• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.21.1-21.14
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• 2023

Fusobacterium nucleatum is a gram-negative bacteria associated with diverse infections like appendicitis and colorectal cancer. It mainly attacks the epithelial cells in the oral cavity and throat of the infected individual. It has a single circular genome of 2.7 Mb. Many proteins in F. nucleatum genome are listed as "Uncharacterized." Annotation of these proteins is crucial for obtaining new facts about the pathogen and deciphering the gene regulation, functions, and pathways along with discovery of novel target proteins. In the light of new genomic information, an armoury of bioinformatic tools were used for predicting the physicochemical parameters, domain and motif search, pattern search, and localization of the uncharacterized proteins. The programs such as receiver operating characteristics determine the efficacy of the databases that have been employed for prediction of different parameters at 83.6%. Functions were successfully assigned to 46 uncharacterized proteins which included enzymes, transporter proteins, membrane proteins, binding proteins, etc. Apart from the function prediction, the proteins were also subjected to string analysis to reveal the interacting partners. The annotated proteins were also put through homology-based structure prediction and modeling using Swiss PDB and Phyre2 servers. Two probable virulent factors were also identified which could be investigated further for potential drug-related studies. The assigning of functions to uncharacterized proteins has shown that some of these proteins are important for cell survival inside the host and can act as effective drug targets.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.3.1-3.10
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• 2023

Characterization as well as prediction of the secondary and tertiary structure of hypothetical proteins from their amino acid sequences uploaded in databases by in silico approach are the critical issues in computational biology. Severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV), which is responsible for pneumonia alike diseases, possesses a wide range of proteins of which many are still uncharacterized. The current study was conducted to reveal the physicochemical characteristics and structures of an uncharacterized protein Q6S8D9_SARS of SARS-CoV. Following the common flowchart of characterizing a hypothetical protein, several sophisticated computerized tools e.g., ExPASy Protparam, CD Search, SOPMA, PSIPRED, HHpred, etc. were employed to discover the functions and structures of Q6S8D9_SARS. After delineating the secondary and tertiary structures of the protein, some quality evaluating tools e.g., PROCHECK, ProSA-web etc. were performed to assess the structures and later the active site was identified also by CASTp v.3.0. The protein contains more negatively charged residues than positively charged residues and a high aliphatic index value which make the protein more stable. The 2D and 3D structures modeled by several bioinformatics tools ensured that the proteins had domain in it which indicated it was functional protein having the ability to trouble host antiviral inflammatory cytokine and interferon production pathways. Moreover, active site was found in the protein where ligand could bind. The study was aimed to unveil the features and structures of an uncharacterized protein of SARS-CoV which can be a therapeutic target for development of vaccines against the virus. Further research are needed to accomplish the task.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.248-253
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• 2005

AfsR2, originally identified from Streptomyces lividans, is a global regulatory protein which stimulates antibiotic biosynthesis. Through its stable chromosomal integration, the high level of gene expression of afsR2 significantly induced antibiotic production as well as the sporulation of S. lividans, implying the presence of yet-uncharacterized AfsR2-target proteins. To identify and evaluate the putative AfsR2-target proteins involved in antibiotic regulation, the proteomics-driven approach was applied to the wild-type S. lividans and the afsR2-integrated actinorhodin overproducing strain. The 20 gel-electrophoresis gave approximately 340 protein spots showing different protein expression patterns between these two S. lividans strains. Further MALDI-TOF analysis revealed several AfsR2-target proteins, including glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, putative phosphate transport system regulator, guanosine penta phosphate synthetase/polyribonucleotide nucleotidyltransferase, and superoxide dismutase, which suggests that the AfsR2 should be a pleiotropic regulatory protein which controls differential expressions of various kinds of genes in Streptomyces species.

• BMB Reports
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• v.49 no.11
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• pp.629-634
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• 2016

Transmembrane and coiled-coil domain family 3 (TMCC3) has been reported to be expressed in the human brain; however, its function is still unknown. Here, we found that expression of TMCC3 is higher in human whole brain, testis and spinal cord compared to other human tissues. TMCC3 was expressed in mouse developing hind brain, lung, kidney and somites, with strongest expression in the mesenchyme of developing tongue. By expression of recombinant TMCC3 and its deletion mutants, we found that TMCC3 proteins self-assemble to oligomerize. Immunostaining and confocal microscopy data revealed that TMCC3 proteins are localized in endoplasmic reticulum through transmembrane domains. Based on immunoprecipitation and mass spectroscopy data, TMCC3 proteins associate with TMCC3 and 14-3-3 proteins. This supports the idea that TMCC3 proteins form oligomers and that 14-3-3 may be involved in the function of TMCC3. Taken together, these results may be useful for better understanding of uncharacterized function of TMCC3.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.521-526
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• 2009

Irradiation of egg white increased foaming ability significantly. To investigate the protein modification by irradiation responsible for the increase of foaming ability, 3 major egg white proteins were purchased and mixed (7.7 g/L ovalbumin, 1.8 g/L ovotransferrin, 0.5 g/L lysozyme) as a model system and irradiated at 0, 2.5, and 5 kGy. The different protein expressions were evaluated using 2-D electrophoresis and it was found that ovotransferrin was cleaved by irradiation and molecular weight and isoelectric point were changed. In addition, many uncharacterized proteins were found and it indicated that irradiation modified proteins randomly but mainly fragmentation was observed. Therefore, it can be concluded that protein fragmentation of 3 major egg white proteins responsible for foaming ability may be the main reason for the improvement of foaming ability.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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• 2002.06a
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• pp.5-23
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• 2002

Motivation: Protein-protein interaction plays a critical role in the biological processes. The identification of interacting proteins by bioinformatical methods can provide new lead In the functional studies of uncharacterized proteins without performing extensive experiments. Results: Protein-protein interactions are predicted by a computational algorithm based on the weighted scoring system for domain interactions between interacting protein pairs. Here we propose potential interaction domain (PID) pairs can be extracted from a data set of experimentally identified interacting protein pairs. where one protein contains a domain and its interacting protein contains the other. Every combinations of PID are summarized in a matrix table termed the PID matrix, and this matrix has proposed to be used for prediction of interactions. The database of interacting proteins (DIP) has used as a source of interacting protein pairs and InterPro, an integrated database of protein families, domains and functional sites, has used for defining domains in interacting pairs. A statistical scoring system. named "PID matrix score" has designed and applied as a measure of interaction probability between domains. Cross-validation has been performed with subsets of DIP data to evaluate the prediction accuracy of PID matrix. The prediction system gives about 50% of sensitivity and 98% of specificity, Based on the PID matrix, we develop a system providing several interaction information-finding services in the Internet. The system, named PreDIN (Prediction-oriented Database of Interaction Network) provides interacting domain finding services and interacting protein finding services. It is demonstrated that mapping of the genome-wide interaction network can be achieved by using the PreDIN system. This system can be also used as a new tool for functional prediction of unknown proteins.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.121-128
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• 2017

Protozoan viruses may influence the function and pathogenicity of the protozoa. Trichomonas vaginalis is a parasitic protozoan that could contain a double stranded RNA (dsRNA) virus, T. vaginalis virus (TVV). However, there are few reports on the properties of the virus. To further determine variations in protein expression of T. vaginalis, we detected 2 strains of T. vaginalis; the virus-infected ($V^+$) and uninfected ($V^-$) isolates to examine differentially expressed proteins upon TVV infection. Using a stable isotope N-terminal labeling strategy (iTRAQ) on soluble fractions to analyze proteomes, we identified 293 proteins, of which 50 were altered in $V^+$ compared with $V^-$ isolates. The results showed that the expression of 29 proteins was increased, and 21 proteins decreased in $V^+$ isolates. These differentially expressed proteins can be classified into 4 categories: ribosomal proteins, metabolic enzymes, heat shock proteins, and putative uncharacterized proteins. Quantitative PCR was used to detect 4 metabolic processes proteins: glycogen phosphorylase, malate dehydrogenase, triosephosphate isomerase, and glucose-6-phosphate isomerase, which were differentially expressed in $V^+$ and $V^-$ isolates. Our findings suggest that mRNA levels of these genes were consistent with protein expression levels. This study was the first which analyzed protein expression variations upon TVV infection. These observations will provide a basis for future studies concerning the possible roles of these proteins in host-parasite interactions.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.65-70
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• 2011

Development of mouse fetus brains can be defined morphologically and functionally by three developmental stages, embryo day (ED) 16, postnatal stage one week and eight weeks. These defined stages of brain development may be closely associated with differential gene expression rates due to limited cellular resources such as energy, space, and free water. Complex patterns of expressed genes and proteins during brain development suggests the changes in relative concentrations of proteins rather than the increase in numbers of new gene products. This study was designed to evaluate early protein expression pattern in mouse fetus brain. The mouse brain proteome of fetus at ED 15.5, and 19.5 was obtained using 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis (DE). Analysis of the 2-DE gels in pH 3-10 range revealed the presence of 15 differentially expressed spots, of which 11 spots were identified to be known proteins following MALDI-TOF analysis; 3 spots were up-regulated and 8 spots were down-regulated in the mouse fetus brain at ED 15.5. UP-regulated proteins were identified as MCG18238, isoform M2 of pyruvate kinase isozymes M1/M2, isoform 2 of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein K, heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein H2, creatine kinase B-type, 40S ribosomal protein SA and hemoglobin subunit beta-H1. Down-regulated proteins were putative uncharacterized protein, lactoylglutathione lyase and secreted acidic cysteine rich glycoprotein. Our results revealed composite profiles of mouse fetus brain proteins related to mouse fetus development by 2-DE analysis implying possible roles of these proteins in neural differentiation.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetic Resonance Society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.50-54
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• 2017

Cupin-superfamily proteins represent the most functionally diverse groups of proteins and include a huge number of functionally uncharacterized proteins. Recently, YaiE, a cupin protein from Escherichia coli has been suggested to be involved in a novel activity of pyrimidine/purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PPNP). In the present study, we achieved a complete backbone NMR assignments of YaiE, by a series of heteronuclear multidimensional NMR experiments on its [$^{13}C/^{15}N$]-enriched sample. Subsequently, secondary structure analysis using the assigned chemical shift values identified 10 obvious ${\beta}-strands$ and a tentative $3_{10}-helix$. Taken all together, the results constitute the first structural characterization of a putative PPNP cupin protein.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.45.1-45.15
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• 2020

Background: Feline mammary carcinoma is the third most common cancer that affects female cats. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to screen differential serum proteins in feline and clarify the relationship between them and the occurrence of feline mammary carcinoma. Methods: Chinese pastoral cats were used as experimental animals. Six serum samples from cats with mammary carcinoma (group T) and six serum samples from healthy cats (group C) were selected. Differential protein analysis was performed using a Label-free technique, while parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) was performed to verify the screened differential proteins. Results: A total of 82 differential proteins were detected between group T and group C, of which 55 proteins were down regulated and 27 proteins were up regulated. Apolipoprotein A-I, Apolipoprotein A-II (ApoA-II), Apolipoprotein B (ApoB), Apolipoprotein C-III (ApoC-III), coagulation factor V, coagulation factor X, C1q, albumen (ALB) were all associated with the occurrence of feline mammary carcinoma. Differential proteins were involved in a total of 40 signaling pathways, among which the metabolic pathways associated with feline mammary carcinoma were the complement and coagulation cascade and cholesterol metabolism. According to the Label-free results, ApoB, ApoC-III, ApoA-II, FN1, an uncharacterized protein, and ALB were selected for PRM target verification. The results were consistent with the trend of the label-free. Conclusions: This experimen is the first to confirm ApoA-II and ApoB maybe new feline mammary carcinoma biomarkers and to analyze their mechanisms in the development of such carcinoma in feline.