Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Three endogenous ligands of the nuclear receptor PPARα—hydroxydimethylbutyrate, hexadecanamide, and octadecenamide—are potentially responsible for noncanonical activity of PPARα in synaptic function and hippocampal plasticity.
Within polypeptides, C5 hydrogen bonds form between the amide proton and carbonyl oxygen of the same residue. This intraresidue interaction stabilizes β-sheets in particular and is widespread throughout structurally characterized proteins.
Detailed computational and structural analysis of a large data set of non-peptidic macrocycles revealed particular functional groups, substituents and molecular properties that are critical for dictating cellular permeability.
A metabolomics analysis finds that host glycolysis, fatty acid oxidation, the urea cycle, cholesterol biosynthesis and oxidative phosphorylation are modified by hepatitis C virus infection. These effects are mediated through nuclear receptor transcription factors HNF4α, PPARα and FXR.
SF2312, a phosphonate antibiotic, directly binds and inhibits the activity of the glycolytic enzyme enolase and is selectively toxic to ENO1-deleted glioma cells through inhibition of glycolysis and depletion of ATP.
ADP-ribosylation is a post-translational protein modification that regulates numerous cellular pathways. An approach involving histone purification, partial filter-aided digestion and ETD mass spectrometry reveals that serine residues in histone proteins are ADP-ribosylated.
When coupled to electrodes, the photosystem II complex can participate in a photo-induced oxygen reduction mechanism via chlorophyll a pigments that competes against the desired water-oxidation charge transfer pathway.
The Cre–loxP recombination system is a classical tool for targeted genetic engineering. Blue-light-induced dimerization of a split Cre system enables efficient light-controlled DNA integration at loxP sites within cells and in living mouse tissues.
A proteomic approach in Saccharomyces cerevisiae identifies cytochrome b reductase (Cbr1) as an NADH-dependent electron donor for diphthamide biosynthesis 3 (Dph3), a protein that serves as an electron source for diphthamide biosynthesis and tRNA modification.
5-nitroanthranilic acid aminohydrolase catalyzes the first step in biodegradation of a nitroaromatic compound via a nucleophilic aromatic substitution mechanism with an unusual substrate-assisted metal loading step.
Functional annotation of bacterial thiamine transporters via a generalizable synthetic biology approach using riboswitches identifies a novel family of thiamine-uptake systems from prokaryotic metagenomes, including PnuT, as well as two novel xanthine importers.
Two programs, GRAPE and GARLIC, work together to first predict biosynthetic gene clusters responsible for the production of polyketides and nonribosomal peptides, then link sequenced gene clusters to known and unknown natural products.
A high-throughput screen identifies NGI-1 as an inhibitor of oligosaccharyltransferase, preventing transfer of N-linked glycans to proteins. NGI-1 blocked EGFR signaling in non-small-cell lung cancer cell lines and promoted cell-cycle arrest and senescence.
Biosynthesis of the protease inhibitor microviridin J includes peptide macrocyclization catalyzed by two enzymes of the ATP-grasp family. Structures of these macrocyclases, MdnB and MdnC, reveal how they recognize their precursor-peptide substrates.
Vzb22, an amino-group carrier protein from Streptomyces, is required for biosynthesis of the noncanonical amino acid DADH, a biosynthetic precursor of vazabitide A and related azabicyclohexane natural products.
A chemoproteomics approach utilizing the thermal shift assay and quantitative MS resulted in the identification of phenylalanine hydroxylase as an off-target of the histone deacetylase inhibitor panobinostat.
Nikkomycins and polyoxins are peptidylnucleosides with antifungal activity. The biosynthetic routes to these natural products share a bicyclic intermediate formed by a carbon radical–centered ring closure catalyzed by the radical SAM enzymes NikJ or PolH.
A high-throughput screen against the E. coli tetracycline-resistance efflux pump TetA identifies two ‘selection-inverting’ compounds that swap tetracycline resistance for resistance to another antibiotic, paving the way for two-phase antibiotic treatment protocols.
A SH2-domain-derived superbinder that exhibits strong affinity for phosphotyrosine (pTyr) was used in conjugation with mass spectroscopy approaches to enrich and enable identification of pTyr sites in different cancer cell lines.
Transplantation of the prokaryotic LysR-type transcriptional regulator into yeast combined with in vivo screening identifies yeast mutants that produce metabolic products with bacterial small molecule inducers.