Gliomas are fast growing and highly invasive brain tumors, characterized by tumor microenvironment acidification that drives glioma cell growth and migration. Channels containing Acid-sensing Ion Channel 1a subunit (ASIC1a) mediate amiloride-sensitive cation influx in late stage glioma cells, but not in normal astrocytes. Thus, selective targeting of ASIC1a can be a perspective strategy for glioma treatment.

Researchers from IBCh RAS together with their international collаborators discovered an evolutionary link between efficiency of start codons and the probability of AUG codon occurrence in the 5'-end parts of protein-coding sequences. When start codons are inefficient the next AUG codon is more likely to be found in the same reading frame. At the same time in case of highly efficient start codons, the next AUG codon is more likely to be found in alternative frames. They also have shown that weak initiation at the first starts is associated with the synthesis of shortened proteoforms as a result of initiation at the second starts.

A collaboration of scientists from the Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and Prokhorov General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences have developed a breakthrough technology to resolve a key problem that has prevented the introduction of novel drugs into clinical practice for decades. The study was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering and featured in the journal’s News & Views section.

Kinase-mediated phosphorylation represents one of the general strategies for the emergence of antibiotic resistance. A new subfamily of AmiN-like kinases, isolated from the Siberian bear microbiome, inactivates antibiotic amicoumacin by phosphorylation. The nanomolar substrate affinity defines AmiN as a phosphotransferase with a unique catalytic efficiency proximal to the diffusion limit. Crystallographic analysis and multiscale simulations revealed a catalytically perfect mechanism providing phosphorylation exclusively in the case of a closed active site that counteracts substrate promiscuity. AmiN kinase is a member of the previously unknown subfamily representing the first evidence of a specialized phosphotransferase bioscavenger.

Scientists from the Group of Forest Biotechnology IBCh RAS obtained the transgenic aspen with acceletated growth, a modified carbohydrate composition and a slower rate of decomposition of wood.

Scientists from the Department of Chemical Biology of Glycans and Lipids, the Department of structural biology and the Department of Biomaterials and Bionanotechnology IBCh RAS in collaboration with Russian and foreign colleges published a paper in ChemistryOpen on the study of conjugate of a biotin with DOPE (dioleoylphosphatidyl ethanolamine) and on its interaction with streptavidin.

Scientists from the Laboratory of bioengineering of neuromodulators and neuroreceptors, the Laboratory of structural biology of ion channels and the Laboratory of neuroreceptors and neuroregulators Shemyakin-Ovchnnikov Institute together with colleagues from the Faculty of biology of Moscow State University and other russian scientific institutes, found that the intranasal administration of the water-soluble analogue of the human neuromodulator Lynx1 can prevent cognitive impairment associated with dysfunction of the α7 type nicotinic acetylcholine receptor.

Researchers from the Group of in silico analysis of membrane proteins structure and the Laboratory of biomolecular modeling of IBCh RAS have predicted the structure of the complex between lantibiotic nisin with the bacterial cell wall precursor — lipid II — on the membrane surface.

Our new article “Albumin-stabilized fluorescent metal nanoclusters: fabrication, physico-chemical properties and cytotoxicity” was recently published in Materials and Design journal. The work was performed by a team of authors from the Scientific Clinical Center for Physico-Chemical Medicine, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and IBCh RAS. The researchers of the Electron microscopy group of our institute carried out an important part of the work on direct visualization of the obtained structures, as well as on the measurement of energy dispersive X-ray spectra.

Researchers of the Laboratory of plant functional genomics and proteomics, IBCh RAS, in collaboration with Laboratory of molecular basis of plant stress resistance, IBCh RAS, and James Hutton Institute (United Kingdom) published a review article in the international peer-reviewed scientific journal New Phytologist (IF = 7.29). This review “The role of chloroplast protein remodeling in stress responses and shaping of the plant peptidome” is focused on processes of reorganization of the chloroplast proteome under stress conditions and on the roles of bioactive peptides generated from chloroplast proteins.

Lipids 2021 Conference, October 19-21, 2021, IBCH RAS, Moscow