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Biomolecules
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Biomolecules: Insights from Single Molecule, Single Cell, and Systems Biology...
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Biomolecules: Insights from Single Molecule, Single Cell, and Systems Biology Perspectives

A special issue of Biomolecules (ISSN 2218-273X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 October 2018) | Viewed by 37647

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Prakash Kulkarni

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Guest Editor
Department of Medical Oncology, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA, USA
Interests: cancer systems biology; evolution; non-genetic mechanisms; intrinsically disordered proteins
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Vladimir N. Uversky

grade E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Molecular Medicine, USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Research Institute, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, 12901 Bruce B. Downs Blvd, MDC07, Tampa, FL 33612, USA
Interests: intrinsically disordered proteins; protein folding; protein misfolding; partially folded proteins; protein aggregation; protein structure; protein function; protein stability; protein biophysics; protein bioinformatics; conformational diseases; protein–ligand interactions; protein–protein interactions; liquid-liquid phase transitions
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Powerful methods to study biomolecules, both qualitatively and quantitatively, are abundant. However, it is now evident that analyzing data derived by averaging signals from many molecules or cells may not yield the whole picture, because the molecules/cells of interest may be in the minority, and, therefore, their behavior may be masked by the majority, or because the dynamics of the populations of the molecules/cells of interest are changing in time. However, advances in technology allow for the manipulation and measurement of single biomolecules in vitro and in vivo, within a live cell, as well as following the dynamic events within the same cell or biomolecule over time. Therefore, these exciting approaches offer powerful new ways to elucidate biological function, both in terms of revealing mechanisms of action on a molecular level, as well as tracking the behaviour of molecules in living cells or for that matter of individual cells in a population.

In contrast to the single molecule approach, systems biology is the study of biological systems which are nonlinear systems; their behavior cannot be reduced to the linear sum of functions of their parts. Although systems biology does not necessarily involve large numbers of components or big data, it requires quantitative modelling methods from physics. This approach has unequivocally demonstrated that, a single cell is inherently ‘noisy’. Such biological ‘noise’ stems from the heterogeneity of the responses of individual cells in an isogenic population and plays an important role in governing the state of the cell over time. Therefore, the states of two seemingly identical cells may be different in the same environment and the behavior of the population average may not correspond to any of the individual cells. These developments represent completely new ideas and concepts that were foreign to most biologists just a few years ago. This Special Issue provides a comprehensive view of these new ideas and developments underscoring the need to embrace this new, more quantitative, thinking to fully appreciate how biomolecules work.

Dr. Prakash Kulkarni
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vladimir N. Uversky
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biomolecules is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 3624 KiB  
Article
Furanoid F-Acid F6 Uniquely Induces NETosis Compared to C16 and C18 Fatty Acids in Human Neutrophils
by Meraj A. Khan, Cecil Pace-Asciak, Jassim M. Al-Hassan, Mohammad Afzal, Yuan Fang Liu, Sosamma Oommen, Bincy M. Paul, Divya Nair and Nades Palaniyar
Biomolecules 2018, 8(4), 144; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom8040144 - 13 Nov 2018
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 5503
Abstract
Various biomolecules induce neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation or NETosis. However, the effect of fatty acids on NETosis has not been clearly established. In this study, we focused on the NETosis-inducing ability of several lipid molecules. We extracted the lipid molecules present in [...] Read more.
Various biomolecules induce neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation or NETosis. However, the effect of fatty acids on NETosis has not been clearly established. In this study, we focused on the NETosis-inducing ability of several lipid molecules. We extracted the lipid molecules present in Arabian Gulf catfish (Arius bilineatus, Val) skin gel, which has multiple therapeutic activities. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis of the lipid fraction-3 from the gel with NETosis-inducing activity contained fatty acids including a furanoid F-acid (F6; 12,15-epoxy-13,14-dimethyleicosa-12,14-dienoic acid) and common long-chain fatty acids such as palmitic acid (PA; C16:0), palmitoleic acid (PO; C16:1), stearic acid (SA; C18:0), and oleic acid (OA; C18:1). Using pure molecules, we show that all of these fatty acids induce NETosis to different degrees in a dose-dependent fashion. Notably, F6 induces a unique form of NETosis that is rapid and induces reactive oxygen species (ROS) production by both NADPH oxidase (NOX) and mitochondria. F6 also induces citrullination of histone. By contrast, the common fatty acids (PA, PO, SA, and OA) only induce NOX-dependent NETosis. The activation of the kinases such as ERK (extracellular signal-regulated kinase) and JNK (c-Jun N-terminal kinase) is important for long-chain fatty acid-induced NETosis, whereas, in F-acid-induced NETosis, Akt is additionally needed. Nevertheless, NETosis induced by all of these compounds requires the final chromatin decondensation step of transcriptional firing. These findings are useful for understanding F-acid- and other fatty acid-induced NETosis and to establish the active ingredients with therapeutic potential for regulating diseases involving NET formation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomolecules: Insights from Single Molecule, Single Cell, and Systems Biology Perspectives)
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20 pages, 3815 KiB  
Article
Probing the Occurrence of Soluble Oligomers through Amyloid Aggregation Scaling Laws
by Alexandra Silva, Zsuzsa Sárkány, Joana S. Fraga, Pablo Taboada, Sandra Macedo-Ribeiro and Pedro M. Martins
Biomolecules 2018, 8(4), 108; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom8040108 - 4 Oct 2018
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4032
Abstract
Drug discovery frequently relies on the kinetic analysis of physicochemical reactions that are at the origin of the disease state. Amyloid fibril formation has been extensively investigated in relation to prevalent and rare neurodegenerative diseases, but thus far no therapeutic solution has directly [...] Read more.
Drug discovery frequently relies on the kinetic analysis of physicochemical reactions that are at the origin of the disease state. Amyloid fibril formation has been extensively investigated in relation to prevalent and rare neurodegenerative diseases, but thus far no therapeutic solution has directly arisen from this knowledge. Other aggregation pathways producing smaller, hard-to-detect soluble oligomers are increasingly appointed as the main reason for cell toxicity and cell-to-cell transmissibility. Here we show that amyloid fibrillation kinetics can be used to unveil the protein oligomerization state. This is illustrated for human insulin and ataxin-3, two model proteins for which the amyloidogenic and oligomeric pathways are well characterized. Aggregation curves measured by the standard thioflavin-T (ThT) fluorescence assay are shown to reflect the relative composition of protein monomers and soluble oligomers measured by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) for human insulin, and by dynamic light scattering (DLS) for ataxin-3. Unconventional scaling laws of kinetic measurables were explained using a single set of model parameters consisting of two rate constants, and in the case of ataxin-3, an additional order-of-reaction. The same fitted parameters were used in a discretized population balance that adequately describes time-course measurements of fibril size distributions. Our results provide the opportunity to study oligomeric targets using simple, high-throughput compatible, biophysical assays. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomolecules: Insights from Single Molecule, Single Cell, and Systems Biology Perspectives)
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9 pages, 2716 KiB  
Communication
Lnc-EPB41-Protein Interactions Associated with Congenital Pouch Colon
by Sonal Gupta, Nidhi Gupta, Pradeep Tiwari, Saji Menon, Praveen Mathur, Shanker Lal Kothari, Sivaramaiah Nallapeta, Krishna Mohan Medicherla and Prashanth Suravajhala
Biomolecules 2018, 8(3), 95; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom8030095 - 17 Sep 2018
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 5682
Abstract
Congenital Pouch Colon (CPC) is a rare anorectal anomaly common to northwestern India, specifically Rajasthan. Despite efforts to understand the clinical genetic makeup of CPC, no attempt on identifying non-coding RNAs was done. We have earlier reported CPC’s rare variants from whole exome [...] Read more.
Congenital Pouch Colon (CPC) is a rare anorectal anomaly common to northwestern India, specifically Rajasthan. Despite efforts to understand the clinical genetic makeup of CPC, no attempt on identifying non-coding RNAs was done. We have earlier reported CPC’s rare variants from whole exome sequencing (WES) across 18 affected samples in a total of 64 subjects. A Smith–Waterman algorithm was used to infer a couple of lncRNAs from WES samples of CPC with predictions from the Noncode database. Further screening and quantification using polymerase chain reaction (PCR), we ascertained interactions using Micro Scale Thermophoresis (MST). We report the role of lnc-EPB41-1-1 shown to be promiscuously interacting with KIF13A substantiating their role in regulation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomolecules: Insights from Single Molecule, Single Cell, and Systems Biology Perspectives)
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14 pages, 8772 KiB  
Article
Understanding the Positional Binding and Substrate Interaction of a Highly Thermostable GH10 Xylanase from Thermotoga maritima by Molecular Docking
by Jiangke Yang and Zhenggang Han
Biomolecules 2018, 8(3), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom8030064 - 30 Jul 2018
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 4831
Abstract
Glycoside hydrolase family 10 (GH10) xylanases are responsible for enzymatic cleavage of the internal glycosidic linkages of the xylan backbone, to generate xylooligosaccharides (XOS) and xyloses. The topologies of active-site cleft determine the substrate preferences and product profiles of xylanases. In this study, [...] Read more.
Glycoside hydrolase family 10 (GH10) xylanases are responsible for enzymatic cleavage of the internal glycosidic linkages of the xylan backbone, to generate xylooligosaccharides (XOS) and xyloses. The topologies of active-site cleft determine the substrate preferences and product profiles of xylanases. In this study, positional bindings and substrate interactions of TmxB, one of the most thermostable xylanases characterized from Thermotoga maritima to date, was investigated by docking simulations. XOS with backbone lengths of two to five (X2–X5) were docked into the active-site cleft of TmxB by AutoDock The modeled complex structures provided a series of snapshots of the interactions between XOS and TmxB. Changes in binding energy with the length of the XOS backbone indicated the existence of four effective subsites in TmxB. The interaction patterns at subsites −2 to +1 in TmxB were conserved among GH10 xylanases whereas those at distal aglycone subsite +2, consisting of the hydrogen bond network, was unique for TmxB. This work helps in obtaining an in-depth understanding of the substrate-binding property of TmxB and provides a basis for rational design of mutants with desired product profiles. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomolecules: Insights from Single Molecule, Single Cell, and Systems Biology Perspectives)
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Review

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19 pages, 3111 KiB  
Review
Bio-Molecular Applications of Recent Developments in Optical Tweezers
by Dhawal Choudhary, Alessandro Mossa, Milind Jadhav and Ciro Cecconi
Biomolecules 2019, 9(1), 23; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom9010023 - 11 Jan 2019
Cited by 66 | Viewed by 10096
Abstract
In the past three decades, the ability to optically manipulate biomolecules has spurred a new era of medical and biophysical research. Optical tweezers (OT) have enabled experimenters to trap, sort, and probe cells, as well as discern the structural dynamics of proteins and [...] Read more.
In the past three decades, the ability to optically manipulate biomolecules has spurred a new era of medical and biophysical research. Optical tweezers (OT) have enabled experimenters to trap, sort, and probe cells, as well as discern the structural dynamics of proteins and nucleic acids at single molecule level. The steady improvement in OT’s resolving power has progressively pushed the envelope of their applications; there are, however, some inherent limitations that are prompting researchers to look for alternatives to the conventional techniques. To begin with, OT are restricted by their one-dimensional approach, which makes it difficult to conjure an exhaustive three-dimensional picture of biological systems. The high-intensity trapping laser can damage biological samples, a fact that restricts the feasibility of in vivo applications. Finally, direct manipulation of biological matter at nanometer scale remains a significant challenge for conventional OT. A significant amount of literature has been dedicated in the last 10 years to address the aforementioned shortcomings. Innovations in laser technology and advances in various other spheres of applied physics have been capitalized upon to evolve the next generation OT systems. In this review, we elucidate a few of these developments, with particular focus on their biological applications. The manipulation of nanoscopic objects has been achieved by means of plasmonic optical tweezers (POT), which utilize localized surface plasmons to generate optical traps with enhanced trapping potential, and photonic crystal optical tweezers (PhC OT), which attain the same goal by employing different photonic crystal geometries. Femtosecond optical tweezers (fs OT), constructed by replacing the continuous wave (cw) laser source with a femtosecond laser, promise to greatly reduce the damage to living samples. Finally, one way to transcend the one-dimensional nature of the data gained by OT is to couple them to the other large family of single molecule tools, i.e., fluorescence-based imaging techniques. We discuss the distinct advantages of the aforementioned techniques as well as the alternative experimental perspective they provide in comparison to conventional OT. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomolecules: Insights from Single Molecule, Single Cell, and Systems Biology Perspectives)
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17 pages, 1091 KiB  
Review
Combining Optical Approaches with Human Inducible Pluripotent Stem Cells in G Protein-Coupled Receptor Drug Screening and Development
by Kyla Bourque, Jace Jones-Tabah, Nourhen Mnasri, Ryan D. Martin and Terence E. Hébert
Biomolecules 2018, 8(4), 180; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom8040180 - 18 Dec 2018
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 5697
Abstract
Drug discovery for G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) stands at an interesting juncture. Screening programs are slowly moving away from model heterologous cell systems such as human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells to more relevant cellular, tissue and whole animal platforms. Investigators are now [...] Read more.
Drug discovery for G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) stands at an interesting juncture. Screening programs are slowly moving away from model heterologous cell systems such as human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells to more relevant cellular, tissue and whole animal platforms. Investigators are now developing analytical approaches as means to undertake different aspects of drug discovery by scaling into increasingly more relevant models all the way down to the single cell level. Such approaches include cellular, tissue slice and whole animal models where biosensors that track signaling events and receptor conformational profiles can be used. Here, we review aspects of biosensor-based imaging approaches that might be used in inducible pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) and organoid models, and focus on how such models must be characterized in order to apply them in drug screening. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomolecules: Insights from Single Molecule, Single Cell, and Systems Biology Perspectives)
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