随着功能基因组研究的不断深入以及蛋白质组研究的迅速崛起,核酸与蛋白质之间的相互作用研究已得到了广泛的关注.近年来利用指数级富集配体系统进化技术(Systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment,SELEX)研究人员已经筛选出许多与蛋白等靶分子特异性结合的核酸配基,并将这种能与有机物或蛋白质等靶分子专一、高效结合的RNA或DNA片段称之为适体(aptamer).
Acousto-optic modulation of the femtosecond laser beam has wide potential in various fields such as microscopic imaging, micromachining and optical storage because of its rapidity, high accuracy and good repeatability. This paper reviews the latest research on acousto-optic modulation of femtosecond laser, describes the effects of spatial and temporal dispersion of such lasers after acousto-optic modulation, introduces the theoretical outcomes on pulse width evolution of the Gaussian laser pulses after acousto-optic modulation, discusses the characteristics of contemporary dispersion-compensating techniques for the acousto-optic modulation of femtosecond laser, and finally refers to the challenges of this technique.
HtrA2/Omi is a mammalian mitochondrial serine protease, and was found to have dual roles in mam- malian cells, not only acting as an apoptosis-inducing protein but also maintaining mitochondrial ho- meostasis. PDZ domain is one of the most important protein-protein interaction modules and is in- volved in a variety of important cellular functions, such as signal transduction, degradation of proteins, and formation of cytoskeleton. Recently, it was reported that the PDZ domain of HtrA2/Omi might regulate proteolytic activity through its interactions with ligand proteins. In this study, we rapidly characterized the binding properties of HtrA2/Omi PDZ domain by validation screening of the PDZ ligand library with yeast two-hybrid approach. Then, we predicted its novel ligand proteins in human proteome and reconfirmed them in the yeast two-hybrid system. Finally, we analyzed the smallest networks bordered by the shortest path length between the protein pairs of novel interactions to evaluate the confidence of the identified interactions. The results revealed some novel binding proper- ties of HtrA2/Omi PDZ domain. Besides the reported Class II PDZ motif, it also binds to Class I and Class III motifs, and exhibits restricted variability at P?3, which means that the P?3 residue is selected according to the composition of the last three residues. Seven novel ligand proteins of HtrA2/Omi PDZ domain were discovered, providing significant clues for further clarifying the roles of HtrA2/Omi. Moreover, this study proves the high efficiency and practicability of the newly developed validation screening of candidate ligand library method for binding property characterization of peptide-binding domains.
