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Chenyang Zhan

Publications and source records attributed to Chenyang Zhan.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Molecular modeling of purinergic receptor P2Y12 and interaction with its antagonists.

Purinergic receptors are a class of cell surface receptors for purines that prefer ATP or ADP over adenosine. The surface receptors for extracellular nucleotides are called P2 receptors. They are activated by both pyrimidine and purine nucleotides. ADP initiates platelet aggregation by 'simultaneous activation of two G protein-coupled receptors, P2Y1 and P2Y12. P2Y12 has been shown to be the target of the thienopyridine drugs, ticlopidine and clopidogrel. Here, the active sites of P2Y12 for ATP as well as ADP are predicted by bioinformatics and molecular modeling. First, the three-dimensional (3D) structure of P2Y12 was constructed by InsightII/Homology module using the corresponding bovine rhodopsin (PDB code: 1HZX) as the template. Then the primary structures were optimized by energy minimization that has been successfully accepted by the Protein Data Bank (PDB code: 1VZ1). Second, a simple scoring matrix was built up based on the analysis of 13 known ATP-binding proteins. And the most probable active sites of P2Y12 were predicted using the scoring matrix, which include three distant areas: "head area" (LGTGPLRTFV, 87-96), "middle area" (VGLITNGLAM, 38-47, and LGAKILSVVI, 139-148), and "bottom area" (RTRGVGKVPR, 222-231). Subsequently the structural model of P2Y12 was docked with ATP/ADP in comparison with P2Y1 (PDB code 1ddd). As a comparison, we docked its antagonists, such as ticlopidine and clopidogrel, to the most probable sites and calculated their intermolecular energy. Our results imply that P2Y12 has the potential to be inhibited by ADP/ATP analogs, and it suggests that P2Y12 acts as a target of new drugs that inhibit platelet aggregation.

Adenosine Diphosphate↗

The ybeY protein from Escherichia coli is a metalloprotein.

The three-dimensional crystallographic structure of the ybeY protein from Escherichia coli (SwissProt entry P77385) is reported at 2.7 A resolution. YbeY is a hypothetical protein that belongs to the UPF0054 family. The structure reveals that the protein binds a metal ion in a tetrahedral geometry. Three coordination sites are provided by histidine residues, while the fourth might be a water molecule that is not seen in the diffraction map because of its relatively low resolution. X-ray fluorescence analysis of the purified protein suggests that the metal is a nickel ion. The structure of ybeY and its sequence similarity to a number of predicted metal-dependent hydrolases provides a functional assignment for this protein family. The figures and tables of this paper were prepared using semi-automated tools, termed the Autopublish server, developed by the New York Structural GenomiX Research Consortium, with the goal of facilitating the rapid publication of crystallographic structures that emanate from worldwide Structural Genomics efforts, including the NIH-funded Protein Structure Initiative.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Design of recombinant stem cell factor-macrophage colony stimulating factor fusion proteins and their biological activity in vitro.

Stem cell factor (SCF) and macrophage colony stimulating factor (M-CSF) can act in synergistic way to promote the growth of mononuclear phagocytes. SCF-M-CSF fusion proteins were designed on the computer using the Homology and Biopolymer modules of the software packages InsightII. Several existing crystal structures were used as templates to generate models of the complexes of receptor with fusion protein. The structure rationality of the fusion protein incorporated a series of flexible linker peptide was analyzed on InsightII system. Then, a suitable peptide GGGGSGGGGSGG was chosen for the fusion protein. Two recombinant SCF-M-CSF fusion proteins were generated by construction of a plasmid in which the coding regions of human SCF (1-165aa) and M-CSF (1-149aa) cDNA were connected by this linker peptide coding sequence followed by subsequent expression in insect cell. The results of Western blot and activity analysis showed that these two recombinant fusion proteins existed as a dimer with a molecular weight of approximately 84 KD under non-reducing conditions and a monomer of approximately 42 KD at reducing condition. The results of cell proliferation assays showed that each fusion protein induced a dose-dependent proliferative response. At equimolar concentration, SCF/M-CSF was about 20 times more potent than the standard monomeric SCF in stimulating TF-1 cell line growth, while M-CSF/SCF was 10 times of monomeric SCF. No activity difference of M-CSF/SCF or SCF/M-CSF to M-CSF (at same molar) was found in stimulating the HL-60 cell linear growth. The synergistic effect of SCF and M-CSF moieties in the fusion proteins was demonstrated by the result of clonogenic assay performed with human bone mononuclear, in which both SCF/M-CSF and M-CSF/SCF induced much higher number of CFU-M than equimolar amount of SCF or M-CSF or that of two cytokines mixture.

Animals↗

Metalloproteomics: high-throughput structural and functional annotation of proteins in structural genomics.

A high-throughput method for measuring transition metal content based on quantitation of X-ray fluorescence signals was used to analyze 654 proteins selected as targets by the New York Structural GenomiX Research Consortium. Over 10% showed the presence of transition metal atoms in stoichiometric amounts; these totals as well as the abundance distribution are similar to those of the Protein Data Bank. Bioinformatics analysis of the identified metalloproteins in most cases supported the metalloprotein annotation; identification of the conserved metal binding motif was also shown to be useful in verifying structural models of the proteins. Metalloproteomics provides a rapid structural and functional annotation for these sequences and is shown to be approximately 95% accurate in predicting the presence or absence of stoichiometric metal content. The project's goal is to assay at least 1 member from each Pfam family; approximately 500 Pfam families have been characterized with respect to transition metal content so far.

Binding Sites↗