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Structure-activity relationships of the intramolecular disulfide bonds in coprisin, a defensin from the dung beetle.

ABSTRACT: Defensins, which are small cationic molecules produced by organisms as part of their innate immune response, share a common structural scaffold that is stabilized by three disulfide bridges. Coprisin is a 43-amino acid defensin-like peptide from Copris tripartitus. Here, we report the intramolecular disulfide connectivity of cysteine-rich coprisin, and show that it is the same as in other insect defensins. The disulfide bond pairings of coprisin were determined by combining the enzymatic cleavage and mass analysis. We found that the loss of any single disulfide bond in coprisin eliminated all antibacterial, but not antifungal, activity. Circular dichroism (CD) analysis showed that two disulfide bonds, Cys20-Cys39 and Cys24-Cys41, stabilize coprisin's ?-helical region. Moreover, a BLAST search against UniProtKB database revealed that coprisin's ?-helical region is highly homologous to those of other insect defensins.

SUBMITTER: Lee J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4281341 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Structure-activity relationships of the intramolecular disulfide bonds in coprisin, a defensin from the dung beetle.

Lee Jaeho J Lee Daeun D Choi Hyemin H Kim Ha Hyung HH Kim Ho H Hwang Jae Sam JS Lee Dong Gun DG Kim Jae Il JI

BMB reports 20141101 11

Defensins, which are small cationic molecules produced by organisms as part of their innate immune response, share a common structural scaffold that is stabilized by three disulfide bridges. Coprisin is a 43-amino acid defensin-like peptide from Copris tripartitus. Here, we report the intramolecular disulfide connectivity of cysteine-rich coprisin, and show that it is the same as in other insect defensins. The disulfide bond pairings of coprisin were determined by combining the enzymatic cleavag ...[more]

PMID: 24393527

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Project description:Abstract An important service in many ecosystems is the turnover and degradation of dung deposited by cattle. Dung beetles are the primary group of insects responsible for dung turnover, and factors affecting their abundance and distribution thus impact dung degradation. Lands lost to grazing due to dung buildup and pasture contamination total millions of acres per year in US pastures. We evaluated the structural differences in dung beetle assemblages in natural grasslands versus a managed agroecosystem in subtropical southeastern Florida (USA). We measured the direct effect of dung longevity when dung beetle fauna normally inhabiting dung pats were excluded. Our results indicate dung beetle abundance, functional diversity, and species richness have a substantial impact on the rate of dung turnover in subtropical pastoral lands with ~70% of dung removed from the soil surface after three months. Functional diversity and evenness did not have a significant positive effect on dung removal in managed, versus natural grasslands demonstrating a strong relationship between dung beetle assemblage composition and delivery of a key ecological process, dung degradation. We suggest the importance of trees, which provide a thermal refuge for beetles, should be dispersed within matrixes of open pasture areas and within proximity to adjacent closed‐canopy hammocks to facilitate the exchange of dung beetles between habitats and therefore maintain the provisioning of dung degradation services by dung beetle assemblages. An important service in many ecosystems is the turnover and degradation of dung deposited by cattle. Dung beetles are the primary group of insects responsible for dung turnover, and factors affecting their abundance and distribution thus impact dung degradation. Our results indicate dung beetle abundance, functional diversity, and species richness has a substantial impact on the rate of dung turnover in subtropical pastoral lands with ~70% of dung removed from the soil surface after three months.

Dataset Information

Structure-activity relationships of the intramolecular disulfide bonds in coprisin, a defensin from the dung beetle.

Publications

Structure-activity relationships of the intramolecular disulfide bonds in coprisin, a defensin from the dung beetle.

Similar Datasets

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