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Topic Review
Textile Electrodes for Wearable Biopotential Signal Monitoring
The technology of wearable medical equipment has advanced to the point where it is now possible to monitor the electrocardiogram and electromyogram comfortably at home. The transition from wet Ag/AgCl electrodes to various types of gel-free dry electrodes has made it possible to continuously and accurately monitor the biopotential signals. Fabrics or textiles, which were once meant to protect the human body, have undergone significant development and are now employed as intelligent textile materials for healthcare monitoring. The conductive textile electrodes provide the benefit of being breathable and comfortable.
  • 208
  • 11 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Tetraoctylammonium
Alkylammonium salts have been used extensively to study the structure and function of potassium channels. Here, we use the long-chain, hydrophobic tetraoctylammonium (TOA+) to shed light on the structure of the inactivated state of KcsA, a tetrameric prokaryotic potassium channel. By the combined use of a thermal denaturation assay and the analysis of homo-Förster resonance energy transfer in a mutant channel containing a single tryptophan (W67) per subunit, we found that TOA+ binds the channel cavity with high affinity, either with the inner gate open or closed. Moreover, bound TOA+ induces a decrease in the affinity for K+ in the two characteristic K+ binding events to the channel selectivity filter at pH 7.0, when the channel inner gate is in the closed conformation. This is similar to that observed in the absence of TOA+ upon acidic-pH-induced channel inactivation. Therefore, this suggests that TOA+ binding by itself causes inactivation at pH 7.0 when the inner gate is closed. Furthermore, in apparent agreement with such conclusion, the presence of bound TOA+ in the pH 4.0 samples has only modest effects on the affinity of the two binding events for K+, likely because the channel is already inactivated. Finally, we also observed that TOA+ bound at the cavity, allosterically modifies the conformation of the pore helices, leading to longer W67-W67 intersubunit distances at any K+ concentration and both at pH 7.0 and pH 4.0. The changes in the pore helix conformation, along with the decreased affinity for K+ at pH 7.0 caused by TOA+, seen in both homo-FRET and thermal denaturation experiments, are very similar to those effects caused by inactivation at pH 4.0.
  • 411
  • 30 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Terahertz Radiation Modulates Neuronal Morphology and Dynamics Properties
Terahertz radiation falls within the spectrum of hydrogen bonding, molecular rotation, and vibration, as well as van der Waals forces, indicating that many biological macromolecules exhibit a strong absorption and resonance in this frequency band. Research has shown that the terahertz radiation of specific frequencies and energies can mediate changes in cellular morphology and function by exciting nonlinear resonance effects in proteins. However, current studies have mainly focused on the cellular level and lack systematic studies on multiple levels. Moreover, the mechanism and law of interaction between terahertz radiation and neurons are still unclear. 
  • 121
  • 21 Mar 2024
Topic Review
Technologies Enabling Single-Molecule Super-Resolution Imaging of mRNA
The transient nature of RNA has rendered it one of the more difficult biological targets for imaging. This difficulty stems both from the physical properties of RNA as well as the temporal constraints associated therewith. These concerns are further complicated by the difficulty in imaging endogenous RNA within a cell that has been transfected with a target sequence. These concerns, combined with traditional concerns associated with super-resolution light microscopy has made the imaging of this critical target difficult. 
  • 403
  • 08 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Symptomatic Huntington’s Disease
This entry used a publically available dataset to perform in silico analysis using different bioinformatics tools (PathwayConnector, PathWalks, DyNet). The DEGs were identifed for the pre-symptomatic and symptomatic HD stages. The CACNA1I gene was the mostly highly rewired node among pre-symptomatic and symptomatic HD network. Prominent molecular pathways for each HD stage were then obtained, and metabolites related to each pathway for both disease stages were identified. The transforming growth factor beta (TGF- ) signaling (pre-symptomatic and symptomatic stages of the disease), calcium (Ca2+) signaling (pre-symptomatic), dopaminergic synapse pathway (symptomatic HD patients) and Hippo signaling (pre-symptomatic) pathways.  The genes, pathways and metabolites identified for each HD stage can provide a better understanding of the mechanisms that become altered in each disease stage. Our results can guide the development of therapies that may target the altered genes and metabolites of the perturbed pathways, leading to an improvement in clinical symptoms and hopefully a delay in the age of onset.
  • 494
  • 20 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Substrate Selection in Neurodegenerative Diseases
Neurodegenerative diseases express multiple clinical phenotypes. A diversity of clinical phenotypes has been attributed to the ability of amyloidogenic proteins  to acquire multiple, self-replicating states referred to as strains. This article put forward a new hypothesis referred to as substrate selection hypothesis, according to which individual strains selectively recruit protein isoforms with a subset of posttranslational modifications that fit into strain-specific structures. As a result of selective recruitment, strain-specific patterns of posttranslational modifications are formed, giving rise to unique disease phenotypes.
  • 478
  • 24 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Structure-Based Approach in Drug Design
Structure-based drug design (SBDD) is the computational approach that relies on knowledge of 3D structures of the biological targets to identify or design the potential chemical structure suitable for clinical tests. With the explosion of genomic, functional, and structural information in recent decades, the majority of biological targets with 3D structure have been identified and stimulated the applications of structure-based approaches in the current design pipeline. SBDD is popular for virtual screening to filter the drug-like compounds from a large library of small molecules, including widely applied approaches, such as docking and structure-based pharmacophore design. 
  • 3.8K
  • 24 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Structure of Blood–Brain Barrier and Substance Transportation
The complex structure of the blood–brain barrier (BBB), which blocks nearly all large biomolecules, hinders drug delivery to the brain and drug assessment, thus decelerating drug development. Conventional in vitro models of BBB cannot mimic some crucial features of BBB in vivo including a shear stress environment and the interaction between different types of cells. There is a great demand for a new in vitro platform of BBB that can be used for drug delivery studies.
  • 592
  • 01 Mar 2023
Topic Review
Statistical Genetic Physics of COVID-19 Spread
Researchers propose a computational framework for quantitatively coalescing transmitter–recipient–virus interactions, pertaining to the genetic system into a hypergraph. Subsequent transmissions of the virus to other individuals lead to the formation of a new genetic system.
  • 341
  • 06 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Solubility and Aggregation of Proteins
Protein solubility is based on the compatibility of the specific protein surface with the polar aquatic environment. The exposure of polar residues to the protein surface promotes the protein’s solubility in the polar environment. The application of 3D GAuss function allows identification of accordant/discordant regions in proteis. The discordant ones usually represent the localisation of biological activity. 
  • 798
  • 11 Oct 2021
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