The Scientific Oktoberfest will be this years meeting point for some of the internationally most distinguished researchers in the field of Chemistry & Chemical Biology. The CIPSM Scientific Oktoberfest will be held from the 19th to the 20th of September in the Department of Chemistry of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München. At the two-day ...

8-Oxopurines (8-oxodG and 8-oxodA) and formamidopyrimidines (FaPydG and FaPydA) are major oxidative DNA lesions involved in cancer development and aging. Their mutagenicity is believed to result from a conformational shift of the N9-C1′ glycosidic bonds from anti to syn, which allows the lesions to form noncanonical Hoogsteen-type base pairs with incoming ...

In this study, it is shown that the cytotoxic response of cells as well as the uptake kinetics of nanoparticles (NPs) is cell type dependent. We use silica NPs with a diameter of 310 nm labeled with perylene dye and 304 nm unlabeled particles to evaluate cell type-dependent uptake and cytotoxicity on human vascular endothelial cells (HUVEC) and cancer cells ...

Mesoporous nanoparticles for drug delivery would benefit significantly from further improvements in targeting efficiency and endosomal release. We present a system based on colloidal mesoporous silica nanoparticles with targeting-ligands and a red-light photosensitizer. This nanoparticle system provides spatial and temporal control of the release of drugs ...

Protein synthesis in all cells is carried out by macromolecular machines called ribosomes. Although the structures of prokaryotic, yeast and protist ribosomes have been determined, the more complex molecular architecture of metazoan 80S ribosomes has so far remained elusive. Here we present structures of Drosophila melanogaster and Homo sapiens 80S ribosomes ...

Trifunctional biotin reagents incorporating cleavable linkers are evaluated for their usage in protein enrichment. A linker based on the Dde protecting group leads to efficient release of protein targets under mild conditions. It additionally contains a masked trypsin cleavage site, which eliminates the majority of the tag during tryptic digestion.

Cohesin plays an important role in chromatid cohesion and has additional functions in higher-order chromatin organization and in transcriptional regulation. The binding of cohesin to euchromatic regions is largely mediated by CTCF or the mediator complex. However, it is currently unknown how cohesin is recruited to pericentric heterochromatin in mammalian ...

The last step in the biosynthetic pathway of the key strawberry flavor compound 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-3(2H)-furanone (HDMF) is catalyzed by Fragaria x ananassa enone oxidoreductase (FaEO), earlier putatively assigned as quinone oxidoreductase (FaQR). The ripening-induced enzyme catalyzes the reduction of the exocyclic double bond of the highly reactive ...

Corticothalamic slow oscillations of neuronal activity determine internal brain states. At least in the cortex, the electrical activity is associated with large neuronal Ca2+ transients. Here we implemented an optogenetic approach to explore causal features of the generation of slow oscillation-associated Ca2+ waves in the in vivo mouse brain. We demonstrate ...

Significant advances during the last decade in the field of small-molecule modulators of protein–protein interactions have raised general awareness of the fact that the modulation of protein–protein interactions has tremendous potential for both basic and applied science.[1] Some of the most advanced orthosteric inhibitors of protein–protein ...

Many processes in the regulation of gene expression and signaling involve the formation of protein complexes involving multi-domain proteins. Individual domains that mediate protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid interactions are typically connected by flexible linkers, which contribute to conformational dynamics and enable the formation of complexes with ...

Histone lysine (K) methylation has been shown to play a fundamental role in modulating chromatin architecture and regulation of gene expression. Here we report on the identification of histone H3K56, located at the pivotal, nucleosome DNA entry/exit point, as a novel methylation site that is evolutionary conserved. We identify trimethylation of H3K56 ...

Tet proteins oxidize 5-methylcytosine (mC) to generate 5-hydroxymethyl (hmC), 5-formyl (fC), and 5-carboxylcytosine (caC). The exact function of these oxidative cytosine bases remains elusive. We applied quantitative mass-spectrometry-based proteomics to identify readers for mC and hmC in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESC), neuronal progenitor cells (NPC), ...

Resistance to drugs targeting human thymidylate synthase (TS) poses a major challenge in the field of anti-cancer therapeutics. Overexpression of the TS protein has been implicated as one of the factors leading to the development of resistance. Therefore, repressing translation by targeting the TS mRNA could help to overcome this problem. In this study, we ...

We report an efficient synthesis of the hypermodified natural tRNA modifications wybutosine (yW) and hydroxywybutosine (OHyW). We also describe the preparation of isotopically labeled analogues for precise quantification of yW and OHyW in different tissues including plant materials. The synthesis involved the formation of the unusual tricyclic ring structure ...

Antimicrobial peptides are important defense compounds of higher organisms that can be used as therapeutic agents against bacterial and/or viral infections. We designed several antimicrobial peptides containing hydrophobic and positively charged clusters that are active against plant and human pathogens. Especially peptide SP1-1 is highly active with a MIC ...

Covalent chemical probes enable investigation of a desired fraction of the proteome. It is possible to adjust the selectivity of these probes, so they either react with a certain amino acid in all proteins, a class of proteins or only a single protein species. A combination of specific reactive groups with additional recognition elements can fine tune probes ...

This study examines the absolute quantification of particle uptake into cells. Methods: We developed a novel method to analyze stacks of confocal fluorescence images of single cells interacting with nano- and micro-particles. Particle_in_Cell-3D is a freely available ImageJ macro. During the image analysis routine, single cells are reconstructed in 3D and ...

Rhomboid proteases are evolutionary conserved intramembrane serine proteases. Because of their emerging role in many important biological pathways, rhomboids are potential drug targets. Unfortunately, few chemical tools are available for their study. Here, we describe a mass spectrometry-based assay to measure rhomboid substrate cleavage and inhibition. We ...

DEAF-1 is an important transcriptional regulator that is required for embryonic development and is linked to clinical depression and suicidal behavior in humans. It comprises various structural domains, including a SAND domain that mediates DNA binding and a MYND domain, a cysteine-rich module organized in a Cys4-Cys2-His-Cys (C4-C2HC) tandem zinc binding ...