function relationship
Recently Published Documents


TOTAL DOCUMENTS

1867
(FIVE YEARS 462)

H-INDEX

74
(FIVE YEARS 11)

Pathogens ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Anna V. Bulankina ◽  
Rebecca M. Richter ◽  
Christoph Welsch

Positive-strand RNA viruses such as hepatitis C virus (HCV) hijack key factors of lipid metabolism of infected cells and extensively modify intracellular membranes to support the viral lifecycle. While lipid metabolism plays key roles in viral particle assembly and maturation, viral RNA synthesis is closely linked to the remodeling of intracellular membranes. The formation of viral replication factories requires a number of interactions between virus proteins and host factors including lipids. The structure–function relationship of those proteins is influenced by their lipid environments and lipids that selectively modulate protein function. Here, we review our current understanding on the roles of phospholipids in HCV replication and of lipid–protein interactions in the structure–function relationship of the NS5A protein. NS5A is a key factor in membrane remodeling in HCV-infected cells and is known to recruit phosphatidylinositol 4-kinase III alpha to generate phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate at the sites of replication. The dynamic interplay between lipids and viral proteins within intracellular membranes is likely key towards understanding basic mechanisms in the pathobiology of virus diseases, the mode of action of specific antiviral agents and related drug resistance mechanisms.


2022 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Deepa Maheshvare ◽  
Soumyendu Raha ◽  
Debnath Pal

Trillions of chemical reactions occur in the human body every second, where the generated products are not only consumed locally but also transported to various locations in a systematic manner to sustain homeostasis. Current solutions to model these biological phenomena are restricted in computability and scalability due to the use of continuum approaches in which it is practically impossible to encapsulate the complexity of the physiological processes occurring at diverse scales. Here, we present a discrete modeling framework defined on an interacting graph that offers the flexibility to model multiscale systems by translating the physical space into a metamodel. We discretize the graph-based metamodel into functional units composed of well-mixed volumes with vascular and cellular subdomains; the operators defined over these volumes define the transport dynamics. We predict glucose drift governed by advective–dispersive transport in the vascular subdomains of an islet vasculature and cross-validate the flow and concentration fields with finite-element–based COMSOL simulations. Vascular and cellular subdomains are coupled to model the nutrient exchange occurring in response to the gradient arising out of reaction and perfusion dynamics. The application of our framework for modeling biologically relevant test systems shows how our approach can assimilate both multi-omics data from in vitro–in vivo studies and vascular topology from imaging studies for examining the structure–function relationship of complex vasculatures. The framework can advance simulation of whole-body networks at user-defined levels and is expected to find major use in personalized medicine and drug discovery.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shanshan Wu ◽  
Huiyu Li ◽  
Ao Ma

Understanding the mechanism of functional protein dynamics is critical to understanding protein functions. Reaction coordinates is a central topic in protein dynamics and the grail is to find the one-dimensional reaction coordinate that can fully determine the value of committor (i.e. the reaction probability in configuration space) for any protein configuration. We present a powerful new method that can, for the first time, identify the rigorous one-dimensional reaction coordinate in complex molecules. This one-dimensional reaction coordinate is determined by a fundamental mechanical operator--the generalized work functional. This method only requires modest computational cost and can be readily applied to large molecules. Most importantly, the generalized work functional is the physical origin of the collectivity in functional protein dynamics and provides a tentative roadmap that connects the structure of a protein to its function.


2022 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirit Sharabi

Through years of evolution, biological soft fibrous tissues have developed remarkable functional properties, unique hierarchical architectures, and -most notably, an unparalleled and extremely efficient deformation ability. Whereas the structure-function relationship is well-studied in natural hard materials, soft materials are not getting similar attention, despite their high prevalence in nature. These soft materials are usually constructed as fiber-reinforced composites consisting of diverse structural motifs that result in an overall unique mechanical behavior with large deformations. Biomimetics of their mechanical behavior is currently a significant bioengineering challenge. The unique properties of soft fibrous tissues stem from their structural complexity, which, unfortunately, also hinders our ability to generate adequate synthetic analogs, such that autografts remain the “gold standard” materials for soft-tissue repair and replacement. This review seeks to understand the structural and deformation mechanisms of soft collagenous tissues, with a particular emphasis on tendon and ligaments, the annulus fibrosus (AF) in the intervertebral disc (IVD), skin, and blood vessels. We examined and compared different mechanical and structural motifs in these different tissue types, which are subjected to complex and varied mechanical loads, to isolate the mechanisms of their deformation behavior. Herein, we focused on their composite structure from a perspective of the different building blocks, architecture, crimping patterns, fiber orientation, organization and their structure-function relationship. In the second part of the review, we presented engineered soft composite applications that used these structural motifs to mimic the structural and mechanical behavior of soft fibrous tissues. Moreover, we demonstrated new methodologies and materials that use biomimetic principles as a guide. These novel architectural materials have tailor-designed J-shaped large deformations behavior. Structural motifs in soft composites hold valuable insights that could be exploited to generate the next generation of materials. They actually have a two-fold effect: 1) to get a better understanding of the complex structure-function relationship in a simple material system using reverse biomimetics and 2) to develop new and efficient materials. These materials could revolutionize the future tailor-designed soft composite materials together with various soft-tissue repair and replacement applications that will be mechanically biocompatible with the full range of native tissue behaviors.


2022 ◽  
pp. 9-30
Author(s):  
Muhammad Fayyaz ur Rehman ◽  
Abeera Shaeer ◽  
Aima Iram Batool ◽  
Mehwish Aslam

RSC Advances ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 631-639
Author(s):  
Constantinos Varotsis ◽  
Charalampos Tselios ◽  
Konstantinos A. Yiannakkos ◽  
Charalampos Andreou ◽  
Marios Papageorgiou ◽  
...  

Raman and FTIR microspectroscopies, laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and DP-LIBS have been applied towards our understanding of the characterization of the structure and structure–function relationship in copper-sulfide minerals.


2022 ◽  
pp. 102935
Author(s):  
Benjamin Chong ◽  
Alan Wang ◽  
Victor Borges ◽  
Winston D. Byblow ◽  
P. Alan Barber ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document