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OPEN ACCESS PLUS
Accepted articles are published online for free open access for all to view. Open access publishing provides the maximum dissemination of the article to the largest audience. Authors must pay for this service. All corresponding authors will be asked to indicate whether or not they wish to pay to have their paper made freely available on publication. If authors do not select the Open Access option, then their article will be published with standard subscription-based access at no charge.
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Contents
Pp. 128 - 138
Justin A. Caravella, Deping Wang, Scott M. Glaser and Alexey Lugovskoy
[Open Access Plus] |
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Monoclonal antibodies capable of recognizing antigens with high affinity and specificity represent a wellestablished class of biological agents. Since the development of hybridoma technology in 1975, advances in recombinant DNA technologies and computational and biophysical methods have allowed us to develop a better understanding of the relationships between antibody sequence, structure, and function. These advances enable us to manipulate antibody sequences with the goal of improving upon, or creating new biological or biophysical properties. In this review we will focus on recent successes in using structure-guided computational methods to design antibodies and antibody-like molecules with optimized affinity and specificity to antigen and for enhancing protein stability.
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Pp. 257 - 273
Hong-Yu Zhang
[Open Access Plus] |
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In the past two decades, there has been growing interest in finding novel and non-toxic antioxidants to meet the requirements in chemical, food and pharmaceutical industries. To accelerate the antioxidant discovery process, various theoretical methods have been employed to investigate the structure-activity relationships of antioxidants. Accordingly, some rational-design strategies for antioxidants have been proposed and applied in practice. This review summarizes the current knowledge on this topic, which will be helpful to direct the practice in related fields.
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Pp. 191 - 200
Suzanne Sirois, Rui Zhang, Weina Gao, Hui Gao, Yun Li, Huiqin Zheng and Dong-Qing Wei
[Open Access Plus] |
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SARS is a viral respiratory illness caused by a previously unrecognized coronavirus, called SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV). Because of the potential for a rapid spread of the disease, it is vitally important to identify drugs that effectively inhibit a known target of the SARS coronavirus. Because of its essential role in proteolytic processing, the main protease MPro, a cysteine protease, is considered an attractive target for antiviral drugs against SARS and other coronavirus infections. In this review, we will present both peptidic and non-peptidic inhibitors that have been designed against SARS MPro. The most challenging requirement in designing cysteine inhibitors is to obtain a selective non-covalent electrophilic isostere that can react with the catalytic nucleophile. Emphasis will be put on our recent results, both experimental and theoretical, in the search for potent wide-spectrum inhibitors. The antiviral activity of the octopeptide AVLQSGFR against SARS-associated coronavirus will be presented as well as the recent hits obtained from virtual high throughput screening (vHTS) based on the identification of six hydrogen bond pharmacophore points from KZ7088 docked into the active site of SARS MPro.
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