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A new BaSP variant Q345F/P134D controls (+)-catechin glucosylation regioselectivity by modifying stabilisation interactions in the catalytic pocket of the enzyme.

Flavonoids glycosylation at different positions is paramount to solubility and modulation of bioactivities. Sucrose phosphorylases, through transglycosylation reactions, are interesting enzymes that can transfer glucose from sucrose, the donor substrate, onto polyphenols to form glycoconjugates. Here, we report for the first time the structural and enzymatic properties of sucrose phosphorylase from the marine bacteriaAlteromonas mediterranea(AmSP). We characterized and investigated the transglucosylation capacity of two new variants of the enzyme on (+)-catechin and their propensity to catalyse its regioselective glucosylation.AmSP-Q353F andAmSP-P140D were shown to catalyse the regiospecific glucosylation of (+)-catechin using sucrose as donor substrate. While AmSP-WT was devoid of synthetic activity, each of its two single mutant provided high yields of specific regioisomers: 89% of (+)-catechin-4′-O-α-D-glucopyranoside (CAT-4’) for AmSP-P140D and 92% of (+)-catechin-3′-O-α-D-glucopyranoside (CAT-3’) for AmSP-Q353F. The novel compound CAT-4’ was fully characterized by NMR and mass spectrometry. We used molecular docking simulations on structural models of the glucosyl-enzyme intermediate to explain this regioselectivity. We showed thatAmSP-P140D preferentially binds (+)-catechin in a mode that favours glucosylation on its hydroxyl group in position 4’ (OH-4’) while the binding mode of the flavonoid in AmSP-Q353F favoured glucosylation on its hydroxyl group in position 3’ (OH-3’).

This work was mandatory on the basis of the following observations: age variations of PBP/GOBP expression independently of the male pheromone responsiveness, detection of PBP and GOBP proteins in aging female moths, PBP/GOBP expression in multiple metabolic tissues at many various life stages of the insect and induction of PBP/GOBP gene by insecticide abamectin. On the basis of this complete set of data analyzing the abundance of mRNA and the presence of protein for PBPs and GOBPs in an extremely large repertoire of tissues, we set out molecular docking experiments to analyze the binding of a variety of non-semiochemical ligands including alkaloids, insecticides, juvenoids, products of fat degradation and vitamins to BmorPBP1 and BmorGOBP2. These two proteins were extensively described for their ability to interact with odor pheromone semiochemical molecule., Supplemental information Frontiers in Physiology https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.712593 Financial Support: Overseas Talent-Taishan JFP-NO.tshw20091015 Natural Sciences Foundation of Shandong Province ZR2011CM046, {"references":["Guo, Xia et al. (2021) An expanded survey of the moth PBP/GOBP clade in Bombyx mori: new insight into expression and functional roles. Front. Physiol. doi:10.3389/fphys.2021.712593"]}

International audience; Understanding the structural plasticity of proteins is key to understanding the intricacies of their functions and mechanistic basis. In the current study, we analyzed the available multiple crystal structures of the same protein for the structural differences. For this purpose we used an abstraction of protein structures referred as Protein Blocks (PBs) that was previously established. We also characterized the nature of the structural variations for a few proteins using molecular dynamics simulations. In both the cases, the structural variations were summarized in the form of substitution matrices of PBs. We show that certain conformational states are preferably replaced by other specific conformational states. Interestingly, these structural variations are highly similar to those previously observed across structures of homologous proteins (r 2 =0.923) or across the ensemble of conformations from NMR data (r 2 =0.919). Thus our study quantitatively shows that overall trends of structural changes in a given protein are nearly identical to the trends of structural differences that occur in the topologically equivalent positions in homologous proteins. Specific case studies are used to illustrate the nature of these structural variations.

International audience; The relationship between the immune repertoire and the physiopathological status of individuals is essential to apprehend the genesis and the evolution of numerous pathologies. Nevertheless, the methodological approaches to understand these complex interactions are challenging. We performed a study evaluating the diversity harbored by different immune repertoires as a function of their physiopathological status. In this study, we base our analysis on a murine scFv library previously described and representing four different immune repertoires: i) healthy and naïve, ii) healthy and immunized, iii) autoimmune prone and naïve, and iv) autoimmune prone and immunized. This library, 2.6 × 10 9 in size, is submitted to high throughput sequencing (Next Generation Sequencing, NGS) in order to analyze the gene subgroups encoding for immunoglobulins. A comparative study of the distribution of immunoglobulin gene subgroups present in the four libraries has revealed shifts in the B cell repertoire originating from differences in genetic background and immunological status of mice. The adaptive immune system is capable of producing antibodies against a large number of immunogens. This vast diversity of immunoglobulin sequences is not provided by the limited number of genes present in the genome, but by rearrangements of the germline at specific loci. In the case of B cell receptors, rearrangement of variable (V), diversity (D), and joining (J) gene segments in V-Domain creates a combinatorial diversity for the immu-noglobulin heavy chain (IGH), whereas rearrangement of V and J gene segments provides a similar diversity for the lambda or kappa light chains (IGL/IGK) 1 (Fig. 1). Additionally, at the junctions of V-D and D-J segments, a process of random deletion and addition of nucleotides creates an immense junctional diversity. Finally, somatic hypermutations focused on Complementary Determining Regions (CDR) supplement the mechanisms of immu-noglobulin maturation, expanding still further the diversity and leading to affine and specific antibodies. Studies have shown that this vast diversity, as well as other characteristics of the immune repertoire, can be influenced by factors such as immunization 2,3 or pathology, notably autoimmune diseases 4-6. Generation of antibody libraries is a crucial step in the attempt to study in vivo immune repertoires 7,8. Care needs to be taken to ensure the coverage of a large antibody sequence diversity in order to mimic the natural B cell repertoire as close as possible. Recently, we have described an original strategy allowing to improve the library construction process and increase its diversity 9. This strategy is based on a technological optimization relying on Rolling Circle Amplification (RCA), combined with a newly designed set of oligonucleotide primers based on a thorough analysis of the IMGT/LIGM-DB database 10. In the present study, we have used this strategy to generate libraries form two murine inbred strains were used, namely Balb/C (healthy) and SJL/J (susceptible to autoimmune disease), together representing 4 different IgG immune repertoires: i) healthy and naïve (NB for naïve Balb/C), ii) healthy and immunized (IB for immunized Balb/C), iii) autoimmune prone and naïve (NS for naïve SJL/J), and iv) autoimmune prone and immunized (IS for immunized SJL/J) 11. We have decidedly chosen to

In this review we present the developmental, histological, evolutionary and functional properties of insect chemosensory proteins (CSPs) in insect species. CSPs are small globular proteins folded like a prism and notoriously known for their complex and arguably obscure function(s), particularly in pheromone olfaction. Here, we focus on direct functional consequences on protein function depending on duplication, expression and RNA editing. The result of our analysis is important for understanding the significance of RNA-editing on functionality of CSP genes, particularly in the brain tissue.

Prediction of protein structures using computational approaches has been explored for over two decades, paving a way for more focused research and development of algorithms in comparative modelling, ab intio modelling and structure refinement protocols. A tremendous success has been witnessed in template-based modelling protocols, whereas strategies that involve template-free modelling still lag behind, specifically for larger proteins (> 150 a.a.). Various improvements have been observed in ab initio protein structure prediction methodologies overtime, with recent ones attributed to the usage of deep learning approaches to construct protein backbone structure from its amino acid sequence. This review highlights the major strategies undertaken for template-free modelling of protein structures while discussing few tools developed under each strategy. It will also briefly comment on the progress observed in the field of ab initio modelling of proteins over the course of time as seen through the evolution of CASP platform., 17 pages, 1 figure, 1 table

β-lactamase enzymes responsible for bacterial resistance to antibiotics are among the most important health threats to the human population today. Understanding the increasingly vast structural motifs responsible for the catalytic mechanism of β-lactamases will help improve the future design of new generation antibiotics and mechanism-based inhibitors of these enzymes. Here we report the construction of a large murine single chain fragment variable (scFv) phage display library of size 2.7 × 109 with extended diversity by combining different mouse models. We have used two molecularly different inhibitors of the R-TEM β-lactamase as targets for selection of catalytic antibodies with β-lactamase activity. This novel methodology has led to the isolation of five antibody fragments, which are all capable of hydrolyzing the β-lactam ring. Structural modeling of the selected scFv has revealed the presence of different motifs in each of the antibody fragments potentially responsible for their catalytic activity. Our results confirm (a) the validity of using our two target inhibitors for the in vitro selection of catalytic antibodies endowed with β-lactamase activity, and (b) the plasticity of the β-lactamase active site responsible for the wide resistance of these enzymes to clinically available inhibitors and antibiotics.

Odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) are small “bowl-like” globular proteins, highly abundant in the antennae of most insect species. These proteins are believed to mediate reception of odor molecules at the periphery of sensory receptor neurons. Therefore, they may represent crucial targets for becoming new methods of insect pest control by directly interfering with the olfactory acuity of the insect. The current better understanding of molecular mechanisms underlying odor detection and the knowledge about the functional binding sites of OBPs and many other families of binding proteins in various insect species is elucidated here. Such information forms the basis for the synthesis of new inhibitor olfactory compounds (Odorant Reception-Suppressing Agents, ORSAs) to interact specifically with the groups of insect pests.

Directed evolution is an important research activity in synthetic biology and biotechnology. Numerous reports describe the application of tedious mutation/screening cycles for the improvement of proteins. Recently, knowledge-based approaches have facilitated the prediction of protein properties and the identification of improved mutants. However, epistatic phenomena constitute an obstacle which can impair the predictions in protein engineering. We present an innovative sequence-activity relationship (innov’SAR) methodology based on digital signal processing combining wet-lab experimentation and computational protein design. In our machine learning approach, a predictive model is developed to find the resulting property of the protein when the n single point mutations are permuted (2n combinations). The originality of our approach is that only sequence information and the fitness of mutants measured in the wet-lab are needed to build models. We illustrate the application of the approach in the case of improving the enantioselectivity of an epoxide hydrolase from Aspergillus niger. n = 9 single point mutants of the enzyme were experimentally assessed for their enantioselectivity and used as a learning dataset to build a model. Based on combinations of the 9 single point mutations (29), the enantioselectivity of these 512 variants were predicted, and candidates were experimentally checked: better mutants with higher enantioselectivity were indeed found.

BackgroundThe repertoire of RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) in bacteria play crucial role for their survival, and interactions with the host machinery, but there is little information, record or characterisation in bacterial genomes. As a first step towards this, we have chosen the bacterial model system Escherichia coli, and organised all RBPs in this organism into a comprehensive database named EcRBPome.ResultsEcRBPome contains RBPs recorded from 166 complete E. coli proteomes available in the RefSeq database (as of May 2016). The database provides various features related to the E. coli RBPs, like their domain architectures, PDB structures, GO and EC annotations etc. It provides the assembly, bioproject and biosample details of each strain, as well as cross-strain comparison of occurrences of various RNA-binding domains (RBDs). The percentage of RBPs, the abundance of the various RBDs harboured by each strain have been graphically represented in this database and available alongside other files for user download.ConclusionTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first database of its kind and we hope that it will be of great use to the biological community. Database URL: http://caps.ncbs.res.in/ecrbpome

International audience; The GC-rich Binding Factor 2/Leucine Rich Repeat in the Flightless 1 Interaction Protein 1 gene (GCF2/LRRFIP1) is predicted to be alternatively spliced in five different isoforms. Although important peptide sequence differences are expected to result from this alternative splicing, to date, only the gene transcription regulator properties of LRRFIP1-Iso5 were unveiled. Based on molecular, cellular and biochemical data, we show here that the five isoforms define two molecular entities with different expression profiles in human tissues, subcellular localizations, oligomerization properties and transcription enhancer properties of the canonical Wnt pathway. We demonstrated that LRRFIP1-Iso3, -4 and -5, which share over 80% sequence identity, are primarily located in the cell cytoplasm and form homo and hetero-multimers between each other. In contrast, LRRFIP1-Iso1 and -2 are primarily located in the cell nucleus in part thanks to their shared C-terminal domain. Furthermore, we showed that LRRFIP1-Iso1 is preferentially expressed in the myocardium and skeletal muscle. Using the in vitro Topflash reporter assay we revealed that among LRRFIP1 isoforms, LRRFIP1-Iso1 is the strongest enhancer of the β-catenin Wnt canonical transcription pathway thanks to a specific N-terminal domain harboring two critical tryptophan residues (W76, 82). In addition, we showed that the Wnt enhancer properties of LRRFIP1-Iso1 depend on its homo-dimerisation which is governed by its specific coiled coil domain. Together our study identified LRRFIP1-Iso1 as a critical regulator of the Wnt canonical pathway with a potential role in myocyte differentiation and myogenesis.

Genotyping is the process of determining differences in the genetic make-up of an individual and comparing it to that of another individual. Focus on the family of chemosensory proteins (CSPs) in insects reveals differences at the genomic level across various strains and biotypes, but none at the level of individuals, which could be extremely useful in the biotyping of insect pest species necessary for the agricultural, medical and veterinary industries. Proposed methods of genotyping CSPs include not only restriction enzymatic cleavage and amplification of cleaved polymorphic sequences, but also detection of retroposons in some specific regions of the insect chromosome. Design of biosensors using CSPs addresses tissue-specific RNA mutations in a particular subtype of the protein, which could be used as a marker of specific physiological conditions. Additionally, we refer to the binding properties of CSP proteins tuned to lipids and xenobiotic insecticides for the development of a new generation of biosensor chips, monitoring lipid blood concentration and chemical environmental pollution.

Libraries of structural prototypes that abstract protein local structures are known as structural alphabets and have proven to be very useful in various aspects of protein structure analyses and predictions. One such library, Protein Blocks (PBs), is composed of 16 standard 5-residues long structural prototypes. This form of analyzing proteins involves drafting its structure as a string of PBs. Thus, predicting the local structure of a protein in terms of protein blocks is a step towards the objective of predicting its 3-D structure. Here a new approach, kPred, is proposed towards this aim that is independent of the evolutionary information available. It involves (i) organizing the structural knowledge in the form of a database of pentapeptide fragments extracted from all protein structures in the PDB and (ii) apply a purely knowledge-based algorithm, not relying on secondary structure predictions or sequence alignment profiles, to scan this database and predict most probable backbone conformations for the protein local structures.Based on the strategy used for scanning the database, the method was able to achieve efficient mean Q16 accuracies between 40.8% and 66.3% for a non-redundant subset of the PDB filtered at 30% sequence identity cut-off. The impact of these scanning strategies on the prediction was evaluated and is discussed. A scoring function that gives a good estimate of the accuracy of prediction was further developed. This score estimates very well the accuracy of the algorithm (R2 of 0.82). An online version of the tool is provided freely for non-commercial usage at http://www.bo-protscience.fr/kpred/.

The structural annotation of proteins with no detectable homologs of known 3D structure identified using sequence-search methods is a major challenge today. We propose an original method that computes the conditional probabilities for the amino-acid sequence of a protein to fit to known protein 3D structures using a structural alphabet, known as “Protein Blocks” (PBs). PBs constitute a library of 16 local structural prototypes that approximate every part of protein backbone structures. It is used to encode 3D protein structures into 1D PB sequences and to capture sequence to structure relationships. Our method relies on amino acid occurrence matrices, one for each PB, to score global and local threading of query amino acid sequences to protein folds encoded into PB sequences. It does not use any information from residue contacts or sequence-search methods or explicit incorporation of hydrophobic effect. The performance of the method was assessed with independent test datasets derived from SCOP 1.75A. With a Z-score cutoff that achieved 95% specificity (i.e., less than 5% false positives), global and local threading showed sensitivity of 64.1% and 34.2%, respectively. We further tested its performance on 57 difficult CASP10 targets that had no known homologs in PDB: 38 compatible templates were identified by our approach and 66% of these hits yielded correctly predicted structures. This method scales-up well and offers promising perspectives for structural annotations at genomic level. It has been implemented in the form of a web-server that is freely available at http://www.bo-protscience.fr/forsa.

Despite the growing importance of prebiotics in nutrition and gastroenterology, their structural variety is currently still very limited. The lack of straightforward procedures to gain new products in sufficient amounts often hampers application testing and further development. Although the enzyme sucrose phosphorylase can be used to produce the rare disaccharide kojibiose (α-1,2-glucobiose) from the bulk sugars sucrose and glucose, the target compound is only a side product that is difficult to isolate. Accordingly, for this biocatalyst to become economically attractive, the formation of other glucobioses should be avoided and therefore we applied semi-rational mutagenesis and low-throughput screening, which resulted in a double mutant (L341I_Q345S) with a selectivity of 95% for kojibiose. That way, an efficient and scalable production process with a yield of 74% could be established, and with a simple yeast treatment and crystallization step over a hundred grams of highly pure kojibiose (>99.5%) was obtained.

Chemical recognition plays an important role for the survival and reproduction of many insect species. Odorant binding proteins (OBPs) are the primary components of the insect olfactory mechanism and have been documented to play an important role in the host-seeking mechanism of mosquitoes. They are "transport proteins" believed to transport odorant molecules from the external environment to their respective membrane targets, the olfactory receptors. The mechanism by which this transport occurs in mosquitoes remains a conundrum in this field. Nevertheless, OBPs have proved to be amenable to conformational changes mediated by a pH change in other insect species. In this paper, the effect of pH on the conformational flexibility of mosquito OBPs is assessed computationally using molecular dynamics simulations of a mosquito OBP "CquiOBP1" bound to its pheromone 3OG (PDB ID: 3OGN). Conformational twist of a loop, driven by a set of well-characterized changes in intramolecular interactions of the loop, is demonstrated. The concomitant (i) closure of what is believed to be the entrance of the binding pocket, (ii) expansion of what could be an exit site, and (iii) migration of the ligand towards this putative exit site provide preliminary insights into the mechanism of ligand binding and release of these proteins in mosquitoes. The correlation of our results with previous experimental observations based on NMR studies help us provide a cardinal illustration on one of the probable dynamics and mechanism by which certain mosquito OBPs could deliver their ligand to their membrane-bound receptors at specific pH conditions.

About 1 million people in the world die each year from diseases spread by mosquitoes, and understanding the mechanism of host identification by the mosquitoes through olfaction is at stake. The role of odorant binding proteins (OBPs) in the primary molecular events of olfaction in mosquitoes is becoming an important focus of biological research in this area. Here, we present a comprehensive comparative genomics study of OBPs in the three disease-transmitting mosquito species Anopheles gambiae, Aedes aegypti ,a nd Culex quinquefasciatus starting with the identification of 110 new OBPs in these three genomes. We have characterized their genomic distribution and orthologous and phylogenetic relationships. The diversity and expansion observed with respect to the Aedes and Culex genomes suggests that the OBP gene family acquired functional diversity concurrently with functional constraints posed on these two species. Sequences with unique features have been characterized such as the “two-domain OBPs” (previously known as Atypical OBPs) and “MinusC OBPs” in mosquito genomes. The extensive comparative genomics featured in this work hence provides useful primary insights into the role of OBPs in the molecular adaptations of mosquito olfactory system and could provide more clues for the identification of potential targets for insect repellants and attractants.

We present a comprehensive evaluation of a new structure mining method called PB-ALIGN. It is based on the encoding of protein structure as 1D sequence of a combination of 16 short structural motifs or protein blocks (PBs). PBs are short motifs capable of representing most of the local structural features of a protein backbone. Using derived PB substitution matrix and simple dynamic programming algorithm, PB sequences are aligned the same way amino acid sequences to yield structure alignment. PBs are short motifs capable of representing most of the local structural features of a protein backbone. Alignment of these local features as sequence of symbols enables fast detection of structural similarities between two proteins. Ability of the method to characterize and align regions beyond regular secondary structures, for example, N and C caps of helix and loops connecting regular structures, puts it a step ahead of existing methods, which strongly rely on secondary structure elements. PB-ALIGN achieved efficiency of 85% in extracting true fold from a large database of 7259 SCOP domains and was successful in 82% cases to identify true super-family members. On comparison to 13 existing structure comparison/mining methods, PB-ALIGN emerged as the best on general ability test dataset and was at par with methods like YAKUSA and CE on nontrivial test dataset. Furthermore, the proposed method performed well when compared to flexible structure alignment method like FATCAT and outperforms in processing speed (less than 45 s per database scan). This work also establishes a reliable cut-off value for the demarcation of similar folds. It finally shows that global alignment scores of unrelated structures using PBs follow an extreme value distribution. PB-ALIGN is freely available on web server called Protein Block Expert (PBE) at http://bioinformatics.univ-reunion.fr/PBE/.

International audience; The chloroplast protein CP12 is known to play a leading role in a complex formation with the enzymes GAPDH and PRK. As a preliminary step towards the understanding of the complex formation mechanism and the exact role of this protein linker, a comparative modelling of the CP12 protein of the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii was performed. Because of the very few structural information and poor template similarities, the derivation of the model consisted in an iterative trial-and-error procedure using the comparative modelling program MODELLER, the following three structure validation programs PROCHECK, PROSA, and WHATIF, and molecular mechanics energy refinement of the model using the program CHARMM. The analysis of the final model reveals a scaffold of key residues that is believed to be essential in the folding mechanism and that coincides with the residues conserved throughout the CP12 family. Our results suggest that this protein is a typical disordered protein. Finally, the various mechanisms by which the CP12 protein can self-interact or binds to other enzymes are discussed in light of its modelled structure and characteristics.

Encoding protein 3D structures into 1D string using short structural prototypes or structural alphabets opens a new front for structure comparison and analysis. Using the well-documented 16 motifs of Protein Blocks (PBs) as structural alphabet, we have developed a methodology to compare protein structures that are encoded as sequences of PBs by aligning them using dynamic programming which uses a substitution matrix for PBs. This methodology is implemented in the applications available in Protein Block Expert (PBE) server. PBE addresses common issues in the field of protein structure analysis such as comparison of proteins structures and identification of protein structures in structural databanks that resemble a given structure. PBE-T provides facility to transform any PDB file into sequences of PBs. PBE-ALIGNc performs comparison of two protein structures based on the alignment of their corresponding PB sequences. PBE-ALIGNm is a facility for mining SCOP database for similar structures based on the alignment of PBs. Besides, PBE provides an interface to a database (PBE-SAdb) of preprocessed PB sequences from SCOP culled at 95% and of all-against-all pairwise PB alignments at family and superfamily levels. PBE server is freely available at http://bioinformatics.univ-reunion.fr/PBE/.

Structure prediction and three-dimensional modeling of disulfide-rich systems are challenging due to the limited number of such folds in the structural databank. We exploit the stereochemical compatibility of substructures in known protein structures to accommodate disulfide bonds in predicting the structures of disulfide-rich polypeptides directly from disulfide connectivity pattern and amino acid sequence in the absence of structural homologs and any other structural information. This knowledge-based approach is illustrated using structure prediction of 40 nonredundant bioactive disulfide-rich polypeptides such as toxins, growth factors, and endothelins available in the structural databank. The polypeptide conformation could be predicted in 35 out of 40 nonredundant entries (87%). Nonhomologous templates could be identified and models could be obtained within 2 A deviation from the query in 29 peptides (72%). This procedure can be accessed from the World Wide Web (http://www.ncbs.res.in/ approximately faculty/mini/dsdbase/dsdbase.html).

Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylases (PEPCs) are encoded by a small multigenic family. In order to characterise this gene family in sugarcane, seven DNA fragments displaying a high homology with grass PEPC genes were isolated using polymerase chain reaction-based cloning. A phylogenetic study revealed the existence of four main PEPC gene lineages in grasses and particularly in sugarcane. Moreover, this analysis suggests that grass C4 PEPC has likely derived from a root pre-existing isoform in an ancestral species. Using the Northern-dot-blot method, we studied the expression of the four PEPC gene classes in sugarcane cv. R570. We confirmed that transcript accumulation of the C4 PEPC gene (ppc-C4) mainly occurs in the green leaves and is light-induced. We also showed that another member of this gene family (ppc-aR) is more highly transcribed in the roots. The constitutive expression for a previously characterised gene (ppc-aL2) was confirmed. Lastly, the transcript accumulation of the fourth PEPC gene class (ppc-aL1) was not revealed. Length polymorphism in non-coding regions for three PEPC gene lineages enabled us to develop sequence-tagged site PEPC markers in sugarcane. We analysed the segregation of PEPC fragments in self-pollinated progenies of cv. R570 and found co-segregating fragments for two PEPC gene lineages. This supports the hypothesis that diversification of the PEPC genes involved duplications, probably in tandem.

International audience; Hydrogen is a good candidate for the next generation fuel with a high energy density and an environment friendly behavior in the energy production phase. Micro-organism based biological production of hydrogen currently suffers low hydrogen production yields because the living cells must sustain different cellular activities other than the hydrogen production to survive. To circumvent this, teams have explored the synthetic assembly of enzymes in-vitro in cell-free systems with specific functions. Such a synthetic cell-free system was recently devised by combining 13 different enzymes to synthesize hydrogen from cellulose or cellobiose with better yield than microorganism-based systems. We used methods based on differential equations calculations to investigate how the initial conditions and the kinetic parameters of the enzymes influenced the productivity of a such system and, through simulations, identified those conditions that would optimize hydrogen production starting with cellobiose as substrate. Further, if the kinetic parameters of the component enzymes of such a system are not known, we showed how, using artificial neural network, it is possible to identify alternative models that account for the rate of production of hydrogen. This work demonstrates how modeling can help in designing and characterizing cell-free systems in synthetic biology. A web-based simulator implementing our differential equations based model is provided freely as a service for noncommercial usage at http://www.bo-protscience.fr/h2.

The complexity of IR spectra of some compounds, particularly biological molecules, is a major obstacle in assigning or characterizing their IR bands. In this short communication, the potential use of enzymes for infrared bands characterization and assignments is demonstrated and discussed.

C(4) phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) is a key enzyme in the C(4) photosynthetic pathway. To analyze the diversity of the corresponding gene in grasses, we designed PCR primers to specifically amplify C(4) PEPC cDNA fragments. Using RT-PCR, we generated partial PEPC cDNA sequences in several grasses displaying a C(4) photosynthetic pathway. All these sequences displayed a high homology (78-99%) with known grass C(4) PEPCs. PCR amplification did not occur in two grasses that display the C(3) photosynthetic pathway, and therefore we assumed that all generated sequences corresponded to C(4) PEPC transcripts. Based on one large cDNA segment, phylogenetic reconstruction enabled us to assess the relationships between 22 grass species belonging to the subfamilies Panicoideae, Arundinoideae and Chloridoideae. The phylogenetic relationships between species deduced from C(4) PEPC sequences were similar to those deduced from other molecular data. The sequence evolution of the C(4) PEPC isoform was faster than in the other PEPC isoforms. Finally, the utility of the C(4) PEPC gene phylogeny to study the evolution of C(4) photosynthesis in grasses is discussed.

A problem for students on the mode of activation of light-regulated NADP-dependent malate dehydrogenase is presented here as a series of questions requiring the interpretation of experimental data.

Chemosensory proteins (CSPs) are believed to play a key role in the chemosensory process in insects. Sequencing genomic DNA and RNA encoding CSP1, CSP2 and CSP3 in the sweet potato whitefly Bemisia tabaci showed strong variation between B and Q biotypes. Analyzing CSP-RNA levels showed not only biotype, but also age and developmental stage-specific expression. Interestingly, applying neonicotinoid thiamethoxam insecticide using twenty-five different dose/time treatments in B and Q young adults showed that Bemisia CSP1, CSP2 and CSP3 were also differentially regulated over insecticide exposure. In our study one of the adult-specific gene (CSP1) was shown to be significantly up-regulated by the insecticide in Q, the most highly resistant form of B. tabaci. Correlatively, competitive binding assays using tryptophan fluorescence spectroscopy and molecular docking demonstrated that CSP1 protein preferentially bound to linoleic acid, while CSP2 and CSP3 proteins rather associated to another completely different type of chemical, i.e. α-pentyl-cinnamaldehyde (jasminaldehyde). This might indicate that some CSPs in whiteflies are crucial to facilitate the transport of fatty acids thus regulating some metabolic pathways of the insect immune response, while some others are tuned to much more volatile chemicals known not only for their pleasant odor scent, but also for their potent toxic insecticide activity.

International audience; In directed evolution experiments, it is at stake to have methods to screen efficiently the mutant libraries. We propose a web-based tool that implements an established in silico method for the rational screening of mutant libraries. The method, known as ProSAR, attempts to link sequence data to activity. The method uses statistical models trained on small experimental datasets provided by the user. These can integrate potential epistatic interactions between mutations and be used in many diverse biological contexts. It drastically improves the search for leading mutants. The tool is freely available to non-commercial users at http://bo-protscience.fr/prosar/.

Conformational changes in proteins are extremely important for their biochemical functions. Correlation between inherent conformational variations in a protein and conformational differences in its homologues of known structure is still unclear. In this study, we have used a structural alphabet called Protein Blocks (PBs). PBs are used to perform abstraction of protein 3-D structures into a 1-D strings of 16 alphabets (a–p) based on dihedral angles of overlapping pentapeptides. We have analyzed the variations in local conformations in terms of PBs represented in the ensembles of 801 protein structures determined using NMR spectroscopy. In the analysis of concatenated data over all the residues in all the NMR ensembles, we observe that the overall nature of inherent local structural variations in NMR ensembles is similar to the nature of local structural differences in homologous proteins with a high correlation coefficient of .94. High correlation at the alignment positions corresponding to helical and β-sheet regions is only expected. However, the correlation coefficient by considering only the loop regions is also quite high (.91). Surprisingly, segregated position-wise analysis shows that this high correlation does not hold true to loop regions at the structurally equivalent positions in NMR ensembles and their homologues of known structure. This suggests that the general nature of local structural changes is unique; however most of the local structural variations in loop regions of NMR ensembles do not correlate to their local structural differences at structurally equivalent positions in homologues.

We have investigated the use of principal component analysis (PCA) to describe and assess mid-infrared spectral data obtained from complex biological samples containing sucrose, fructose, and glucose. The correlation coefficients between spectral data and chemical values of each variable (sucrose, glucose, fructose, total sugars, and reducing sugars) showed that in each case, axes 1, 3, 4, and 5 had the highest values. These values also indicated which axes each variable was mostly correlated with. The results also showed that the samples were distributed according to their sucrose concentrations (or total sugars) along a concentration gradient in the projection plan formed between axes 1 and 3. No clear discrimination according to concentration was observed with other factorial maps. Prediction equations that linked sucrose, fructose, glucose, total sugar, and reducing sugars concentrations to the spectral data were established by regression on the principal component. Very high correlation coefficients values between the first 10 axes and the chemical values were obtained (between 0.9757 and 0.998). From such aqueous biological samples containing a ternary mixture of sucrose, fructose, and glucose, it was possible to (1) identify the characteristic IR bands of these different sugars (and their combination: reducing sugars/total sugars) and (2) to specifically measure their concentrations with a relatively good accuracy.

A more accurate, less time-consuming, and nonpolluting spectroscopic method than the currently used HPLC or polarimetric methods is proposed for the routine quantitative determination of sucrose in complex biological samples. Opaque raw sugar cane juices representative of a sugar cane harvest are analyzed by Fourier transformed mid-infrared attenuated total reflectance, and the spectral data are processed by principal component analysis (PCA) and principal component regression (PCR). The most suitable region for the measurement of sucrose was found to be the 1250−800 cm-1 region. The spectroscopic representation of the first axis as assessed by PCA in this spectral region featured characteristic absorption bands of sucrose. By PCR on the spectral data from a calibration set, a prediction equation was established to predict sucrose content in unknown samples. Good overall predictions were obtained. The values of the predicted sucrose concentration were more accurate (bias = 0.041 g/100 mL) than those obtai...

Complex-formation between carbohydrates and cations could have important biological implications. In this work, Mid-Infrared spectra of pure sucrose solutions and of biological solutions containing sucrose and potassium ions (K+) were investigated by Principal Component Analysis (PGA). By direct examination of the Mid-Infrared spectra of the biological solutions containing K+ ions, no interactions between the cations and sucrose molecules could be observed. However, when the spectral pattern obtained by PCA and which is associated with sucrose, was examined, splitting and shifts in the characteristic absorption bands were observed owing to interactions between sucrose molecules and K+ ions. The 997 cm-1 peak which had a visible shoulder at 991 cm-1 and that is observed in pure solutions, was decomposed in the biological solutions into 3 distinct peaks at 1004, 996 and 990 cm-1. The two peaks centered at 1053 cm-1 were split into 3 peaks: 1060, 1051, 1045 cm-1. Hence by PCA, shoulders were charact...

Near Infrared spectroscopy (NIR) is the most widely used technique for the analysis of major biochemical constituents in food products. The Mid-infrared range spectroscopy is also being more and more studied in the field of food analysis. This range was primarily applied to qualitative analysis of food components, but with the advent of new techniques such as Attenuated Total Reflectance (ATR) together with the possibility of combination with powerful micro-computers, MIR is now more and more used for quantitative analysis. In addition to baseline deformations, interference by unwanted compounds are major sources of problems that are encountered in analyses. We have previously proposed (Cadet et al., 1991) the use of multidimensional statistical analysis combined with Mid-FTIR spectroscopy for the prediction of sucrose concentrations in biological solutions containing three sugars: sucrose, fructose and glucose. In this paper, a least-squares method has been used to assess the elimination of the ...

Near Infrared reflectance spectroscopy is now widely applied to predict the composition of various food products. On the other hand, in only few cases have Mid-infrared spectroscopy been reported to be used for the analysis of food products. However, this range is being more and more studied and important developments are being made. In infrared spectroscopy, random variations are often observed, adding an arbitrary constant to every absorbance value. With the aim of quantifying with the best precision obtainable, it is important that such spectra are corrected. The mean and the standard deviation of the absorbance at each wavelength has been calculated from a collection of biological spectra. The spectral regions where the standard deviation values were close to or equal to zero and which correspond to the most invariable zone have been chosen as reference. Uncertain variations from a sample spectrum are corrected by translation of the whole spectrum with respect to the mean reference spectrum. ...

Collected Mid-IR Attenuated Total Reflectance (ATR) spectra of various sugars were assessed by multidimensional statistical analysis. Through Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of collected spectra of various pure 10% sugar solutions and from the spectroscopic representation of the factorial axes, characteristic frequencies of monosaccharides and oligosaccharides were directly and automatically obtained within a few seconds. Monosugars are characterised by a hollow at 998 cm−1 and by a single unique major peak (1049 cm−1) in the 1075–1030 cm−1 region while oligosaccharides showed three characteristic bands in the same region, the major peak is shifted to 1033 cm−1. Owing to the glycosidic link vibrational motion, oligosaccharides are also characterised by a band at 998 cm−1. Spectroscopic representation of the axes issued of data from both sugar families (mixture of mono and oligosaccharides) is an average of the two individual spectral patterns. Predictive measures of concentrations of sugar sol...

International audience; Protein structure alignment is a crucial step in protein structure-function analysis. Despite the advances in protein structure alignment algorithms, some of the local conformationally similar regions are mislabeled as structurally variable regions (SVRs). These regions are not well superimposed because of differences in their spatial orientations. The Database of Structural Alignments (DoSA) addresses this gap in identification of local structural similarities obscured in global protein structural alignments by realigning SVRs using an algorithm based on protein blocks. A set of protein blocks is a structural alphabet that abstracts protein structures into 16 unique local structural motifs. DoSA provides unique information about 159,780 conformationally similar and 56,140 conformationally dissimilar SVRs in 74 705 pairwise structural alignments of homologous proteins. The information provided on conformationally similar and dissimilar SVRs can be helpful to model loop regions. It is also conceivable that conformationally similar SVRs with conserved residues could potentially contribute toward functional integrity of homologues, and hence identifying such SVRs could be helpful in understanding the structural basis of protein function. Database URL: http://bo-protscience.fr/dosa/

Proteins may be related to each other very specifically as homologous subfamilies. Proteins can also be related to diverse proteins at the super family level. It has become highly important to characterize the existing sequence databases by their signatures to facilitate the function annotation of newly added sequences. The algorithm described here uses a scheme for the classification of odorant binding proteins on the basis of functional residues and Cys-pairing. The cysteine-based scoring scheme not only helps in unambiguously identifying families like odorant binding proteins (OBPs), but also aids in their classification at the subfamily level with reliable accuracy. The algorithm was also applied to yet another cysteine-rich family, where similar accuracy was observed that ensures the application of the protocol to other families.

Accurate functional annotation of protein sequences is hampered by important factors such as the failure of sequence search methods to identify relationships and the inherent diversity in function of proteins related at low sequence similarities. Earlier, we had employed intermediate sequence search approach to establish new domain relationships in the unassigned regions of gene products at the whole genome level by takingMycoplasma gallisepticumas a specific example and established new domain relationships. In this paper, we report a detailed comparison of the conservation status of the domain and domain architectures of the gene products that bear our newly predicted domains amongst 14 otherMycoplasmagenomes and reported the probable implications for the organisms. Some of the domain associations, observed inMycoplasmathat afflict humans and other non-human primates, are involved in regulation of solute transport and DNA binding suggesting specific modes of host-pathogen interactions.