A research team from the Shemyakin and Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the N.N. Burdenko Neurosurgical Сутеук has presented a revolutionary approach to treating spinal cord injury (SCI). The study results are published in the prestigious scientific journal Advanced Science (Wiley publisher).

Sodium channels play an important role in nature — for example, they determine the excitability of the nervous system and muscles. Their selective conductivity has been intensively studied for many decades, but its physicochemical basis is still unclear. In a new theoretical paper, scientists from the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry have proposed the so-called “secondary chelation” mechanism, in which the spatial organization of water molecules in the hydration shell of the ion plays a key role. The selectivity filter of a bacterial sodium channel is designed to optimally interact with the hydration shell of Na+, while the shell of K+ is forced to “shrink”, which prevents its passage. The work was published in the journal Structure and was also awarded an illustration on the cover of the issue.

Protein biosynthesis by the ribosome is one of the most important reactions in nature. The length of the polypeptide chain is strictly determined by the start and stop codons in mRNA. Translation termination is necessary for the timely completion of protein biosynthesis and the release of the polypeptide product from the ribosome. This process is regulated by specific proteins, the so-called "release factors", which recognize stop codons and mediate the hydrolysis of the ester bond in the peptidyl-tRNA molecule localized in the catalytic center of the ribosome. The new study shows the role of the release factor and the 2'-OH group of tRNA in the catalysis of polypeptide cleavage through the formation of a "bridged" cyclic intermediate. The work was published in the journal Science.