316 papers
Biochemistry explores the intricate chemical processes that power life, bridging the gap between biology and chemistry to explain how molecules like proteins and DNA function within living cells. This field reveals the molecular machinery behind everything from metabolism to genetic inheritance, turning complex biological mysteries into understandable chemical interactions.
On Gist.Science, we bring you the freshest discoveries in this dynamic area directly from bioRxiv. Our team processes every new preprint uploaded to the server, transforming dense academic findings into both clear, plain-language overviews and detailed technical summaries. This dual approach ensures that whether you are a curious beginner or a seasoned researcher, you can grasp the significance of these breakthroughs immediately.
Below are the latest papers in biochemistry, complete with our curated summaries to help you navigate the cutting edge of molecular science.
This study presents a multi-objective engineering framework that successfully designed Brnoteplase, a next-generation thrombolytic protease with enhanced fibrin selectivity, inhibition resistance, and catalytic efficiency, demonstrating superior therapeutic efficacy and safety in vivo compared to current FDA-approved variants.
This study reveals that the progressive base-pairing of miRNA with target RNA induces conformational changes in human Ago2, specifically moving the PAZ domain to create a binding interface for CK1α, which phosphorylates the EI region to unwind the guide-target complex and facilitate efficient RISC turnover.
This study reveals that the second messenger c-di-AMP directly inactivates the K+/H+ antiporter CpaA in *Bacillus subtilis* by binding to its RCK domain, thereby challenging previous assumptions about the simplicity of c-di-AMP's regulation of bacterial potassium homeostasis.
This study establishes a human cell-free high-throughput screening platform to identify the NT-2 mycotoxin as a novel ribosomal inhibitor that binds the peptidyl transferase center and induces a dormant state in mammalian protein synthesis.
This study establishes a systematic framework linking siderophore biosynthesis to primary metabolism, demonstrating that targeted supplementation of specific precursors enhances the iron-scavenging capabilities and pathogen-suppressive activity of the beneficial bacterium *Bacillus amyloliquefaciens* against *Ralstonia solanacearum*.
This study identifies the Atlas virus family in nematodes, characterizes their unique structural and functional properties via cryo-EM, and demonstrates their potential as engineered, scalable vehicles for tissue-specific RNA delivery.
This study identifies FIKK1 as a critical kinase that phosphorylates the placental malaria adhesin VAR2CSA, thereby enhancing its binding to chondroitin sulfate A and facilitating the sequestration of *Plasmodium falciparum*-infected erythrocytes in the placenta, which highlights FIKK1 as a promising drug target for placental malaria.
This study identifies human propionyl-coenzyme A carboxylase and the PRMT5:MEP50 complex as unexpected contaminants in affinity-purified proteins from HEK293 cells, demonstrating how cryo-EM and mass spectrometry can reveal these impurities and underscoring the critical need for high resin specificity in structural biology workflows.
This study demonstrates that structure-based docking of a 2.6 billion molecule library against the Cannabinoid-2 receptor successfully identified eight diverse, potent, and subtype-selective ligand families by targeting polar orthosteric residues, with experimental validation confirming the accuracy of the docking predictions and the efficacy of subsequent structure-based optimization.
This study reveals that CK1δ activity and abundance are dynamically coordinated throughout the cell cycle, where free active kinase is degraded in G1, unassembled kinase is stabilized in S phase to support DNA damage signaling, and mitotic entry triggers autoinhibitory phosphorylation to preserve a kinase pool for rapid post-mitotic reactivation.