As polyphenolic compounds isolated from plants extracts, flavonoids have been applied to various pharmaceutical uses in recent decades due to their anti-inflammatory, cancer preventive, and cardiovascular protective activities. In this study, we evaluated the effects of the flavonoid quercetin on Crotalus durissus terrificus secretory phospholipase A2 (sPLA2), an important protein involved in the release of arachidonic acid from phospholipid membranes. The protein was chemically modified by treatment with quercetin, which resulted in modifications in the secondary structure as evidenced through circular dichroism. In addition, quercetin was able to inhibit the enzymatic activity and some pharmacological activities of sPLA2, including its antibacterial activity, its ability to induce platelet aggregation, and its myotoxicity by approximately 40%, but was not able to reduce the inflammatory and neurotoxic activities of sPLA2. These results suggest the existence of two pharmacological sites in the protein, one that is correlated with the enzymatic site and another that is distinct from it. We also performed molecular docking to better understand the possible interactions between quercetin and sPLA2. Our docking data showed the existence of hydrogen-bonded, polar interactions and hydrophobic interactions, suggesting that other flavonoids with similar structures could bind to sPLA2. Further research is warranted to investigate the potential use of flavonoids as sPLA2 inhibitors.

The cation diffusion facilitators (CDFs) are a family of membrane-bound proteins that maintain cellular homeostasis of essential metal ions. In humans, the zinc-transporter CDF family members (ZnTs) play important roles in zinc homeostasis. They do this by facilitating zinc efflux from the cytoplasm to the extracellular space across the plasma membrane or into intracellular organelles. Several ZnTs have been implicated in human health owing to their association with type 2 diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases. Although the structure determination of CDF family members is not trivial, recent advances in membrane-protein structural biology have resulted in two structures of bacterial YiiPs and several structures of their soluble C-terminal domains. These data reveal new insights into the molecular mechanism of ZnT proteins, suggesting a unique rocking-bundle mechanism that provides alternating access to the metal-binding site.

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UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (UGPase) is found in all organisms and catalyses the formation of UDP-glucose. In sugarcane, UDP-glucose is a branch-point in the carbon channelling into other carbohydrates, such as sucrose and cellulose, which are the major factors for sugarcane productivity. In most plants, UGPase has been described to be enzymatically active in the monomeric form, while in human and yeast, homo-octamers represent the active form of the protein. Here, we present the crystal structure of UGPase from sugarcane (ScUGPase-1) at resolution of 2.0 Å. The crystals of ScUGPase-1 reveal the presence of two molecules in the asymmetric unit and the multi-angle light scattering analysis shows that ScUGPase-1 forms a mixture of species ranging from monomers to larger oligomers in solution, suggesting similarities with the orthologs from yeast and human.