sedatives, while the exact efficacy of these agents was found to be limited. Till now, review articles on barbituric acid only express their specific aspect but in present review article, all aspects are discussed in detail to provide a platform to readers and researchers so that they could obtain all information and background knowledge from a single point.


Author(s):  
E. V. Sitnikova

The article considers the historical and cultural heritage of villages of the former Ketskaya volost, which is currently a part of the Tomsk region. The formation of Ketsky prison and the architecture of large settlements of the former Ketskaya volost are studied. Little is known about the historical and cultural heritage of villages of the Tomsk region and the problems of preserving historical settlements of the country.The aim of this work is to study the formation and development of the village architecture of the former Ketskaya volost, currently included in the Tomsk region.The following scientific methods are used: a critical analysis of the literature, comparative architectural analysis and systems analysis of information, creative synthesis of the findings. The obtained results can be used in preparation of lectures, reports and communication on the history of the Siberian architecture.The scientific novelty is a study of the historical and cultural heritage of large settlements of the former Ketskaya volost, which has not been studied and published before. The methodological and theoretical basis of the study is theoretical works of historians and architects regarding the issue under study as well as the previous  author’s work in the field.It is found that the historical and cultural heritage of the villages of the former Ketskaya volost has a rich history. Old historical buildings, including religious ones are preserved in villages of Togur and Novoilinka. The urban planning of the villages reflects the design and construction principles of the 18th century. The rich natural environment gives this area a special touch. 


2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (17) ◽  
pp. 1797-1812 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyue Yu ◽  
Cuie Tang ◽  
Shanbai Xiong ◽  
Qijuan Yuan ◽  
Zhipeng Gu ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Geetanjali Singh ◽  
Pramod Kumar Sharma ◽  
Rishabha Malviya

Aim/Objective: The author writes the manuscript by reviewing the literatures related to the biomedical application of metallic nanoparticles. The term metal nanoparticles are used to describe the nanosized metals with the dimension within the size range of 1-100 nm. Methods: The preparation of metallic nanoparticles and their application is an influential area for research. Among various physical and chemical methods (viz. chemical reduction, thermal decomposition, etc.) for synthesizing silver nanoparticles, biological methods have been suggested as possible eco-friendly alternatives. The synthesis of metallic nanoparticles is having many problems inclusive of solvent toxicity, the formation of hazardous byproducts and consumption of energy. So it is important to design eco-friendly benign procedures for the synthesis of metallic nanoparticles. Results: From the literature survey, we concluded that metallic nanoparticles have applications in the treatment of different diseases. Metallic nanoparticles are having a great advantage in the detection of cancer, diagnosis, and therapy. And it can also have properties such as antifungal, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiviral and anti-angiogenic. Conclusion: In this review, recent upcoming advancement of biomedical application of nanotechnology and their future challenges has been discussed.


Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mordecai Lee

One of the building blocks of the professionalization of American public administration was the recognition of the need for expert knowledge and the wide dissemination of that information to practitioners. Municipal civil servants could adopt and adapt these best practices in their localities. Such was the purpose of the Municipal Administration Service (1926-1933), initially founded by the National Municipal League and funded by the Rockefeller philanthropies. This article is an organizational history of the Service. It presents the life cycle of the agency, including its operations, funding, problems, and the behind-the-scenes public administration politics which led to its demise. In all, the Municipal Administration Service captures the early history of American public administration, its attempt to demonstrate that it was a full-fledged profession with recognized experts and managerial advice that ultimately proved unable to perpetuate itself.


Author(s):  
Eric Helleiner

Abstract As the global crisis triggered by the COVID-19 virus unfolded, The Economist magazine published a cover in May 2020 titled “Goodbye globalization: the dangerous lure of self-sufficiency.” The title summed up well the new political interest in the ideology of national economic self-sufficiency in the pandemic context. Unfortunately, contemporary textbooks in the field of international political economy (IPE) say little about this kind of “autarkic” thought. No survey of the history of autarkic thought exists even within specialist IPE literature or in the fields of intellectual history and the history of economic thought. Filling this gap in existing scholarship, this article highlights a rich history of autarkic thought that includes the ideas of famous thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Fichte, Mohandas Gandhi, and John Maynard Keynes. Three core rationales for a high degree of national self-sufficiency have been advanced in the past: (1) insulation from foreign economic influence, (2) insulation from foreign political and/or cultural influence, and (3) the promotion of international peace. At the same time, considerable disagreements have existed among autarkists about some of these rationales and their relative importance, as well as about the precise meaning of national self-sufficiency. These disagreements stemmed not just from differences in their specific goals but also from the different conditions across time and space in which autarkic thought was developed. In addition to improving understanding of the autarkic ideological tradition, this article contributes to emerging scholarship attempting to overcome Western-centrism in IPE scholarship as well as literature exploring the new politics of de-globalization in the current era.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (15) ◽  
pp. 4587
Author(s):  
Fanny d’Orlyé ◽  
Laura Trapiella-Alfonso ◽  
Camille Lescot ◽  
Marie Pinvidic ◽  
Bich-Thuy Doan ◽  
...  

There is a challenging need for the development of new alternative nanostructures that can allow the coupling and/or encapsulation of therapeutic/diagnostic molecules while reducing their toxicity and improving their circulation and in-vivo targeting. Among the new materials using natural building blocks, peptides have attracted significant interest because of their simple structure, relative chemical and physical stability, diversity of sequences and forms, their easy functionalization with (bio)molecules and the possibility of synthesizing them in large quantities. A number of them have the ability to self-assemble into nanotubes, -spheres, -vesicles or -rods under mild conditions, which opens up new applications in biology and nanomedicine due to their intrinsic biocompatibility and biodegradability as well as their surface chemical reactivity via amino- and carboxyl groups. In order to obtain nanostructures suitable for biomedical applications, the structure, size, shape and surface chemistry of these nanoplatforms must be optimized. These properties depend directly on the nature and sequence of the amino acids that constitute them. It is therefore essential to control the order in which the amino acids are introduced during the synthesis of short peptide chains and to evaluate their in-vitro and in-vivo physico-chemical properties before testing them for biomedical applications. This review therefore focuses on the synthesis, functionalization and characterization of peptide sequences that can self-assemble to form nanostructures. The synthesis in batch or with new continuous flow and microflow techniques will be described and compared in terms of amino acids sequence, purification processes, functionalization or encapsulation of targeting ligands, imaging probes as well as therapeutic molecules. Their chemical and biological characterization will be presented to evaluate their purity, toxicity, biocompatibility and biodistribution, and some therapeutic properties in vitro and in vivo. Finally, their main applications in the biomedical field will be presented so as to highlight their importance and advantages over classical nanostructures.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Robert Nemes

Abstract Hungary has a long, rich history of wine production. Historians have emphasized wine's importance to the development of both the Hungarian economy and Hungarian nationalism. This article ties together these historiographical threads through a case study of a small village in one of Hungary's most famous wine regions. Tracing the village's history from the 1860s to World War I, the article makes three main claims. First, it demonstrates that from the start, this remote village belonged to wider networks of trade and exchange that stretched across the surrounding region, state, and continent. Second, it shows that even as Magyar elites celebrated the folk culture and peasant smallholders of this region, they also cheered the introduction of what they saw as scientific, rational agriculture. This leads to the last argument: wine achieved its place in the pantheon of Hungarian culture at a moment when the local communities that had grown up around its production and stirred the national imagination were undergoing dramatic and irreversible change.


2019 ◽  
Vol 132 (6) ◽  
pp. jcs225151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan H. Driller ◽  
Janine Lützkendorf ◽  
Harald Depner ◽  
Matthias Siebert ◽  
Benno Kuropka ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document