| 1. |
- Bednarska, Natalia G., et al.
(författare)
-
Protein aggregation as an antibiotic design strategy
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Molecular Microbiology. - : WILEY-BLACKWELL. - 0950-382X .- 1365-2958. ; 99:5, s. 849-865
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Taking advantage of the xenobiotic nature of bacterial infections, we tested whether the cytotoxicity of protein aggregation can be targeted to bacterial pathogens without affecting their mammalian hosts. In particular, we examined if peptides encoding aggregation-prone sequence segments of bacterial proteins can display antimicrobial activity by initiating toxic protein aggregation in bacteria, but not in mammalian cells. Unbiased in vitro screening of aggregating peptide sequences from bacterial genomes lead to the identification of several peptides that are strongly bactericidal against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Upon parenteral administration in vivo, the peptides cured mice from bacterial sepsis without apparent toxic side effects as judged from histological and hematological evaluation. We found that the peptides enter and accumulate in the bacterial cytosol where they cause aggregation of bacterial polypeptides. Although the precise chain of events that leads to cell death remains to be elucidated, the ability to tap into aggregation-prone sequences of bacterial proteomes to elicit antimicrobial activity represents a rich and unexplored chemical space to be mined in search of novel therapeutic strategies to fight infectious diseases.
|
|
| 2. |
- Bogaert, Annelies, et al.
(författare)
-
N-terminal proteoforms may engage in different protein complexes
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Life Science Alliance. - : Life Science Alliance, LLC. - 2575-1077. ; 6:8
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Alternative translation initiation and alternative splicing may give rise to N-terminal proteoforms, proteins that differ at their N-terminus compared with their canonical counterparts. Such proteoforms can have altered localizations, stabilities, and functions. Although proteoforms generated from splice variants can be engaged in different protein complexes, it remained to be studied to what extent this applies to N-terminal proteoforms. To address this, we mapped the interactomes of several pairs of N-terminal proteoforms and their canonical counterparts. First, we generated a catalogue of N-terminal proteoforms found in the HEK293T cellular cytosol from which 22 pairs were selected for interactome profiling. In addition, we provide evidence for the expression of several N-terminal proteoforms, identified in our catalogue, across different human tissues, as well as tissue-specific expression, highlighting their biological relevance. Protein–protein interaction profiling revealed that the overlap of the interactomes for both proteoforms is generally high, showing their functional relation. We also showed that N-terminal proteoforms can be engaged in new interactions and/or lose several interactions compared with their canonical counterparts, thus further expanding the functional diversity of proteomes.
|
|
| 3. |
- Gallardo, Rodrigo, et al.
(författare)
-
De novo design of a biologically active amyloid
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Science. - : AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE. - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 354:6313, s. 720-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Most human proteins possess amyloidogenic segments, but only about 30 are associated with amyloid-associated pathologies, and it remains unclear what determines amyloid toxicity. We designed vascin, a synthetic amyloid peptide, based on an amyloidogenic fragment of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2), a protein that is not associated to amyloidosis. Vascin recapitulates key biophysical and biochemical characteristics of natural amyloids, penetrates cells, and seeds the aggregation of VEGFR2 through direct interaction. We found that amyloid toxicity is observed only in cells that both express VEGFR2 and are dependent on VEGFR2 activity for survival. Thus, amyloid toxicity here appears to be both protein-specific and conditional-determined by VEGFR2 loss of function in a biological context in which target protein function is essential.
|
|
| 4. |
- Moruz, Luminita, et al.
(författare)
-
Chromatographic retention time prediction for posttranslationally modified peptides
- 2012
-
Ingår i: Proteomics. - : Wiley. - 1615-9853 .- 1615-9861. ; 12:8, s. 1151-1159
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Retention time prediction of peptides in liquid chromatography has proven to be a valuable tool for mass spectrometry-based proteomics, especially in designing more efficient procedures for state-of-the-art targeted workflows. Additionally, accurate retention time predictions can also be used to increase confidence in identifications in shotgun experiments. Despite these obvious benefits, the use of such methods has so far not been extended to (posttranslationally) modified peptides due to the absence of efficient predictors for such peptides. We here therefore describe a new retention time predictor for modified peptides, built on the foundations of our existing Elude algorithm. We evaluated our software by applying it on five types of commonly encountered modifications. Our results show that Elude now yields equally good prediction performances for modified and unmodified peptides, with correlation coefficients between predicted and observed retention times ranging from 0.93 to 0.98 for all the investigated datasets. Furthermore, we show that our predictor handles peptides carrying multiple modifications as well. This latest version of Elude is fully portable to new chromatographic conditions and can readily be applied to other types of posttranslational modifications. Elude is available under the permissive Apache2 open source License at or can be run via a web-interface at.
|
|
| 5. |
- Wrzaczek, Michael, et al.
(författare)
-
GRIM REAPER peptide binds to receptor kinase PRK5 to trigger cell death in Arabidopsis
- 2015
-
Ingår i: EMBO Journal. - : EMBO. - 0261-4189 .- 1460-2075. ; 31:1, s. 55-66
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recognition of extracellular peptides by plasma membrane-localized receptor proteins is commonly used in signal transduction. In plants, very little is known about how extracellular peptides are processed and activated in order to allow recognition by receptors. Here, we show that induction of cell death in planta by a secreted plant protein GRIM REAPER (GRI) is dependent on the activity of the type II metacaspase METACASPASE-9. GRI is cleaved by METACASPASE-9 in vitro resulting in the release of an 11 amino acid peptide. This peptide bound in vivo to the extracellular domain of the plasma membrane-localized, atypical leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinase POLLEN-SPECIFIC RECEPTOR-LIKE KINASE 5 (PRK5) and was sufficient to induce oxidative stress/ROS-dependent cell death. This shows a signaling pathway in plants from processing and activation of an extracellular protein to recognition by its receptor.
|
|
