Biomolecules, Volume 13, Issue 2

The CRISPR-Cas system is an adaptive immune system for many bacteria and archaea to defend against foreign nucleic acid invasion, and this system is conserved in the genome of M. tuberculosis (Mtb). Although the CRISPR-Cas system-mediated immune defe...

Macrophages play an important role in the progression of sporadic acute type A aortic dissection (ATAAD). The aim of this study was to characterize the cellular heterogeneity of macrophages in ATAAD tissues by scRNA-seq. Ascending aortic wall tissue...

The epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a cellular process that has been linked to the promotion of aggressive cellular features in many cancer types. It is characterized by the loss of the epithelial cell phenotype and a shift to a more me...

We read with great interest the review by Wang et al. entitled “Identification Markers of Carotid Vulnerable Plaques: An Update”, recently published in Biomolecules [...]

Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a neuropsychiatric syndrome derived from metabolic disorders due to various liver failures. Clinically, HE is characterized by hyperammonemia, EEG abnormalities, and different degrees of disturbance in sensory, motor, a...

Heart failure (HF) is the leading cause of hospitalisations worldwide, with only 35% of patients surviving the first 5 years after diagnosis. The pathogenesis of HF with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is still unclear, impeding the implementatio...

High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) leads to decreased subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) thickness via heat-induced adipocyte necrosis. Heat can induce adipocyte apoptosis and autophagy, and it is known that nuclear or mitochondrial p53 is invol...

Plant cytochrome P450 monooxygenases were long considered to be highly substrate-specific, regioselective and stereoselective enzymes, in this respect differing from their animal counterparts. The functional data that have recently accumulated clearl...

Prediction of the potency of bioactive compounds generally relies on linear or nonlinear quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) models. Nonlinear models are generated using machine learning methods. We introduce a novel approach fo...

Tryptophan is an essential amino acid and a precursor of a number of physiologically important metabolites, including serotonin, melatonin, tryptamine, and kynurenines. We assessed tryptophan, kynurenines, and vitamin B2 and B6, as well as biomarkers...

Heat stress (HS) is directly correlated to mammary gland dysfunction in dairy cows, especially in summer. The hypothalamic−pituitary−mammary gland axis (HPM axis) plays an important role in the regulation of stress response and lactation...

Patients with chronic kidney disease have an increased risk of all-cause death. The value of collagen biomarkers such as procollagen type I carboxy-terminal propeptide (PICP) and procollagen type III N-terminal peptide (P3NP), in end-stage renal dise...

Autoimmune diseases often present with cutaneous symptoms that contribute to dysfunction, disfigurement, and in many cases, reduced quality-of-life. Unfortunately, treatment options for many autoimmune skin diseases are limited. Local and systemic co...

Drug abuse is a serious problem in the United States, with over 90,000 drug overdose deaths nationally in 2020. A key step in combating drug abuse is detecting, monitoring, and characterizing its trends over time and location, also known as pharmacov...

Seaweed is in the spotlight as a promising source of nutrition for humans as the search for sustainable food production systems continues. Seaweed has a well-documented rich nutritional profile containing compounds such as polyphenols, carotenoids an...

Camelid heavy-chain antibody variable domains (V_HH), nanobodies, are the smallest-known functional antibody fragments with high therapeutic potential. In this study, we investigate a V_HH binding to hen egg-white lysozyme (HEL). We structurally and dy...

The emergence of metabolomics and quantification approaches is revealing new biomarkers applied to drug discovery. In this context, tandem mass spectrometry is the method of choice, requiring a specific validation process for preclinical and clinical...

In this paper, we present an update to the ellipsoid profile algorithm (EP), a simple technique for the measurement of the globularity of protein structures without the calculation of molecular surfaces. The globularity property is understood in this...

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a painful and disabling joint disease affecting millions worldwide. The lack of clinically relevant models limits our ability to predict therapeutic outcomes prior to clinical trials, where most drugs fail. Therefore, there is...

Background: Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR T-cell therapy) is associated with potentially life-threatening toxicities, most commonly cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and immune-effector-cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS). Th...

Cardiopulmonary complications remain the major cause of mortality despite newer therapies and improvements in the lifespan of patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). Inflammation has been identified as a major risk modifier in the pathogenesis of SC...

(1) Background: Chronic wounds represent a major burden to patients and healthcare systems and identifying new therapeutic targets to encourage wound healing is a significant challenge. This study evaluated nWASP as a new therapeutic target in human...

The fruit fly—i.e., Drosophila melanogaster—has proven to be a very useful model for the understanding of basic physiological processes, such as development or ageing. The availability of straightforward genetic tools that can be used to...

DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell in a folded state; however, only the necessary genetic information is extracted from the required group of genes. The key to extracting genetic information is chromatin ambivalence. Depending on the chromosomal...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a widespread chronic neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative disease. Microglia play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of MS via the release of cytokines and reactive oxygen species, e.g., nitric oxide. Research involving...

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common cardiovascular disease (CVD), and previous studies have shown a significant association between N-glycosylation, a highly regulated posttranslational modification, and the development of atheroscleroti...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a great impact on global health and is an economic burden. Even with vaccines and anti-viral medications we are still scrambling to get a balance. In this perspective, we have shed light upon an extremely feasible approa...

Melatonin (MEL) is a neurohormone endowed with neuroprotective activity, exerted both directly on neuronal cells and indirectly through modulation of responsive glial cells. In particular, MEL’s effects on microglia are receptor-mediated and in...

Epidermal growth factor (EGF) and its homologs, such as neuregulins, bind to ErbB (Her) receptor kinases and regulate glial differentiation and dopaminergic/GABAergic maturation in the brain and are therefore implicated in schizophrenia neuropatholog...

Efforts to understand the impact of spaceflight on the human body stem from growing interest in long-term space travel. Multiple organ systems are affected by microgravity and radiation, including the cardiovascular system. Previous transcriptomic st...

The regulation of telomere length has a significant impact on cancer risk and aging in humans. Circular chromosomes are found in humans and are often unstable during mitosis, resulting in genome instability. Some types of cancer have a high frequency...

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is known as a skin disease; however, T cell immunopathology found in blood is associated with its severity. Skin Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and associated host–pathogen dynamics are important to chronic T helper 2...

Lower levels of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) have been described in individuals with reading difficulties, but the degree and the nature of such deficiencies as well as the role of nutrition are a matter of debate. The aim of the prese...

GABA_A receptor-positive modulators are well-known to induce sedation, sleep, and general anesthesia. Conversely, GABA_A receptor negative allosteric modulators (GABA_ARNAMs) can increase arousal and induce seizures. Motivated by our studies with patien...

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a disease of immune complex deposition; therefore, complement plays a vital role in the pathogenesis of SLE. In general, complement levels in blood and complement deposition in histological tests are used for the...

Molecular biodiversity results from branched metabolic pathways driven by enzymatic regioselectivities. An additional complexity occurs in metabolites with an internal structural symmetry, offering identical extremities to the enzymes. For example, i...

Diabetic neuropathy is often associated with chronic pain. Serotonin type 6 (5-HT₆) receptor ligands, particularly inverse agonists, have strong analgesic potential and may be new candidates for treating diabetic neuropathic pain and associated co-mo...

Many proteins have intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs), which are often characterized by a high fraction of charged residues with polyampholytic (i.e., mixed charge) or polyelectrolytic (i.e., uniform charge) characteristics. Polyelectrolytic IDR...

Normal cells under stressful conditions such as DNA damage or excessive mitogenic signaling may undergo senescence, which is associated with cell cycle arrest and induction of a proinflammatory phenotype. Accumulation of senescent cells may contribut...

In this study, thirteen phthalimide derivatives were designed and synthesized. All synthesized compounds were evaluated to determine their potential for inhibitory activities against females of the Caribbean fruit fly, Anastrepha suspensa (Loew) (Dip...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains a global medical problem. Programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) is a powerful weapon against many cancers, but it is not sensitive to some patients with HCC. We obtained datasets from the Gene Expression Omnibu...

The emergence of the recent pandemic causing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has created an alarming situation worldwide. It also prompted extensive research on drug repurposing to find a potential treatment for SARS-CoV-...

Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) is the most common cyanotic congenital heart disease in newborns. ISL1 is a master transcription factor in second heart field development, whereas the roles of ISL1 gene promoter variants in TOF patients have not been geneti...

An important post-translational modification (PTM) of α-tubulin is the removal of amino acids from its C-terminus. Removal of the C-terminal tyrosine residue yields detyrosinated α-tubulin, and subsequent removal of the penultimate glutam...

The IL-13Rα2 cell surface receptor is highly expressed in tumours such as prostate cancer. In this report, we evaluated the hypothesis that prostate cancer cells with enhanced IL-13Rα2 expression are a suitable target for the hybrid lytic...

All proteins have a carboxyl terminus, and we previously summarized eight mutations in binding and trafficking sequence determinants in the C-terminus that, when disrupted, cause human diseases. These sequence elements for binding and trafficking sit...

The split-green fluorescent protein (GFP) reassembly assay is a well-established approach to study protein–protein interactions (PPIs). In this assay, when two interacting proteins X and Y, respectively fused to residues 1–157 and to resi...

The imbalance between reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and clearance causes oxidative stress and ROS, which play a central role in regulating cell and tissue physiology and pathology. Contingent upon concentration, ROS influence cancer develo...

Proton relay between interfacial water molecules allows rapid two-dimensional diffusion. An energy barrier, $\Delta G_{\mathrm{r}}^{‡}$, opposes proton-surface-to-bulk release. The $\Delta G_{\mathrm{r}}^{‡}$-regulating mechanism thus far has remained unknown. Here, we...

Primary blast lung injury (PBLI), caused by exposure to high-intensity pressure waves from explosions in war, terrorist attacks, industrial production, and life explosions, is associated with pulmonary parenchymal tissue injury and severe ventilation...