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J Gervay

Publications and source records attributed to J Gervay.

3 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Utilization of ELISA technology to measure biological activities of carbohydrates relevant in disease status.

Since its discovery in 1960, ELISA technology has been utilized in an increasing number of biological and biochemical investigations. It has proven to be one of the most powerful tools available for probing recognition processes involving protein/protein, protein/glycoprotein, protein/glycolipid and glycoprotein/glycolipid interactions. This review begins with an introduction that provides an historical perspective on the development of ELISA followed by a description of the different classifications of this assay. One of the fundamental elements of ELISA is the adhesion of a molecule of interest to a solid support, generally a microtiter plate. Recent developments in the area of adhesion and adsorption are also presented. Although ELISA has been used most extensively in studying protein/protein interactions, in the past 10 years there have been a number of advances in ELISA technology that have allowed recognition processes involving carbohydrates to be studied. This review focuses on the use of ELISA in investigating diseases where carbohydrate recognition processes are implicated. Since studies related to the HIV virus have provided a major impetus for the advancement of ELISA technology, this area of research is highlighted.

Carbohydrate Sequence↗
PubMed1997

Computational studies of sialyllactones: methods and uses.

N-Acetylneuraminic acid (1) is a common sugar in many biological recognition processes. Neuraminidase enzymes recognize and cleave terminal sialic acids from cell surfaces. Viral entry into host cells requires neuraminidase activity, thus inhibition of neuraminidase is a useful strategy for development of drugs for viral infections. A recent crystal structure for influenza viral neuraminidase with sialic acid bound shows that the sialic acid is in a boat conformation [Prot Struct Funct Genet 14: 327 (1992)]. Our studies seek to determine if structural pre-organization can be achieved through the use of sialyllactones. Determination of whether siallylactones are pre-organized in a binding conformation requires conformational analysis. Our inability to find a systematic study comparing the results obtained by various computational methods for carbohydrate modeling led us to compare two different conformational analysis techniques, four different force fields, and three different solvent models. The computational models were compared based on their ability to reproduce experimental coupling constants for sialic acid, sialyl-1,4-lactone, and sialyl-1,7-lactone derivatives. This study has shown that the MM3 forcefield using the implicit solvent model for water implemented in Macromodel best reproduces the experimental coupling constants. The low-energy conformations generated by this combination of computational methods are pre-organized toward conformations which fit well into the active site of neuraminidase.

Computer Simulation↗