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Biomolecules, Volume 8, Issue 1

2018 March - 13 articles

Cover Story: The antibiotic crisis has led to a pressing need for alternatives such as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). Antimicrobial peptides, also known as host defense peptides, have shown great promise given that the use of AMPs leads to no, or low, resistance developed by bacteria. We discuss the diversity, history and the various mechanisms of action of AMPs. Although many AMPs have been identified and characterized, not many have yet made it into clinical trials, and only a few have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) due to issues with toxicity, protease cleavage and rapid kidney clearance. Some of the recent strategies developed to address these issues, such as chemical modifications of AMPs and the use of delivery systems, are also reviewed in this article. View the paper here.
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Articles (13)

  • Article
  • Open Access
10 Citations
5,703 Views
11 Pages

Amyloid Assembly Endows Gad m 1 with Biomineralization Properties

  • Milagros Castellanos,
  • Almudena Torres-Pardo,
  • Rosa Rodríguez-Pérez and
  • María Gasset

Acid proteins capable of nucleating Ca2+ and displaying aggregation capacity play key roles in the formation of calcium carbonate biominerals. The helix-loop helix EF-hands are the most common Ca2+-binding motifs in proteins. Calcium is bound by the...

  • Feature Paper
  • Article
  • Open Access
55 Citations
7,890 Views
8 Pages

The Impact of Protein Structure and Sequence Similarity on the Accuracy of Machine-Learning Scoring Functions for Binding Affinity Prediction

  • Hongjian Li,
  • Jiangjun Peng,
  • Yee Leung,
  • Kwong-Sak Leung,
  • Man-Hon Wong,
  • Gang Lu and
  • Pedro J. Ballester

It has recently been claimed that the outstanding performance of machine-learning scoring functions (SFs) is exclusively due to the presence of training complexes with highly similar proteins to those in the test set. Here, we revisit this question u...

  • Feature Paper
  • Review
  • Open Access
169 Citations
17,079 Views
16 Pages

DOT1L and H3K79 Methylation in Transcription and Genomic Stability

  • Katherine Wood,
  • Michael Tellier and
  • Shona Murphy

27 February 2018

The organization of eukaryotic genomes into chromatin provides challenges for the cell to accomplish basic cellular functions, such as transcription, DNA replication and repair of DNA damage. Accordingly, a range of proteins modify and/or read chroma...

  • Article
  • Open Access
17 Citations
5,597 Views
9 Pages

13 February 2018

The biochemical potential of pathogenic bacteria may cause alteration in the neurophysiological environment; consequently, neuroendocrine and immune responses of the host are modulated by endogenously produced metabolic products of neuropathogenic ba...

  • Feature Paper
  • Article
  • Open Access
18 Citations
6,423 Views
13 Pages

8 February 2018

High-carbohydrate containing diets have become a precursor to glucose-mediated protein glycation which has been linked to an increase in diabetic and cardiovascular complications. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the protective effect of...

  • Communication
  • Open Access
10 Citations
5,082 Views
10 Pages

Elsinopirins A–D, Decalin Polyketides from the Ascomycete Elsinoё pyri

  • Frank Surup,
  • Kathrin Pommerehne,
  • Hans-Josef Schroers and
  • Marc Stadler

5 February 2018

In course of our screening for new secondary metabolites from ecological niche specialized, phytopathogenic fungi, the plant pathogen Elsinoё pyri, strain 2203C, was found to produce four novel compounds (14), which were named elsinopirins A–D, in a...

  • Review
  • Open Access
82 Citations
16,750 Views
14 Pages

PIM Kinases and Their Relevance to the PI3K/AKT/mTOR Pathway in the Regulation of Ovarian Cancer

  • Aziz Ur Rehman Aziz,
  • Sumbal Farid,
  • Kairong Qin,
  • Hanqin Wang and
  • Bo Liu

4 February 2018

Ovarian cancer is a medical term that includes a number of tumors with different molecular biology, phenotypes, tumor progression, etiology, and even different diagnosis. Some specific treatments are required to address this heterogeneity of ovarian...

  • Article
  • Open Access
41 Citations
8,559 Views
15 Pages

The Functional Amyloid Curli Protects Escherichia coli against Complement-Mediated Bactericidal Activity

  • Steven G. Biesecker,
  • Lauren K. Nicastro,
  • R. Paul Wilson and
  • Çağla Tükel

24 January 2018

Escherichia coli strains may be beneficial or pathogenic. Many E. coli strains that cause human disease, especially those responsible for bacteremia and sepsis, express virulence factors that impart resistance to the complement system. The bacterial...

  • Review
  • Open Access
1,026 Citations
52,518 Views
24 Pages

19 January 2018

Antibiotic resistance is projected as one of the greatest threats to human health in the future and hence alternatives are being explored to combat resistance. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have shown great promise, because use of AMPs leads bacteria...

  • Review
  • Open Access
121 Citations
17,617 Views
21 Pages

Rodent Models of Alcoholic Liver Disease: Role of Binge Ethanol Administration

  • Shubha Ghosh Dastidar,
  • Jeffrey B. Warner,
  • Dennis R. Warner,
  • Craig J. McClain and
  • Irina A. Kirpich

13 January 2018

Both chronic and acute (binge) alcohol drinking are important health and economic concerns worldwide and prominent risk factors for the development of alcoholic liver disease (ALD). There are no FDA-approved medications to prevent or to treat any sta...

  • Article
  • Open Access
31 Citations
5,582 Views
13 Pages

Evaluation of the Simultaneous Production of Xylitol and Ethanol from Sisal Fiber

  • Franklin Damião Xavier,
  • Gustavo Santos Bezerra,
  • Sharline Florentino Melo Santos,
  • Líbia Sousa Conrado Oliveira,
  • Flávio Luiz Honorato Silva,
  • Aleir Joice Oliveira Silva and
  • Marta Maria Conceição

10 January 2018

Recent years have seen an increase in the use of lignocellulosic materials in the development of bioproducts. Because sisal fiber is a low cost raw material and is readily available, this work aimed to evaluate its hemicellulose fraction for the simu...

  • Review
  • Open Access
87 Citations
13,848 Views
17 Pages

Emerging Roles for VEGF-D in Human Disease

  • Steven A. Stacker and
  • Marc G. Achen

Blood vessels and lymphatic vessels are located in many tissues and organs throughout the body, and play important roles in a wide variety of prevalent diseases in humans. Vascular endothelial growth factor-D (VEGF-D) is a secreted protein that can p...

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Biomolecules - ISSN 2218-273X