Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : International audience
Coming from Crimea, the Black Death spread to Western Europe and North Africa during the 1340s. From 1346 to 1352, the plague killed an estimated 25-40% of Europeans of all age-groups [1] , i.e., 30 to 60% of Europe population. One of the earliest and most widely accepted explanations was that God was punishing humanity for their sins. One remedy for the curse was to do penitence. Thus in 1348 there rapidly arose a mass movement of flagellation [2]. In fact flagellation could not really help against such threat. The Black Death or Bubonic plague is caused by Yersinia pestis, a Eubacteria discovered in 1894 by Alexandre Yersin. It is transmitted by the bite of the flea Xenopsylla cheopsis. This flea lives by feeding the blood of many species besides man but its most preferred relationship is with the black rat (Rattus rattus). Fossilized remains of the plague flea have been found in large numbers in Amarna, Egypt [3, 4] about 1350 BC, and thus could be directly linked to the events described in the Book of Samuel [5, 6]. During the epidemic of Bubonic plague in London in 1665-1666, the known treatments were made use of, e.g. the so-famous Theriac or Venice Treacle which is used from the time of ancient Rome as a remedy against poison [7]. Since then, more specialized and novel treatments have been developed. However, since the characterization of Yersinia pestis, numerous drugs have been developed against it, e.g. gentamicin or doxycycline [8]. These researches had been carried out using more elaborated biochemical, biophysical and biological approaches.
Infectious disorders drug targets

Droits : info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
inserm-00395256
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00395256
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00395256/document
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00395256/file/editorial.pdf
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00395256/file/inserm-00395256_edited.pdf

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : International audience
The Duffy Antigen/Receptor for Chemokine (DARC) is a seven segment transmembrane protein. It was firstly discovered as a blood group antigen and was the first specific gene locus assigned to a specific autosome in man. It became more famous as an erythrocyte receptor for malaria parasites (Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium knowlesi), and finally for chemokines. DARC is an unorthodox chemokine receptor as (i) it binds chemokines of both CC and CXC classes and (ii) it lacks the Asp-Arg-Tyr consensus motif in its second cytoplasmic loop hence cannot couple to G proteins and activate their signaling pathways. DARC had also been associated to cancer progression, numerous inflammatory diseases, and possibly to AIDS. In this review, we will summarize important biological data on DARC. Then we shall focus on recent development of the elaboration and analyzes of structural models of DARC. We underline the difficulty to propose pertinent structural models of transmembrane protein using comparative modeling process, and other dedicated approaches as the Protein Blocks. The chosen structural models encompass most of the biochemical data known to date. Finally, we present recent development of protein - protein docking between DARC structural models and CXCL-8 structures. We propose a hierarchal search based on separated rigid and flexible docking.
Infectious disorders drug targets

Droits : info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
inserm-00366309
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00366309
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00366309/document
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00366309/file/de_Brevern_Autin_Bertrand_Colin_Etchebest.pdf
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00366309/file/inserm-00366309_edited.pdf

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : The Duffy antigen/receptor for chemokine (DARC) is an erythrocyte receptor for malaria parasites (Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium knowlesi) and for chemokines. In contrast to other chemokine receptors, DARC is a promiscuous receptor that binds chemokines of both CC and CXC classes. The four extracellular domains (ECDs) of DARC are essential for its interaction with chemokines, whilst the first (ECD1) is sufficient for the interaction with malaria erythrocyte-binding protein. In this study, we elaborate and analyze structural models of the DARC. The construction of the 3D models is based on a comparative modeling process and on the use of many procedures to predict transmembrane segments and to detect far homologous proteins with known structures. Threading, ab initio, secondary structure and Protein Blocks approaches are used to build a very large number of models. The conformational exploration of the ECDs is performed with simulated annealing. The second and fourth ECDs are strongly constrained. On the contrary, the ECD1 is highly flexible, but seems composed of three consecutive regions: a small beta-sheet, a linker region and a structured loop. The chosen structural models encompass most of the biochemical features and reflect the known experimental data. They may be used to analyze functional interaction properties.
ISSN: 0006-3002

inserm-00143373
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00143373
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00143373/document
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00143373/file/de_Brevern_BBA_2005.pdf
DOI : 10.1016/j.bbagen.2005.05.016

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : International audience
A relevant and accurate description of three-dimensional (3D) protein structures can be achieved by characterizing recurrent local structures. In a previous study, we developed a library of 120 3D structural prototypes encompassing all known 11-residues long local protein structures and ensuring a good quality of structural approximation. A local structure prediction method was also proposed. Here, overlapping properties of local protein structures in global ones are taken into account to characterize frequent local networks. At the same time, we propose a new long local structure prediction strategy which involves the use of evolutionary information coupled with Support Vector Machines (SVMs). Our prediction is evaluated by a stringent geometrical assessment. Every local structure prediction with a Calpha RMSD less than 2.5 A from the true local structure is considered as correct. A global prediction rate of 63.1% is then reached, corresponding to an improvement of 7.7 points compared with the previous strategy. In the same way, the prediction of 88.33% of the 120 structural classes is improved with 8.65% mean gain. 85.33% of proteins have better prediction results with a 9.43% average gain. An analysis of prediction rate per local network also supports the global improvement and gives insights into the potential of our method for predicting super local structures. Moreover, a confidence index for the direct estimation of prediction quality is proposed. Finally, our method is proved to be very competitive with cutting-edge strategies encompassing three categories of local structure predictions. Proteins 2009. (c) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
ISSN: 0887-3585

inserm-00348740
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00348740
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00348740/document
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00348740/file/Bornot_Proteins_2009_preprint_version.pdf
http://www.hal.inserm.fr/inserm-00348740/file/inserm-00348740_edited.pdf