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Irreconciliable Dissonance in Physical Space and Cellular Metabolic Conception

Irreconciliable Dissonance in Physical Space and Cellular Metabolic Conception

Curator: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP

Pasteur Effect – Warburg Effect – What its history can teach us today. 

José Eduardo de Salles Roselino

The Warburg effect, in reality the “Pasteur-effect” was the first example of metabolic regulation described. A decrease in the carbon flux originated at the sugar molecule towards the end of the catabolic pathway, with ethanol and carbon dioxide observed when yeast cells were transferred from an anaerobic environmental condition to an aerobic one. In Pasteur´s studies, sugar metabolism was measured mainly by the decrease of sugar concentration in the yeast growth media observed after a measured period of time. The decrease of the sugar concentration in the media occurs at great speed in yeast grown in anaerobiosis (oxygen deficient) and its speed was greatly reduced by the transfer of the yeast culture to an aerobic condition. This finding was very important for the wine industry of France in Pasteur’s time, since most of the undesirable outcomes in the industrial use of yeast were perceived when yeasts cells took a very long time to create, a rather selective anaerobic condition. This selective culture media was characterized by the higher carbon dioxide levels produced by fast growing yeast cells and by a higher alcohol content in the yeast culture media.

However, in biochemical terms, this finding was required to understand Lavoisier’s results indicating that chemical and biological oxidation of sugars produced the same calorimetric (heat generation) results. This observation requires a control mechanism (metabolic regulation) to avoid burning living cells by fast heat released by the sugar biological oxidative processes (metabolism). In addition, Lavoisier´s results were the first indications that both processes happened inside similar thermodynamics limits. In much resumed form, these observations indicate the major reasons that led Warburg to test failure in control mechanisms in cancer cells in comparison with the ones observed in normal cells.

[It might be added that the availability of O2 and CO2 and climatic conditions over 750 million years that included volcanic activity, tectonic movements of the earth crust, and glaciation, and more recently the use of carbon fuels and the extensive deforestation of our land masses have had a large role in determining the biological speciation over time, in sea and on land. O2 is generated by plants utilizing energy from the sun and conversion of CO2. Remove the plants and we tip the balance. A large source of CO2 is from beneath the earth’s surface.]

Biology inside classical thermodynamics places some challenges to scientists. For instance, all classical thermodynamics must be measured in reversible thermodynamic conditions. In an isolated system, increase in P (pressure) leads to increase in V (volume), all this occurring in a condition in which infinitesimal changes in one affects in the same way the other, a continuum response. Not even a quantic amount of energy will stand beyond those parameters.

In a reversible system, a decrease in V, under same condition, will led to an increase in P. In biochemistry, reversible usually indicates a reaction that easily goes either from A to B or B to A. For instance, when it was required to search for an anti-ischemic effect of Chlorpromazine in an extra hepatic obstructed liver, it was necessary to use an adequate system of increased biliary system pressure in a reversible manner to exclude a direct effect of this drug over the biological system pressure inducer (bile secretion) in Braz. J. Med. Biol. Res 1989; 22: 889-893. Frequently, these details are jumped over by those who read biology in ATGC letters.

Very important observations can be made in this regard, when neutral mutations are taken into consideration since, after several mutations (not affecting previous activity and function), a last mutant may provide a new transcript RNA for a protein and elicit a new function. For an example, consider a Prion C from lamb getting similar to bovine Prion C while preserving  its normal role in the lamb when its ability to change Human Prion C is considered (Stanley Prusiner).

This observation is good enough, to confirm one of the most important contributions of Erwin Schrodinger in his What is Life:

“This little book arose from a course of public lectures, delivered by a theoretical physicist to an audience of about four hundred which did not substantially dwindle, though warned at the outset that the subject matter was a difficult one and that the lectures could not be termed popular, even though the physicist’s most dreaded weapon, mathematical deduction, would hardly be utilized. The reason for this was not that the subject was simple enough to be explained without mathematics, but rather that it was much too involved to be fully accessible to mathematics.”

After Hans Krebs, description of the cyclic nature of the citrate metabolism and after its followers described its requirement for aerobic catabolism two major lines of research started the search for the understanding of the mechanism of energy transfer that explains how ADP is converted into ATP. One followed the organic chemistry line of reasoning and therefore, searched for a mechanism that could explain how the breakdown of carbon-carbon link could have its energy transferred to ATP synthesis. One of the major leaders of this research line was Britton Chance. He took into account that relatively earlier in the series of Krebs cycle reactions, two carbon atoms of acetyl were released as carbon dioxide ( In fact, not the real acetyl carbons but those on the opposite side of citrate molecule). In stoichiometric terms, it was not important whether the released carbons were or were not exactly those originated from glucose carbons. His research aimed at to find out an intermediate proteinaceous intermediary that could act as an energy reservoir. The intermediary could store in a phosphorylated amino acid the energy of carbon-carbon bond breakdown. This activated amino acid could transfer its phosphate group to ADP producing ATP. A key intermediate involved in the transfer was identified by Kaplan and Lipmann at John Hopkins as acetyl coenzyme A, for which Fritz Lipmann received a Nobel Prize.

Alternatively, under possible influence of the excellent results of Hodgkin and Huxley a second line of research appears. The work of Hodgkin & Huxley indicated that the storage of electrical potential energy in transmembrane ionic asymmetries and presented the explanation for the change from resting to action potential in excitable cells. This second line of research, under the leadership of Peter Mitchell postulated a mechanism for the transfer of oxide/reductive power of organic molecules oxidation through electron transfer as the key for the energetic transfer mechanism required for ATP synthesis.
This diverted the attention from high energy (~P) phosphate bond to the transfer of electrons. During most of the time the harsh period of the two confronting points of view, Paul Boyer and followers attempted to act as a conciliatory third party, without getting good results, according to personal accounts (in L. A. or Latin America) heard from those few of our scientists who were able to follow the major scientific events held in USA, and who could present to us later. Paul  Boyer could present how the energy was transduced by a molecular machine that changes in conformation in a series of 3 steps while rotating in one direction in order to produce ATP and in opposite direction in order to produce ADP plus Pi from ATP (reversibility).

However, earlier, a victorious Peter Mitchell obtained the result in the conceptual dispute, over the Britton Chance point of view, after he used E. Coli mutants to show H+ gradients in the cell membrane and its use as energy source, for which he received a Nobel Prize. Somehow, this outcome represents such a blow to Chance’s previous work that somehow it seems to have cast a shadow over very important findings obtained during his earlier career that should not be affected by one or another form of energy transfer mechanism.  For instance, Britton Chance got the simple and rapid polarographic assay method of oxidative phosphorylation and the idea of control of energy metabolism that brings us back to Pasteur.

This metabolic alternative result seems to have been neglected in the recent years of obesity epidemics, which led to a search for a single molecular mechanism required for the understanding of the accumulation of chemical (adipose tissue) reserve in our body. It does not mean that here the role of central nervous system is neglected. In short, in respiring mitochondria the rate of electron transport linked to the rate of ATP production is determined primarily by the relative concentrations of ADP, ATP and phosphate in the external media (cytosol) and not by the concentration of respiratory substrate as pyruvate. Therefore, when the yield of ATP is high as it is in aerobiosis and the cellular use of ATP is not changed, the oxidation of pyruvate and therefore of glycolysis is quickly (without change in gene expression), throttled down to the resting state. The dependence of respiratory rate on ADP concentration is also seen in intact cells. A muscle at rest and using no ATP has a very low respiratory rate.   [When skeletal muscle is stressed by high exertion, lactic acid produced is released into the circulation and is metabolized aerobically by the heart at the end of the activity].

This respiratory control of metabolism will lead to preservation of body carbon reserves and in case of high caloric intake in a diet, also shows increase in fat reserves essential for our biological ancestors survival (Today for our obesity epidemics). No matter how important this observation is, it is only one focal point of metabolic control. We cannot reduce the problem of obesity to the existence of metabolic control. There are numerous other factors but on the other hand, we cannot neglect or remove this vital process in order to correct obesity. However, we cannot explain obesity ignoring this metabolic control. This topic is so neglected in modern times that we cannot follow major research lines of the past that were interrupted by the emerging molecular biology techniques and the vain belief that a dogmatic vision of biology could replace all previous knowledge by a new one based upon ATGC readings. For instance, in order to display bad consequences derived from the ignorance of these old scientific facts, we can take into account, for instance, how ion movements across membranes affects membrane protein conformation and therefore contradicts the wrong central dogma of molecular biology. This change in protein conformation (with unchanged amino acid sequence) and/or the lack of change in protein conformation is linked to the factors that affect vital processes as the heart beats. This modern ignorance could also explain some major pitfalls seen in new drugs clinical trials and in a small scale on bad medical practices.

The work of Britton Chance and of Peter Mitchell have deep and sound scientific roots that were made with excellent scientific techniques, supported by excellent scientific reasoning and that were produced in a large series of very important intermediary scientific results. Their sole difference was to aim at very different scientific explanations as their goals (They have different Teleology in their minds made by their previous experiences). When, with the use of mutants obtained in microorganisms P Mitchell´s goal was found to survive and B Chance to succumb to the experimental evidence, all those excellent findings of B Chance and followers were directed to the dustbin of scientific history as an example of lack of scientific consideration.  [On the one hand, the Mitchell model used a unicellular organism; on the other, Chance’s work was with eukaryotic cells, quite relevant to the discussion.]

We can resume the challenge faced by these two great scientists in the following form: The first conceptual unification in bioenergetics, achieved in the 1940s, is inextricably bound up with the name of Fritz Lipmann. Its central feature was the recognition that adenosine triphosphate, ATP, serves as a universal energy  “currency” much as money serves as economic currency. In a nutshell, the purpose of metabolism is to support the synthesis of ATP. In microorganisms, this is perfect! In humans or mammals, or vertebrates, by the same reason that we cannot consider that gene expression is equivalent to protein function (an acceptable error in the case of microorganisms) this oversimplifies the metabolic requirement with a huge error. However, in case our concern is ATP chemistry only, the metabolism produces ATP and the hydrolysis of ATP pays for the performance of almost, all kinds of works. It is possible to presume that to find out how the flow of metabolism (carbon flow) led to ATP production must be considered a major focal point of research of the two contenders. Consequently, what could be a minor fall of one of the contenders, in case we take into account all that was found during their entire life of research, the real failure in B Chance’s final goal was amplified far beyond what may be considered by reason!

Another aspect that must be taken into account: Both contenders have in the scientific past a very sound root. Metabolism may produce two forms of energy currency (I personally don´t like this expression*) and I use it here because it was used by both groups in order to express their findings. Together with simplistic thermodynamics, this expression conveys wrong ideas): The second kind of energy currency is the current of ions passing from one side of a membrane to the other. The P. Mitchell scientific root undoubtedly have the work of Hodgkin & Huxley, Huxley &  Huxley, Huxley & Simmons

*ATP is produced under the guidance of cell needs and not by its yield. When glucose yields only 2 ATPs per molecule it is oxidized at very high speed (anaerobiosis) as is required to match cellular needs. On the other hand, when it may yield (thermodynamic terms) 38 ATP the same molecule is oxidized at low speed. It would be similar to an investor choice its least money yield form for its investment (1940s to 1972) as a solid support. B. Chance had the enzymologists involved in clarifying how ATP could be produced directly from NADH + H+ oxidative reductive metabolic reactions or from the hydrolysis of an enolpyruvate intermediary. Both competitors had their work supported by different but, sound scientific roots and have produced very important scientific results while trying to present their hypothetical point of view.

Before the winning results of P. Mitchell were displayed, one line of defense used by B. Chance followers was to create a conflict between what would be expected by a restrictive role of proteins through its specificity ionic interactions and the general ability of ionic asymmetries that could be associated with mitochondrial ATP production. Chemical catalyzed protein activities do not have perfect specificity but an outstanding degree of selective interaction was presented by the lock and key model of enzyme interaction. A large group of outstanding “mitochondriologists” were able to show ATP synthesis associated with Na+, K+, Ca2+… asymmetries on mitochondrial membranes and any time they did this, P. Mitchell have to display the existence of antiporters that exchange X for hydrogen as the final common source of chemiosmotic energy used by mitochondria for ATP synthesis.

This conceptual battle has generated an enormous knowledge that was laid to rest, somehow discontinued in the form of scientific research, when the final E. Coli mutant studies presented the convincing final evidence in favor of P. Mitchell point of view.

Not surprisingly, a “wise anonymous” later, pointed out: “No matter what you are doing, you will always be better off in case you have a mutant”

(Principles of Medical Genetics T D Gelehrter & F.S. Collins chapter 7, 1990).

However, let’s take the example of a mechanical wristwatch. It clearly indicates when the watch is working in an acceptable way, that its normal functioning condition is not the result of one of its isolated components – or something that can be shown by a reductionist molecular view.  Usually it will be considered that it is working in an acceptable way, in case it is found that its accuracy falls inside a normal functional range, for instance, one or two standard deviations bellow or above the mean value for normal function, what depends upon the rigor wisely adopted. While, only when it has a faulty component (a genetic inborn error) we can indicate a single isolated piece as the cause of its failure (a reductionist molecular view).

We need to teach in medicine, first the major reasons why the watch works fine (not saying it is “automatic”). The functions may cross the reversible to irreversible regulatory limit change, faster than what we can imagine. Latter, when these ideas about normal are held very clear in the mind set of medical doctors (not medical technicians) we may address the inborn errors and what we may have learn from it. A modern medical technician may cause admiration when he uses an “innocent” virus to correct for a faulty gene (a rather impressive technological advance). However, in case the virus, later shows signals that indicate that it was not so innocent, a real medical doctor will be called upon to put things in correct place again.

Among the missing parts of normal evolution in biochemistry a lot about ion fluxes can be found. Even those oscillatory changes in Ca2+ that were shown to affect gene expression (C. De Duve) were laid to rest since, they clearly indicate a source of biological information that despite the fact that it does not change nucleotides order in the DNA, it shows an opposing flux of biological information against the dogma (DNA to RNA to proteins). Another, line has shown a hierarchy, on the use of mitochondrial membrane potential: First the potential is used for Ca2+ uptake and only afterwards, the potential is used for ADP conversion into ATP (A. L. Lehninger). In fact, the real idea of A. L. Lehninger was by far, more complex since according to him, mitochondria works like a buffer for intracellular calcium releasing it to outside in case of a deep decrease in cytosol levels or capturing it from cytosol when facing transient increase in Ca2+ load. As some of Krebs cycle dehydrogenases were activated by Ca2+, this finding was used to propose a new control factor in addition to the one of ADP (B. Chance). All this was discontinued with the wrong use of calculus (today we could indicate bioinformatics in a similar role) in biochemistry that has established less importance to a mitochondrial role after comparative kinetics that today are seen as faulty.

It is important to combat dogmatic reasoning and restore sound scientific foundations in basic medical courses that must urgently reverse the faulty trend that tries to impose a view that goes from the detail towards generalization instead of the correct form that goes from the general finding well understood towards its molecular details. The view that led to curious subjects as bioinformatics in medical courses as training in sequence finding activities can only be explained by its commercial value. The usual form of scientific thinking respects the limits of our ability to grasp new knowledge and relies on reproducibility of scientific results as a form to surpass lack of mathematical equation that defines relationship of variables and the determination of its functional domains. It also uses old scientific roots, as its sound support never replaces existing knowledge by dogmatic and/or wishful thinking. When the sequence of DNA was found as a technical advance to find amino acid sequence in proteins it was just a technical advance. This technical advance by no means could be considered a scientific result presented as an indication that DNA sequences alone have replaced the need to study protein chemistry, its responses to microenvironmental changes in order to understand its multiple conformations, changes in activities and function. As E. Schrodinger correctly describes the chemical structure responsible for the coded form stored of genetic information must have minimal interaction with its microenvironment in order to endure hundreds and hundreds years as seen in Hapsburg’s lips. Only magical reasoning assumes that it is possible to find out in non-reactive chemical structures the properties of the reactive ones.

For instance, knowledge of the reactions of the Krebs cycle clearly indicate a role for solvent that no longer could be considered to be an inert bath for catalytic activity of the enzymes when the transfer of energy include a role for hydrogen transport. The great increase in understanding this change on chemical reaction arrived from conformational energy.

Again, even a rather simplistic view of this atomic property (Conformational energy) is enough to confirm once more, one of the most important contribution of E. Schrodinger in his What is Life:

“This little book arose from a course of public lectures, delivered by a theoretical physicist to an audience of about four hundred which did not substantially dwindle, though warned at the outset that the subject matter was a difficult one and that the lectures could not be termed popular, even though the physicist’s most dreaded weapon, mathematical deduction, would hardly be utilized. The reason for this was not that the subject was simple enough to be explained without mathematics, but rather that it was much too involved to be fully accessible to mathematics.”

In a very simplistic view, while energy manifests itself by the ability to perform work conformational energy as a property derived from our atomic structure can be neutral, positive or negative (no effect, increased or decreased reactivity upon any chemistry reactivity measured as work)

Also:

“I mean the fact that we, whose total being is entirely based on a marvelous interplay of this very kind, yet if all possess the power of acquiring considerable knowledge about it. I think it possible that this knowledge may advance to little just a short of a complete understanding -of the first marvel. The second may well be beyond human understanding.”

In fact, scientific knowledge allows us to understand how biological evolution may have occurred or have not occurred and yet does not present a proof about how it would have being occurred. It will be always be an indication of possible against highly unlike and never a scientific proven fact about the real form of its occurrence.

As was the case of B. Chance in its bioenergetics findings, we may get very important findings that indicates wrong directions in the future as was his case, or directed toward our past.

The Skeleton of Physical Time – Quantum Energies in Relative Space of S-labs

By Radoslav S. Bozov  Independent Researcher

WSEAS, Biology and BioSystems of Biomedicine

Space does not equate to distance, displacement of an object by classically defined forces – electromagnetic, gravity or inertia. In perceiving quantum open systems, a quanta, a package of energy, displaces properties of wave interference and statistical outcomes of sums of paths of particles detected by a design of S-labs.

The notion of S-labs, space labs, deals with inherent problems of operational module, R(i+1), where an imagination number ‘struggles’ to work under roots of a negative sign, a reflection of an observable set of sums reaching out of the limits of the human being organ, an eye or other foundational signal processing system.

While heavenly bodies, planets, star systems, and other exotic forms of light reflecting and/or emitting objects, observable via naked eye have been deduced to operate under numerical systems that calculate a periodic displacement of one relative to another, atomic clocks of nanospace open our eyes to ever expanding energy spaces, where matrices of interactive variables point to the problem of infinity of variations in scalar spaces, however, defining properties of minute universes as a mirror image of an astronomical system. The first and furthermost problem is essentially the same as those mathematical methodologies deduced by Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein for processing a surface. I will introduce you to a surface interference method by describing undetermined objective space in terms of determined subjective time.

Therefore, the moment will be an outcome of statistical sums of a numerical system extending from near zero to near one. Three strings hold down a dual system entangled via interference of two waves, where a single wave is a product of three particles (today named accordingly to either weak or strong interactions) momentum.

The above described system emerges from duality into trinity the objective space value of physical realities. The triangle of physical observables – charge, gravity and electromagnetism, is an outcome of interference of particles, strings and waves, where particles are not particles, or are strings strings, or  are waves waves of an infinite character in an open system which we attempt to define to predict outcomes of tomorrow’s parameters, either dependent or independent as well as both subjective to time simulations.

We now know that aging of a biological organism cannot be defined within singularity. Thereafter, clocks are subjective to apparatuses measuring oscillation of defined parameters which enable us to calculate both amplitude and a period, which we know to be dependent on phase transitions.

The problem of phase was solved by the applicability of carbon relative systems. A piece of diamond does not get wet, yet it holds water’s light entangled property. Water is the dark force of light. To formulate such statement, we have been searching truth by examining cooling objects where the Maxwell demon is translated into information, a data complex system.

Modern perspectives in computing quantum based matrices, 0+1 =1 and/or 0+0=1, and/or 1+1 =0, will be reduced by applying a conceptual frame of Aladdin’s flying anti-gravity carpet, unwrapping both past and future by sending a photon to both, placing present always near zero. Thus, each parallel quantum computation of a natural system approaching the limit of a vibration of a string defining 0 does not equal 0, and 1 does not equal 1. In any case, if our method 1+1 = 1, yet, 1 is not 1 at time i+1. This will set the fundamentals of an operational module, called labris operator or in simplicity S-labs. Note, that 1 as a result is an event predictable to future, while interacting parameters of addition 1+1 may be both, 1 as an observable past, and 1 as an imaginary system, or 1+1 displaced interactive parameters of past observable events. This is the foundation of Future Quantum Relative Systems Interference (QRSI), taking analytical technologies of future as a result of data matrices compressing principle relative to carbon as a reference matter rational to water based properties.

Goedel’s concept of loops exist therefore only upon discrete relative space uniting to parallel absolute continuity of time ‘lags’. ( Goedel, Escher and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. A Metaphorical Fugue on Minds and Machines in the Spirit of Lewis Carroll. D Hofstadter.  Chapter XX: Strange Loops, Or Tangled Hierarchies. A grand windup of many of the ideas about hierarchical systems and self-reference. It is concerned with the snarls which arise when systems turn back on themselves-for example, science probing science, government investigating governmental wrongdoing, art violating the rules of art, and finally, humans thinking about their own brains and minds. Does Gödel’s Theorem have anything to say about this last “snarl”? Are free will and the sensation of consciousness connected to Gödel’s Theorem? The Chapter ends by tying Gödel, Escher, and Bach together once again.)  The fight struggle in-between time creates dark spaces within which strings manage to obey light properties – entangled bozons of information carrying future outcomes of a systems processing consciousness. Therefore, Albert Einstein was correct in his quantum time realities by rejecting a resolving cube of sugar within a cup of tea (Henri Bergson 19th century philosopher. Bergson’s concept of multiplicity attempts to unify in a consistent way two contradictory features: heterogeneity and continuity. Many philosophers today think that this concept of multiplicity, despite its difficulty, is revolutionary.) However, the unity of time and space could not be achieved by deducing time to charge, gravity and electromagnetic properties of energy and mass.

Charge is further deduced to interference of particles/strings/waves, contrary to the Hawking idea of irreducibility of chemical energy carrying ‘units’, and gravity is accounted for by intrinsic properties of   anti-gravity carbon systems processing light, an electromagnetic force, that I have deduced towards ever expanding discrete energy space-energies rational to compressing mass/time. The role of loops seems to operate to control formalities where boundaries of space fluctuate as a result of what we called above – dark time-spaces.

Indeed, the concept of horizon is a constant due to ever expanding observables. Thus, it fails to acquire a rational approach towards space-time issues.

Richard Feynman has touched on issues of touching of space, sums of paths of particle traveling through time. In a way he has resolved an important paradigm, storing information and possibly studying it by opening a black box. Schroedinger’s cat is alive again, but incapable of climbing a tree when chased by a dog. Every time a cat climbs a garden tree, a fruit falls on hedgehogs carried away parallel to living wormholes whose purpose of generating information lies upon carbon units resolving light.

In order to deal with such a paradigm, we will introduce i+1 under square root in relativity, therefore taking negative one ( -1 = sqrt (i+1), an operational module R dealing with Wheelers foam squeezed by light, releasing water – dark spaces. Thousand words down!

What is a number? Is that a name or some kind of language or both? Is the issue of number theory possibly accountable to the value of the concept of entropic timing? Light penetrating a pyramid holding bean seeds on a piece of paper and a piece of slice of bread, a triple set, where a church mouse has taken a drop of tear, but a blood drop. What an amazing physics! The magic of biology lies above egoism, above pride, and below Saints.

We will set up the twelve parameters seen through 3+1 in classic realities:

–              discrete absolute energies/forces – no contradiction for now between Newtonian and Albert Einstein mechanics

–              mass absolute continuity – conservational law of physics in accordance to weak and strong forces

–              quantum relative spaces – issuing a paradox of Albert Einstein’s space-time resolved by the uncertainty principle

–              parallel continuity of multiple time/universes – resolving uncertainty of united space and energy through evolving statistical concepts of scalar relative space expansion and vector quantum energies by compressing relative continuity of matter in it, ever compressing flat surfaces – finding the inverse link between deterministic mechanics of displacement and imaginary space, where spheres fit within surface of triangles as time unwraps past by pulling strings from future.

To us, common human beings, with an extra curiosity overloaded by real dreams, value happens to play in the intricate foundation of life – the garden of love, its carbon management in mind, collecting pieces of squeezed cooling time.

The infinite interference of each operational module to another composing ever emerging time constrains unified by the Solar system, objective to humanity, perhaps answers that a drop of blood and a drop of tear is united by a droplet of a substance separating negative entropy to time courses of a physical realities as defined by an open algorithm where chasing power subdue to space becomes an issue of time.

Jose Eduardo de Salles Roselino

Some small errors: For intance an increase i P leads to a decrease in V ( not an increase in V)..

 

Radoslav S. Bozov  Independent Researcher

If we were to use a preventative measures of medical science, instruments of medical science must predict future outcomes based on observable parameters of history….. There are several key issues arising: 1. Despite pinning a difference on genomic scale , say pieces of information, we do not know how to have changed that – that is shift methylome occupying genome surfaces , in a precise manner.. 2. Living systems operational quo DO NOT work as by vector gravity physics of ‘building blocks. That is projecting a delusional concept of a masonry trick, who has not worked by corner stones and ever shifting momenta … Assuming genomic assembling worked, that is dealing with inferences through data mining and annotation, we are not in a position to read future in real time, and we will never be, because of the rtPCR technology self restriction into data -time processing .. We know of existing post translational modalities… 3. We don’t know what we don’t know, and that foundational to future medicine – that is dealing with biological clocks, behavior, and various daily life inputs ranging from radiation to water systems, food quality, drugs…

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Introduction to Metabolic Pathways

Author: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP

 

Humans, mammals, plants and animals, and eukaryotes and prokaryotes all share a common denominator in their manner of existence.  It makes no difference whether they inhabit the land, or the sea, or another living host. They exist by virtue of their metabolic adaptation by way of taking in nutrients as fuel, and converting the nutrients to waste in the expenditure of carrying out the functions of motility, breakdown and utilization of fuel, and replication of their functional mass.

There are essentially two major sources of fuel, mainly, carbohydrate and fat.  A third source, amino acids which requires protein breakdown, is utilized to a limited extent as needed from conversion of gluconeogenic amino acids for entry into the carbohydrate pathway. Amino acids follow specific metabolic pathways related to protein synthesis and cell renewal tied to genomic expression.

Carbohydrates are a major fuel utilized by way of either of two pathways.  They are a source of readily available fuel that is accessible either from breakdown of disaccharides or from hepatic glycogenolysis by way of the Cori cycle.  Fat derived energy is a high energy source that is metabolized by one carbon transfers using the oxidation of fatty acids in mitochondria. In the case of fats, the advantage of high energy is conferred by chain length.

Carbohydrate metabolism has either of two routes of utilization.  This introduces an innovation by way of the mitochondrion or its equivalent, for the process of respiration, or aerobic metabolism through the tricarboxylic acid, or Krebs cycle.  In the presence of low oxygen supply, carbohydrate is metabolized anaerobically, the six carbon glucose being split into two three carbon intermediates, which are finally converted from pyruvate to lactate.  In the presence of oxygen, the lactate is channeled back into respiration, or mitochondrial oxidation, referred to as oxidative phosphorylation. The actual mechanism of this process was of considerable debate for some years until it was resolved that the mechanism involve hydrogen transfers along the “electron transport chain” on the inner membrane of the mitochondrion, and it was tied to the formation of ATP from ADP linked to the so called “active acetate” in Acetyl-Coenzyme A, discovered by Fritz Lipmann (and Nathan O. Kaplan) at Massachusetts General Hospital.  Kaplan then joined with Sidney Colowick at the McCollum Pratt Institute at Johns Hopkins, where they shared tn the seminal discovery of the “pyridine nucleotide transhydrogenases” with Elizabeth Neufeld,  who later established her reputation in the mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS) with L-iduronidase and lysosomal storage disease.

This chapter covers primarily the metabolic pathways for glucose, anaerobic and by mitochondrial oxidation, the electron transport chain, fatty acid oxidation, galactose assimilation, and the hexose monophosphate shunt, essential for the generation of NADPH. The is to be more elaboration on lipids and coverage of transcription, involving amino acids and RNA in other chapters.

The subchapters are as follows:

1.1      Carbohydrate Metabolism

1.2      Studies of Respiration Lead to Acetyl CoA

1.3      Pentose Shunt, Electron Transfer, Galactose, more Lipids in brief

1.4      The Multi-step Transfer of Phosphate Bond and Hydrogen Exchange Energy

Complex I or NADH-Q oxidoreductase

Complex I or NADH-Q oxidoreductase

Fatty acid oxidation and ETC

Fatty acid oxidation and ETC

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Mitochondria: Origin from oxygen free environment, role in aerobic glycolysis, metabolic adaptation

 

English: A diagram of cellular respiration inc...

English: A diagram of cellular respiration including glycolysis, Krebs cycle, citric acid cycle, and the electron transport chain (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Figure from Journal publication of sc...

English: Diagram showing regulation of the enz...

Reporter and Curator: Larry H Bernstein, MD, FACP

Introduction

Mitochondria are essential for life, and are critical for the generation of ATP. Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize in 1918 for his studies of respiration and he described a situation of impaired respiration in cancer cells causing them to produce lactic acid, like bacteria. This has been termed facultative anaerobic glycolysis. The metabolic explanation for mitochondrial respiration had to await the Nobel discoveries of the Krebs cycle and high energy ~P in acetyl CoA by Fritz Lippman. The Krebs cycle generates 16 ATPs I respiration compared to 2 ATPs through glycolysis. The discovery of the genetic code with the “Watson-Crick” model and the identification of DNA polymerase opened a window for contuing discovery leading to the human genome project at 20th century end that has now been followed by “ENCODE” in the 21st century. This review opens a rediscovery of the metabolic function of mitochondria and adaptive functions with respect to cancer and other diseases.

Function in aerobic and anaerobic metabolism

Two-carbon compounds – the TCA, the pentose phosphate pathway, together with gluconeogenesis and the glyoxylate cycle are essential for the provision of anabolic precursors. Yeast environmental diversity mostly leads to a vast metabolic complexity driven by carbon and the energy available in environmental habitats. This resulted in much early research on analysis of yeast metabolism associated with glucose catabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, under both aerobic and anaerobic environments. Yeasts may be physiologically classified with respect to the type of energy-generating process involved in sugar metabolism, namely non-, facultative- or obligate fermentative. The nonfermentative yeasts have exclusively a respiratory metabolism and are not capable of alcoholic fermentation from glucose, while the obligate-fermentative yeasts – “natural respiratory mutants” – are only capable of metabolizing glucose through alcoholic fermentation. Most of the yeasts identified are facultative-fermentative ones, and depending on the growth conditions, the type and concentration of sugars and/or oxygen availability, may display either a fully respiratory or a fermentative metabolism or even both in a mixed respiratory-fermentative metabolism (e.g., S. cerevisiae). The sugar composition of the media and oxygen availability are the two main environmental conditions that have a strong impact on yeast metabolic physiology, and three frequently observed effects associated with the type of energy-generating processes involved in sugar metabolism and/or oxygen availability are Pasteur, Crabtree and Custer. In modern terms the Pasteur effect refers to an activation of anaerobic glycolysis in order to meet cellular ATP demands owing to the lower efficiency of ATP production by fermentation compared with respiration. In 1861 Pasteur observed that S. cerevisiae consume much more glucose in the absence of oxygen than in its presence. S. cerevisiae only shows a Pasteur at low growth rates and at resting-cell conditions, where a high contribution of respiration to sugar catabolism occurs owing to the loss of fermentative capacity. The Crabtree effect is defined as the occurrence of alcoholic fermentation under aerobic conditions, explained by a theory involving “limited respiratory capacities” in the branching point of pyruvate metabolism. The Custer effect is known as the inhibition of alcoholic fermentation by the absence of oxygen. It is thought that the Custer effect is caused by reductive stress.

Glycolysis

Once inside the cell, glucose is phosphorylated by kinases to glucose 6-phosphate and then isomerized to fructose 6-phosphate, by phosphoglucose isomerase. The next enzyme is phospho-fructokinase, which is subject to regulation by several metabolites, and further phosphorylates fructose 6-phosphate to fructose 1,6-bisphosphate. These steps of glycolysis require energy in the form of ATP. Glycolysis leads to pyruvate formation associated with a net production of energy and reducing equivalents. Approximately 50% of glucose 6-phosphate is metabolized via glycolysis and 30% via the pentose phosphate pathway in Crabtree negative yeasts. However, about 90% of the carbon going through the pentose phosphate pathway reentered glycolysis at the level of fructose 6-phosphate or glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate. The pentose phosphate pathway in Crabtree positive yeasts (S. cerevisiae) is predominantly used for NADPH production but not for biomass production or catabolic reactions.
Pyruvate branch point. At the pyruvate (the end product of glycolysis) branching point, pyruvate can follow three different metabolic fates depending on the yeast species and the environmental conditions. On the other hand, the carbon flux may be distributed between the respiratory and fermentative pathways. Pyruvate might be directly converted to acetyl–cofactor A (CoA) by the mitochondrial multienzyme complex pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) after its transport into the mitochondria by the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier. Alternatively, pyruvate can also be converted to acetyl–CoA in the cytosol via acetaldehyde and to acetate by the so-called PDH-bypass pathway. Compared with cytosolic pyruvate decarboxylase, the mitochondrial PDH complex has a higher affinity for pyruvate and therefore most of the pyruvate will flow through the PDH complex at low glycolytic rates. However, at increasing glucose concentrations, the glycolytic rate will increase and more pyruvate is formed, saturating the PDH bypass and shifting the carbon flux through ethanol production. In the yeast S. cerevisiae, the external glucose level controls the switch between respiration and fermentation.

Rodrigues F, Ludovico P and Leão C. Sugar Metabolism in Yeasts: an Overview of Aerobic and Anaerobic Glucose Catabolism. In Molecular and Structural Biology. Chapter 6. qxd 07/23/05 P117
Eriksson P, Andre L, Ansell R, Blomberg A, Adler L (1995) Cloning and characterization of GPD2, a second gene encoding sn-glycerol 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (NAD+) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and its comparison with GPD1. Mol Microbiol 17:95–107.
Flikweert MT, van der Zanden L, Janssen WM, Steensma HY, van Dijken JP, Pronk JT (1996)Pyruvate decarboxylase: an indispensable enzyme for growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae on glucose. Yeast 12:247–257.

Biogenesis of mitochondrial structures from aerobically grown S. cerevisiae

Under aerobic conditions S. cerevisiae forms mitochondria which are classical in their properties,
but the number, morphology, and enzyme activity of these mitochondria are also affected by catabolite repression, but it cannot respire under anaerobic conditions and lacks cytochromes. These structures were isolated from anaerobically grown yeast cells and contain malate and succinate dehydrogenases, ATPase, and DNA characteristic of yeast mitochondria. These lipid-complete structures consist predominantly of double-membrane vesicles enclosing a dense matrix which contains a folded inner membrane system bordering electron-transparent regions similar to the cristae of mitochondria.

  • The morphology of the structures is critically dependent on their lipid composition
  • Their unsaturated fatty acid content is similar to that of mitochondria from aerobically grown cells
  • The structures from cells grown without lipid supplements have simpler morphology – a dense granular matrix surrounded by a double membrane but have no obvious folded inner membrane system within the matrix
  • The lipid-depleted structures are only isolated in intact form from protoplasts
  • The synthesis of ergosterol and unsaturated fatty acids is oxygen-dependent and anaerobically grown cells may be depleted of these lipid components
  • The cytology of anaerobically grown yeast cells is profoundly affected by both lipid-depletion and catabolite repression
  • Lipid-depleted anaerobic cells, membranous mitochondrial profiles were not demonstrable
  • The structures from the aerobically and anaerobically grown cells are markedly different in morphology and fatty acid composition, but both contain mitochondrial DNA and a number of mitochondrial enzymes

The phospholipid composition of various strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, wild type and petite (cytoplasmic respiratory deficient) yeasts and derived mitochondrial mutants grown under conditions designed to induce variations in the complement of mitochondrial were fractionated into various subcellular fractions and analyzed for cytochrome oxidase (in wild type) and phospholipid composition . 90% or more of the phospholipid, cardiolipin was found in the mitochondrial membranes of wild type and petite yeast . Cardiolipin content differed markedly under various growth conditions .

  • Stationary yeast grown in glucose had better developed mitochondria and more cardiolipin than repressed log phase yeast .
  • Aerobic yeast contained more cardiolipin than anaerobic yeast .
  • Respiration-deficient cytoplasmic mitochondrial mutants, both suppressive and neutral, contained less cardiolipin than corresponding wild types .
  • A chromosomal mutant lacking respiratory function had normal cardiolipin content .
  • Log phase cells grown in galactose and lactate, which do not readily repress the development of mitochondrial membranes, contained as much cardiolipin as stationary phase cells grown in glucose .
  • Cytoplasmic mitochondrial mutants respond to changes in the glucose concentration of the growth medium by variations in their cardiolipin content in the same way as wild type yeast does under similar growth conditions.
  • It is of interest that the chromosomal petite, which as far as can be ascertained has qualitatively normal mitochondrial DNA and a normal cardiolipin content when grown under maximally derepressed conditions .

Thus, the genetic defect in this case probably does not diminish the mass of inner mitochondrial membrane under appropriate conditions . This suggests the cardiolipin content of yeast is a good indicator of the state of development of mitochondrial membrane.
Jakovcic S, Getz Gs, Rabinowitz M, Jakob H, Swift H. Cardiolipin Content Of Wild Type and Mutant Yeasts in Relation to Mitochondrial Function and Development. JCB 1971. jcb.rupress.org
Jakovcic S, Haddock J, Getz GS, Rabinowitz M, Swift H. Biochem J. 1971; 121 :341 .
EPHRUSSI, B . 1953 . Nucleocytoplasmic Relations in Microorganisms . Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Mitochondria, hydrogenosomes and mitosomes

Before and after the publication of an unnoticed article in 1905 by Mereschkowsky there were many publications dealing with plant “chimera’s” and cytoplasmic inheritance in plants, which should have favoured the interpretation of plastids as “semi-autonomous” symbiotic entities in the cytoplasm of the eukaryotic plant cell. Twenty years after Mereschkowsky’s plea for an endosymbiotic origin of plastids, Wallin (1925, 1927) postulated the “bacterial nature of mitochondria”. And so it is one of the mysteries of the 20th century that an endosymbiotic origin of plastids had not been generally accepted before the 1970s, primarily because one cannot experience the consequences of mutations in the mitochondrial genome by naked eye.

  • Mitochondrial DNA is usually present in multiple copies in one and the same mitochondrion and those in the hundreds to thousands of mitochondria in a single cell are not necessarily identical.
  • The random partitioning of the mitochondria in mitosis (and meiosis) frequently results in a more or less biased distribution of the diverent mitochondria in the daughter cells, eventually causing diverent phenotypes in different tissues obscuring the maternal inheritance
  • It was not until the 1990s that certain diseases—which had been interpreted as being X-chromosomal with incomplete penetrance—eventually turned out to be

Lastly, the vast majority of mitochondrial proteins are encoded in the nucleus and, consequently, mutations in the corresponding genes exhibit a Mendelian, and not a cytoplasmic, maternal inheritance
In the 1970s and 1980s the unequivocal demonstration of mitochondrial DNA occurred
and mitochondrial mutations at the DNA level provided the final proof for the role of such mutations in a wealth of hereditary diseases in man.

  • The genomics era provided the tools to prove the endosymbiont-hypothesis for the origin of the eukaryotic cell

Since DNA does not arise de novo, the genomes of organisms and organelles provide a historical record for the evolution of the eukaryotic cell and its organelles. The DNA sequences of two to three genomes of the eukaryotic cell turned out to be a record of the evolution of the eukaryotic life on earth. The analysis of organelle genomes unequivocally revealed a cyanobacterial origin for plastids and an -proteobacterial origin for mitochondria. Both plastids and mitochondria appear to be monophyletic, i.e. plastids derived from one and the same cyanobacterial ancestor, and mitochondria from one and the same -proteobacterial ancestor.
The evolution of the eukaryotic cell appears to have involved one (in the case of animals) or two (in the case of plants) events that took place 1.5 to 2 billion years ago. However, it appears that symbioses involving one or the other eubacterium arose repeatedly during the billions of years available. For example, photosynthetic algae by phagotrophic eukaryotes, negating the hypothesis of a single eukaryotic event, rather than stringent selection shaping the diversity of present-day life. Recent hypotheses for the origin of the nucleus have postulated that introns, which could be acquired by the uptake of the -proteobacterial endosymbiont, forced the nucleus-cytosol compartmentalization. Lateral gene transfer among eukaryotes is more frequent than was assumed earlier, and “mitochondrial genes” in the nuclear genomes of amitochondrial organisms are not necessarily the consequence of a transient presence of a DNA-containing mitochondrial-like organelle.
To cope with the obvious ubiquity of “mitochondrial” genes and the chimerism of the DNA of present day eukaryotes, the hydrogen hypothesis postulates that an archaeal host took up a eubacterial symbiont that became the ancestor of mitochondria and hydrogenosomes. The hydrogen hypothesis has the potential to explain both the monophyly of the mitochondria, and the existence of “anaerobic” and “aerobic” variants of one and the same original organelle. Based on these observations we have only the terms “mitochondrion”, “hydrogenosome” and “mitosome” to classify the various variants of the mitochondrial family.
Hackstein JHP, Joachim Tjaden J , Huynen M. Mitochondria, hydrogenosomes and mitosomes: products of evolutionary tinkering! Curr Genet (2006) 50:225–245. DOI 10.1007/s00294-006-0088-8.

Lineages

A look at the phylogenetic distribution of characterized anaerobic mitochondria among animal lineages shows that these are not clustered but spread across metazoan phylogeny. The biochemistry and the enzyme equipment used in the facultatively anaerobic mitochondria of metazoans is nearly identical across lineages, strongly indicating a common origin from an archaic metazoan ancestor. The organelles look like hydrogenosomes – anaerobic forms of mitochondria that generate H2 and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) from pyruvateoxidation and which were previously found only in unicellular eukaryotes. The animals harbor structures resembling prokaryotic endosymbionts, reminiscent of the methanogenic endosymbionts found in some hydrogenosome-bearing protists; fluorescence of F420, a typical methanogen cofactor, or lack thereof, will bring more insights as to what these structures are. If we follow the anaerobic lifestyle further back into evolutionary history, beyond the origin of the metazoans, we see that the phylogenetic distribution of eukaryotes with facultative anaerobic mitochondria, eukaryotes with hydrogenosomes and eukaryotes that possess mitosomes (reduced forms of mitochondria with no direct role in ATP synthesis) the picture is similar to that seen for animals. In all six of the major lineages (or supergroups) of eukaryotes that are currently recognized, forms with anaerobic mitochondria have been found. The newest additions to the growing collection of anaerobic mitochondrial metabolisms are the denitrifying foraminiferans. A handful of about a dozen enzymes make the difference between a ‘normal’ O2-respiring mitochondrion found in mammals, and the energy metabolism of eukaryotes with anaerobic mitochondria, hydrogenosomes or mitosomes. Notably, the full complement of those enzymes, once thought to be specific to eukaryotic anaerobes, surprisingly turned up in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii , which produces O2 in the light, has typical O2-respiring mitochondria but, within about 30 min of exposure to heterotrophic, anoxic and dark conditions, expresses its anaerobic biochemistry to make H2 in the same way as trichomonads, the group in which hydrogenosomes were discovered. Chlamydomonas provides evidence which indicates that the ability to inhabit oxygen-harbouring, as well as anoxic environments, is an ancestral feature of eukaryotes and their mitochondria. The prokaryote inhabitants have existed for well over a billion years, and have reached this new habitat by dispersal, not by adaptive evolution de novo and in situ. Indeed, geochemical evidence has shown that methanogenesis and sulphate reduction, and the niches in which they occur, are truly ancient.
Mentel and Martin. Anaerobic mitochondria: more common all the time. BMC Biology 2010; 8:32. BioMed Central Ltd. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/8/32.

Anaerobic mitochondrial enzymes

Mitochondria from the muscle of the parasitic nematode Ascaris lumbricoides var. suum function anaerobically in electron transport-associated phosphorylations under physiological conditions. These helminth organelles have been fractionated into inner and outer membrane, matrix, and inter-membrane space fractions. The distributions of enzyme systems were determined and compared with corresponding distributions reported in mammalian mitochondria. Succinate and pyruvate dehydrogenases as well as NADH oxidase, Mg++-dependent ATPase, adenylate kinase, citrate synthase, and cytochrome c reductases were determined to be distributed as in mammalian mitochondria. In contrast with the mammalian systems, fumarase and NAD-linked “malic” enzyme were isolated primarily from the intermembrane space fraction of the worm mitochondria. These enzymes are required for the anaerobic energy-generating system in Ascaris and would be expected to give rise to NADH in the intermembrane space.
Pyruvate kinase activity is barely detectable in Ascaris muscle. Therefore, rather than giving rise to cytoplasmic pyruvate, CO2 is fixed into phosphoenolpyruvate, resulting in the formation of oxalacetate which, in turn, is reduced by NADH to form malate regenerating glycolytic NAD . Ascaris muscle mitochondria utilize malate anaerobically as their major substrate by means of a dismutation reaction. The “malic” enzyme in the mitochondrion catalyzes theoxidation of malate to form pyruvate, CO2, and NADH. This reaction serves to generate intramitochondrial reducing power in the form of NADH. Concomitantly, fumarase catalyzes thedehydration of an equivalent amount of malate to form fumarate which, in turn, is reduced by an NADH-linked fumarate reductase to succinate. The flavin-linked fumarate reductase reaction results in a site I electron transport-associated phosphorylation of ADP, giving rise to ATP. This identifies a proton translocation system to obtain energy generation.
Rew RS, Saz HJ. Enzyme Localization in the Anaerobic Mitochondria Of Ascaris Lumbricoides. The Journal Of Cell Biology 1974; 63: 125-135. jcb.rupress.org

Mitochondrial redox status

Tumor cells are characterized by accelerated growth usually accompanied by up-regulated pathways that ultimately increase the rate of ATP production. These cells can suffer metabolic reprogramming, resulting in distinct bioenergetic phenotypes, generally enhancing glycolysis channeled to lactate production. These investigators showed metabolic reprogramming by means of inhibitors of histone deacetylase (HDACis), sodium butyrate and trichostatin. This treatment was able to shift energy metabolism by activating mitochondrial systems such as the respiratory chain and oxidative phosphorylation that were largely repressed in the untreated controls.
Amoêdo ND, Rodrigues MF, Pezzuto P, Galina A, et al. Energy Metabolism in H460 Lung Cancer Cells: Effects of Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors. PLoS ONE 2011; 6(7): e22264. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0022264
Antioxidant pathways that rely on NADPH are needed for the reduction of glutathione and maintenance of proper redox status. The mitochondrial matrix protein isocitrate dehydrogenase 2 (IDH2) is a major source of NADPH. NAD+-dependent deacetylase SIRT3 is essential for the prevention of age related hearing loss of caloric restricted mice. Oxidative stress resistance by SIRT3 was mediated through IDH2. Inserting SIRT3 Nε-acetyl-lysine into position 413 of IDH2 and has an activity loss by as much as 44-fold. Deacetylation by SIRT3 fully restored maximum IDH2 activity. The ability of SIRT3 to protect cells from oxidative stress was dependent on IDH2, and the deacetylated mimic, IDH2K413R variant was able to protect Sirt3-/- MEFs from oxidative stress through increased reduced glutathione levels. The increased SIRT3 expression protects cells from oxidative stress through IDH2 activation. Together these results uncover a previously unknown mechanism by which SIRT3 regulates IDH2 under dietary restriction. Recent findings demonstrate that IDH2 activities are a major factor in cancer, and as such, these results implicate SIRT3 as a potential regulator of IDH2-dependent functions in cancer cell metabolism.
Wei Yu, Dittenhafer-Reed KE and JM Denu. SIRT3 Deacetylates Isocitrate Dehydrogenase 2 (IDH2) and Regulates Mitochondrial Redox Status. JBC Papers in Press. Published on March 13, 2012 as Manuscript M112.355206. http://www.jbc.org
Computationally designed drug small molecules targeted for metabolic processes: a bridge from the genome to repair of dysmetabolism
New druglike small molecules with possible anticancer applications were computationally designed. The molecules formed stable complexes with antiapoptotic BCL-2, BCL-W, and BFL-1 proteins. These findings are novel because, to the best of the author’s knowledge, molecules that bind all three of these proteins are not known. A drug based on them should be more economical and better tolerated by patients than a combination of drugs, each targeting a single protein. The calculated drug-related properties of the molecules were similar to those found in most commercial drugs. The molecules were designed and evaluated following a simple, yet effective procedure. The procedure can be used efficiently in the early phases of drug discovery to evaluate promising lead compounds in time- and cost-effective ways.
Keywords: small molecule mimetics, antiapoptotic proteins, computational drug design.

Tardigrades

Tardigrades have unique stress-adaptations that allow them to survive extremes of cold, heat, radiation and vacuum. To study this, encoded protein clusters and pathways from an ongoing transcriptome study on the tardigrade Milnesium tardigradum were analyzed using bioinformatics tools and compared to expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from Hypsibius dujardini, revealing major pathways involved in resistance against extreme environmental conditions. ESTs are available on the Tardigrade Workbench along with software and databank updates. Our analysis reveals that RNA stability motifs for M. tardigradum are different from typical motifs known from higher animals. M. tardigradum and H. dujardini protein clusters and conserved domains imply metabolic storage pathways for glycogen, glycolipids and specific secondary metabolism as well as stress response pathways (including heat shock proteins, bmh2, and specific repair pathways). Redox-, DNA-, stress- and protein protection pathways complement specific repair capabilities to achieve the strong robustness of M. tardigradum. These pathways are partly conserved in other animals and their manipulation could boost stress adaptation even in human cells. However, the unique combination of resistance and repair pathways make tardigrades and M. tardigradum in particular so highly stress resistant.
Keywords: RNA, expressed sequence tag, cluster, protein family, adaptation, tardigrada, transcriptome

Epicrisis

This discussion has disparate pieces that are tied together by dysfunctional changes that are

  • adaptations from metabolic process in the channeling of energy dependent of mitochondrial enzymes in interaction with three to 6 carbon carbohydrates, high energy phosphate, oxygen and membrane lipid structures, as well as
  • proteins rich or poor in sulfur linked with genome specific targets, and semisynthetic modifications, oxidative stress
  • leading to a new approach to pharmaceutical targeted drug design.

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