H5N1 bird flu has seemed a likely pandemic threat for decades, but the first new influenza virus to emerge as an imminent pandemic threat in the 21st century is H1N1 swine flu. The drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu®) inhibits flu neuraminidase, a component necessary for virus spread, in susceptible flu strains. Luckily H1N1 swine flu is susceptible (at least in early May, 2009).
The development of oseltamivir was guided, in part, by crystallographically determined structures of flu neuraminidase. Neuraminidase is a homotetramer, shown with oseltamivir bound (restore initial scene). Here is one catalytic site. Oseltamivir was designed to fit N2/N9 (neuraminidases from other strains of flu). Serendipitously, it also fits N1, doing so by pulling one side of the binding site against itself (induced fit). The most common mutation in N1 that confers resistance to oseltamivir is H274Y. The mutant tyrosine prevents oseltamivir from fitting, but still allows zanamivir (Relenza) to bind. (more...)
November 2024: How To Find A Structure is a new guide to finding an empirical model for a protein of interest, choosing which empirical structure is best, and getting an AlphaFold-predicted structure when no empirical structures are available.
March 2024: Professors are using Proteopedia for class projects in Brazil, Czech Republic, France, and various states in the USA. See the updated Adoptions in College and University Classes.
What happens if a SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus enters your lung? See a clear explanation at Lifecycle of SARS-CoV-2
5,000 users!! On December 4, 2021, the number of Proteopedia users went over 5,000. The 5,000th user is from Juniata College, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, US
AlphaFold protein structure predictions - a step change for biology, an electronic talk by EBI staff for students and early career researchers via FEBS Junior Sections, Oct. 26, 2021, 19:00 CEST. Announcement. Registration.
A practical guide to teaching with Proteopedia [1]
June, 2016: Proteopedia uses the Biological Assemblies from PDBe as the default scenes for all PDB entry pages. Thus, based on the curation by EBI (host for PDBe) the most biologically significant structure is shown.
June, 2015: Award Ceremony for the the Proteopedia Award at the ICSG2015 - Deep Sequencing Meets Structural Biology, awarded on 10-Jun-2015 at the Weizmann Institute of Science
December, 2014, Talking about Proteopedia on 12/04/14-12/06/14, a live online talk organised by DivCHED CCCE: Committee on Computers in Chemical Education
October, 2014 Course in Spanish/English on Proteopedia and its uses to study, display and teach macromolecules.
↑Castro C, Johnson RJ, Kieffer B, Means JA, Taylor A, Telford J, Thompson LK, Sussman JL, Prilusky J, Theis K. A practical guide to teaching with Proteopedia. Biochem Mol Biol Educ. 2021 Jun 3. doi: 10.1002/bmb.21548. PMID:34080750 doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bmb.21548
