Publications related to The Mouse Eugenol Odorant Receptor: Structural and Functional Plasticity of a Broadly Tuned Odorant Binding Pocket

From Sequence to Dynamics to Function: Computational Design of Allostery and Ligand Selectivity in G-Protein Coupled Receptors

The phenomenon of allostery, a general property in proteins that has been heralded as "the second secret of life" remains elusive to our understanding and even more challenging to incorporate into protein design. One example of allosteric proteins with gre ...

EPFL2024

Dietary L-Glu sensing by enteroendocrine cells adjusts food intake via modulating gut PYY/NPF secretion

Bruno Lemaitre, Zongzhao Zhai

Amino acid availability is monitored by animals to adapt to their nutritional environment. Beyond gustatory receptors and systemic amino acid sensors, enteroendocrine cells (EECs) are believed to directly percept dietary amino acids and secrete regulatory ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Influence of Amino Acid Substitutions in Capsid Proteins of Coxsackievirus B5 on Free Chlorine and Thermal Inactivation

Tamar Kohn, Shotaro Torii, Aleksandar Antanasijevic, Kiruthika Kumar

The sensitivity of enteroviruses to disinfectants varies among genetically similar variants and coincides with amino acid changes in capsid proteins, although the effect of individual substitutions remains unknown. Here, we employed reverse genetics to inv ...

2024

Structural heterogeneity of the ion and lipid channel TMEM16F

Horst Vogel

Transmembrane protein 16 F (TMEM16F) is a Ca2+-activated homodimer which functions as an ion channel and a phospholipid scramblase. Despite the availability of several TMEM16F cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) structures, the mechanism of activation ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Antibodies expand the scope of angiotensin receptor pharmacology

Patrick Daniel Barth, Shuhao Zhang

G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are key regulators of human physiology and are the targets of many small-molecule research compounds and therapeutic drugs. While most of these ligands bind to their target GPCR with high affinity, selectivity is often l ...

2024

A bistable inhibitory optoGPCR for multiplexed optogenetic control of neural circuits

Mauro Pulin

Information is transmitted between brain regions through the release of neurotransmitters from long-range projecting axons. Understanding how the activity of such long-range connections contributes to behavior requires efficient methods for reversibly mani ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Fluorescent fatty acid conjugates for live cell imaging of peroxisomes

Luc Reymond, Manon Sandra Bardyn, Fabien Kuttler, Daria Korotkova, Triana Amen, Milena Maria Schuhmacher

Peroxisomes are eukaryotic organelles that are essential for multiple metabolic pathways, including fatty acid oxidation, degradation of amino acids, and biosynthesis of ether lipids. Consequently, peroxisome dysfunction leads to pediatric-onset neurodegen ...

Nature Research2024

Variants of the gain domain of adhesion g protein-coupled receptors

Louis Georges Baptiste Dumas, Matthieu François Marfoglia, Patrick Daniel Barth

The present invention relates to variants of the GAIN domain (G-protein-coupled receptor autoproteolysis-inducing domain) of an adhesion G protein-coupled receptor (ADGRG), such as a GAIN domain variant comprising or consisting of the amino acid sequence o ...

2023

Overexpression of human alpha-Synuclein leads to dysregulated microbiome/metabolites with ageing in a rat model of Parkinson disease

Yogesh Singh Chauhan, Hilal Lashuel, Florian Lang, Joan Romani Aumedes, Yogesh Singh

Background Braak's hypothesis states that sporadic Parkinson's disease (PD) follows a specific progression of pathology from the peripheral to the central nervous system, and this progression can be monitored by detecting the accumulation of alpha-Synuclei ...

BMC2023

Bioaccumulation and molecular effects of carbamazepine and methylmercury co-exposure in males of Dreissena polymorpha

Dominique Grandjean, Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider, Claudia Cosio, Nguyên Thiên Kim Lê

Dreissena polymorpha is a bivalve promising for biomonitoring in freshwater ecosystems thanks to its abundance and high filtration activity allowing rapid uptake of toxicants and identification of their negative effects. Nonetheless, we still lack knowledg ...

2023

Hypervalent Iodine: New Reagents and Functionalization of Peptides

Eliott Hugo Joran Le Du

Alkynes are found in a multitude of natural or synthetic bioactive compounds. In addition to the capacity of these chemical motifs to impact the physicochemical properties of a molecule of interest, the well-established reactivity of alkynes makes them ide ...

EPFL2023

Synthesis and application of bifunctional hypervalent iodine reagents for peptide modification

Elija Grinhagena

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are responsible for regulating many biological processes in human bodies. PPIs often have a large binding site and often interact through an alpha helical segment. Therefore, the inhibition of PPIs can be difficult using ...

EPFL2023

De novo designed proteins: a study in engineering novel folds and functions

Alexandra Krina Van Hall-Beauvais

Proteins control nearly every facet of life on a molecular level. Proteins are formed from linear strings of amino acids, which fold into three-dimensional structures that can enact functions. Evolution has created highly efficient proteins in diverse fold ...

EPFL2023

Computational Studies for the Design of Metalloenzyme Mimics

Guido Frisari

At present, there is no general standard automated method for engineering metalloenzymes, industrially-relevant systems able to catalyze environmentally friendly reactions. One of the most studied natural metalloenzymes is the second isoform of human carbo ...

EPFL2023

Single-Molecule Peptide Identification Using Fluorescence Blinking Fingerprints

Pablo Rivera Fuentes, Salome Riccarda Püntener

The ability to identify peptides with single-molecule sensitivity would lead to next-generation proteomics methods for basic research and clinical applications. Existing single-molecule peptide sequencing methods can read some amino acid sequences, but the ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2023

Molecular sensitised probe for amino acid recognition within peptide sequences

Klaus Kern, Stephan Rauschenbach, Uta Schlickum, Daniel Pablo Rosenblatt, Sabine Abb, Sebastian Koslowski

The combination of low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy with a mass-selective electro-spray ion-beam deposition established the investigation of large biomolecules at nanometer and sub-nanometer scale. Due to complex architecture and conformation ...

Nature Portfolio2023

A Biallelic Truncating Variant in the TPR Domain of GEMIN5 Associated with Intellectual Disability and Cerebral Atrophy

Nicolas Jean Philippe Guex

GEMIN5 is a multifunctional RNA-binding protein required for the assembly of survival motor neurons. Several bi-allelic truncating and missense variants in this gene are reported to cause a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by cerebellar atrophy, i ...

2023

Screening for drivers of SARS-CoV-2 uptake

Christoph Merten, Alexis Louis Autour

Genetic and cellular drivers of the cellular uptake of SARS-CoV-2 can be screened at high throughput via droplet microfluidics and size-exclusion methods for the analysis of the formation of fusions between cells expressing the virus's spike protein and ce ...

Nature Portfolio2023

Rules and mechanisms governing G protein coupling selectivity of GPCRs

Bruno Emanuel Ferreira De Sousa Correia, Pablo Gainza Cirauqui

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) convert extracellular stimuli into intracellular signaling by coupling to heterotrimeric G proteins of four classes: Gi/o, Gq, Gs, and G12/13. However, our understanding of the G protein selectivity of GPCRs is incomplet ...

Cell Press2023

Unlocking Hidden Potential: Exploring the Complexities of Signaling in Immune Cell Activation to Optimize CAR Therapy

Mathieu Girardin

Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) are synthetic, transmembrane proteins that trigger immune cell signaling following their engagement. They have been first utilized in T cells and later in natural killer (NK) cells to redirect their cytotoxicity toward a s ...

EPFL2023