Related papers: Virus-Encoded Ribonucleotide Reductases
Proliferation of uninfected as well as infected hepatocytes and recycling of DNA-containing capsids are two major mechanisms playing significant roles in the clearance of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. In this study, the temporal…
Transposable elements can be categorised into DNA and RNA elements based on their mechanism of transposition. Tyrosine recombinase elements (YREs) are relatively rare and poorly understood, despite sharing characteristics with both DNA and…
We present a model for the uncoating of the HIV virus driven by forces exerted on the protein shell of HIV generated by DNA confinement.
We develop a systems approach based on an energy-landscape concept to differentiate interactions involving redox activities and conformational changes of proteins and nucleic acids interactions in multi-layered protein-DNA regulatory…
A mutation in a protein-coding gene in DNA can alter the protein structure coded by the same gene. Structurally altered proteins usually lose their functions and sometimes gain an undesirable function instead. These types of mutations and…
The ability of cells to undergo reversible shape changes is often crucial to their survival. For Red Blood Cells (RBCs), irreversible alteration of the cell shape and flexibility often causes anemia. Here we show theoretically that RBCs may…
Photoactive proteins absorb light and undergo structural changes that enable them to perform essential biological functions. These proteins are critical for understanding light-induced biological processes, making them important in…
Proteins are polymerized by cyclic machines called ribosome which use their messenger RNA (mRNA) track also as the corresponding template and the process is called translation. We explore, in depth and detail, the stochastic nature of the…
Reputed intractable, the question of the origin of viruses has long been neglected. In the modern literature 'Virus evolution' has come to refer to study more akin to population genetics, such as the world-wide scrutiny on new polymorphisms…
Background: Sphingolipids - as suggested by the prefix in their name - are mysterious molecules, which play surprisingly various roles in opposable cellular processes, like autophagy, apoptosis, proliferation and differentiation. Recently…
Molecular biology explains function of molecules by their geometrical and electronical structures that are mainly determined by utilization of quantum effects in chemistry. However, further quantum effects are not thought to play any…
Viruses can amplify their genomes following different replication modes (RMs) ranging from the stamping machine replication (SMR) model to the geometric replication (GR) model. Different RMs are expected to produce different evolutionary…
The human body is able to generate a diverse set of high affinity antibodies, the soluble form of B cell receptors (BCRs), that bind to and neutralize invading pathogens. The natural development of BCRs must be understood in order to design…
A kinetic theory is developed for exonuclease-deficient DNA polymerases, based on the experimental observation that the rates depend not only on the newly incorporated nucleotide, but also on the previous one, leading to the growth of…
The twenty protein coding amino acids are found in proteomes with different relative abundances. The most abundant amino acid, leucine, is nearly an order of magnitude more prevalent than the least abundant amino acid, cysteine. Amino acid…
Virophages are viruses that rely on the replication machinery of other viruses to reproduce within eukaryotic hosts. Two different modes of coinfection have been posited based on experimental observation. In one mode, the virophage and…
Recent studies reveal that certain viruses package a portion of their genome in a manner that mirrors the icosahedral symmetry of the protein container, or capsid. Graph theoretical constraints forbid exact realization of icosahedral…
Cells are known to utilize biochemical noise to probabilistically switch between distinct gene expression states. We demonstrate that such noise-driven switching is dominated by tails of probability distributions and is therefore…
The strategic induction of cell death serves as a crucial immune defense mechanism for the eradication of pathogenic infections within host cells. Investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying immunogenic cell pathways has significantly…
Synthesis of protein molecules in a cell are carried out by ribosomes. A ribosome can be regarded as a molecular motor which utilizes the input chemical energy to move on a messenger RNA (mRNA) track that also serves as a template for the…