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Destruxin A (DA), a hexa-cyclodepsipeptidic mycotoxin produced by the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae, exhibits insecticidal activities in a wide range of pests and is known as an innate immunity inhibitor. However, its mechanism of action requires further investigation. In this research, the interactions of DA with the six aminoacyl tRNA synthetases (ARSs) of Bombyx mori, BmAlaRS, BmCysRS, BmMetRS, BmValRS, BmIleRS, and BmGluProRS, were analyzed. The six ARSs were expressed and purified. The BLI (biolayer interferometry) results indicated that DA binds these ARSs with the affinity indices (KD) of 10−4 to 10−5 M. The molecular docking suggested a similar interaction mode of DA with ARSs, whereby DA settled into a pocket through hydrogen bonds with Asn, Arg, His, Lys, and Tyr of ARSs. Furthermore, DA treatments decreased the contents of soluble protein and free amino acids in Bm12 cells, which suggested that DA impedes protein synthesis. Lastly, the ARSs in Bm12 cells were all downregulated by DA stress. This study sheds light on exploring and answering the molecular target of DA against target insects.

The mean intrinsic thermodynamic quantity can be defined by considering the relative population of complex species in the solution and the value of intrinsic thermodynamic quantity corresponds to each step of ligation. In the present study a new method is introduced for analysis of experimental ligand binding data on basis of mean intrinsic thermodynamic quantities. In this regard, a deviation parameter was defined by comparing the non-interacting system with the cooperative interactive one. This parameter can be calculated just by estimation of the first binding constant. A set of relations between this deviation parameter and other binding characteristics, such as mean intrinsic Gibbs free energy of binding and mean Gibbs free energy of site-site interaction, have been developed. This model presents binding mechanism in a unified way that is simple, yet stringent, more straightforward, more reliable and informative. This analyzing method has been successfully applied for evaluation of various systems such as oxygen binding to hemoglobin, laurate and warfarin binding to human serum albumin, and reveals some new biological features of these binding systems.

UV-absorption and circular dichroism (CD) experiments showed that ellipticine derivatives may interact with DNA according to 3 possible binding modes depending on their structure and concentration. The first mode concerned intercalation of 1-methyl-9-hydroxyellipticine (1-Me-HE) with its long axis perpendicular to the long axis of base pairs. The same drug was able to bind to external sites (second mode) once the intercalation sites were saturated at high concentration. The third mode illustrated by 1,2-dimethyl-9-hydroxyisoellipticinium (1-Me-isoNMHE), concerned self-stacked molecules interacting at the surface of DNA. Biological significance of these different binding modes was then discussed in connection with in vitro cytotoxic activity of compounds.

The quantitative aspects of mitochondrial creatine kinase (mitCK) binding to mitochondrial membranes were investigated. A simple adsorption and binding model was used for data fitting, taking into account the influence of protein concentration, pH, ionic strength and substrate concentration on the enzyme adsorption. An analysis of our own data as well as of the data from the literature is consistent with the adsorption site of the octameric mitCK being composed of 4 amino acid residues with pK = 8.8 in the free enzyme. The pK value changes to 9.8 upon binding of the protein to the membrane. Lysine is is suggested as the main candidate to form the adsorption site of mitCK. Deprotonated octameric mitCK easily dissociated from the membrane ( K a = 0.39 mM at ionic strength I = 7.5 mM and 5°C); after protonation its affinity increased many times ( K ah = 39 nM ). Determination of mitCK adsorption capacity by another method at pH 7.4, when the enzyme is almost protonated, gave K ah = 15 nM . The effect of ionic strength on mitCK adsorption may be described in terms of Debye-Huckel's theory for activity coefficients assuming the charges of the interacting species to be + 4 and + 4. The dissociation constant for the mitCK-membrane complex at pH 7.4 and I = 0 was evaluated by different approaches as approx. 1 nM. Extramitochondrial ATP (or ADP) shifted greatly the equilibrium between the adsorbed and the free mitCK towards the solubilized state, since in the adsorbed protein the external ligands had access to four binding sites and in the free protein to eight sites.

A model is proposed describing multiple binding of multivalent antigen to specific receptors of immunocompetent cells. The rate at which these multiple bonds can dissociate and the effective valence of the antigen appear to be of the greatest importance in determining the degree of receptor occupancy at equilibrium. In particular, as antigen concentration decreases, only antigens with high number of determinants per molecule maintain the ability to form multiple bonds even if the dissociation rate is relatively high. Assuming that multiple binding is directly linked to lymphocyte activation, this may result in an inverse relation between antigen valence and ability to induce selection of clones with higher affinities.