(Press-News.org) In an advance that could be used in masks to protect against nerve gas, scientists are reporting development of proteins that are up to 15,000 times more effective than their natural counterpart in destroying chemical warfare agents. Their report appears in ACS' journal Biochemistry.
Frank Raushel, David Barondeau and colleagues explain that a soil bacterium makes a protein called phosphotriesterase (PTE), which is an enzyme that detoxifies some pesticides and chemical warfare agents like sarin and tabun. PTE thus has potential uses in protecting soldiers and others. Natural PTE, however, works against only one of the two molecular forms of these chemical warfare agents, and it happens to be the less toxic form. The scientists thus set out to develop new versions of PTE that were more effective against the most toxic form.
To improve the enzyme's activity, Raushel and colleagues used an approach called "directed evolution." This technique imitates the way natural selection leads to improved forms of the biochemical substances in living things. In using directed evolution, the team made small random changes to the natural enzyme's chemical architecture and then tested resulting mutant enzymes for their ability to break down nerve agents. They isolated several mutants that fit the bill, including one that proved to be 15,000 times more effective than the natural enzyme.
###
The authors acknowledge funding from the National Institutes of Health.
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 164,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.
New substances 15,000 times more effective in destroying chemical warfare agents
2012-08-08
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Study finds US among few NATO nations that use animals for military training
2012-08-08
A new study published in the August 2012 issue of Military Medicine, the journal of the Association of Military Surgeons of the U.S., reveals that 22 of 28 NATO nations do not use animal laboratories for military medical training.
Researchers from PETA, in collaboration with current and former military medical personnel, surveyed officials in all 28 NATO nations during 2010 and 2011. Twenty-two NATO countries—including Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the ...
Why do older adults display more positive emotion? It might have to do with what they’re looking at
2012-08-08
Research has shown that older adults display more positive emotions and are quicker to regulate out of negative emotional states than younger adults. Given the declines in cognitive functioning and physical health that tend to come with age, we might expect that age would be associated with worse moods, not better ones.
So what explains older adults' positive mood regulation?
In a new article in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researcher Derek Isaacowitz of Northeastern University ...
New study finds clients want real love from sex workers
2012-08-08
Los Angeles, CA (August 8, 2012) — While it is commonly believed that men who pay for sex are attempting to avoid emotional commitment, a new study finds that men who become regular clients of sex workers often develop feelings of romance and love. This study is published in a recent edition of Men and Masculinities, a SAGE journal.
"In recent years, we have come to see a gradual normalization of independent escort prostitution, where sexual encounters have come to resemble quasi-dating relationships," stated study author Christine Milrod. "Our study shows that regular ...
Alcohol advertising standards violations most common in magazines with youthful audiences
2012-08-08
The content of alcohol ads placed in magazines is more likely to be in violation of industry guidelines if the ad appears in a magazine with sizable youth readership, according to a new study from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, the study is the first to measure the relationship of problematic content to youth exposure, and the first to examine risky behaviors depicted in alcohol advertising in the past decade.
The researchers examined 1,261 ads for ...
Physics and math shed new light on biology by mapping the landscape of evolution
2012-08-08
Although the qualitative description of evolution – its observed behavior and characteristics – is well-established, a comprehensive quantitative theory that captures general evolution dynamics is still lacking. There are also many lingering mysteries surrounding the story of life on Earth, including the question of why sex is such a prevalent reproductive strategy. A team of scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Jilin University in Jilin, China; and the State University of New York at Stony Brook, led by Prof. Jin Wang, has examined some of these puzzles from ...
Clemson researchers collect and reuse enzymes while maintaining bioactivity
2012-08-08
CLEMSON — Clemson University researchers are collecting and harvesting enzymes while maintaining the enzyme's bioactivity. Their work, a new model system that may impact cancer research, is published in the journal Small.
Enzymes are round proteins produced by living organisms that increase the rate of chemical reactions.
"We found a robust and simple way of attracting specific enzymes, concentrating them and reusing them," said Stephen Foulger, professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Clemson. "The enzymes are still functional after being harvested."
Isolating ...
New tools and techniques enhance laparoscopic gallbladder removal
2012-08-08
New Rochelle, NY, August 8, 2012—Laparoscopic management of gallbladder disease offers a less invasive alternative to open surgery. Surgical outcomes continue to improve as new techniques and tools become available for performing laparoscopic gallbladder surgery, and these advances are highlighted in "Advances in Cholecystectomy Surgery (http://online.liebertpub.com/toc/lap/22/6)," a comprehensive special issue of Journal of Laparoendoscopic & Advanced Surgical Techniques (JLAST), a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com). ...
New phenomenon in nanodisk magnetic vortices
2012-08-08
The phenomenon in ferromagnetic nanodisks of magnetic vortices
– hurricanes of magnetism only a few atoms across – has generated intense interest in the high-tech community because of the potential application of these vortices in non-volatile Random Access Memory (RAM) data storage systems. New findings from scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) indicate that the road to magnetic vortex RAM might be more difficult to navigate than previously supposed, but there might be unexpected rewards as well.
In ...
TRPM7 protein key to breast cancer metastasis in animal models
2012-08-08
PHILADELPHIA — The protein transient receptor potential melastatin-like 7 (TRPM7) is a critical determinant of breast cancer cell metastasis, according to study results published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
"The most important discovery that we report in this paper is that TRPM7 is required for metastasis, at least in a xenograft model of breast cancer metastasis," said Frank van Leeuwen, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Radbound University Medical Center in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. "While this fundamental biological ...
Cholesterol levels appear to be improving among US youths
2012-08-08
CHICAGO – In a study involving more than 16,000 U.S. children and adolescents, there has been a decrease in average total cholesterol levels over the past 2 decades, although almost 1 in 10 had elevated total cholesterol in 2007-2010, according to a study in the August 8 issue of JAMA.
"The process of atherosclerosis begins during childhood and is associated with adverse serum lipid concentrations including high concentrations of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (non-HDL-C), and triglycerides, and low concentrations ...