No abstract

We examined the influence of caffeine on honeybee lifespan, Nosema resistance, key enzyme activities, metabolic compound concentrations, and total DNA methylation levels. Caffeine slowed age-related metabolic tendencies. Bees that consumed caffeine lived longer and were not infested with Nosema spp. Caffeine-treated workers had higher protein concentrations. The levels increased with aging but they then decreased in older bees. Caffeine increased the activities of antioxidant enzymes (SOD, GPx, CAT, GST), AST, ALT, ALP, neutral proteases, and protease inhibitors, and the concentrations of uric acid, triglycerides, cholesterol, glucose, and Ca2+. Acidic and alkaline protease activities were lower in the bees treated with caffeine. Creatinine and Mg2+ concentrations were higher in the caffeine-treated workers but only up to 14 days of age. Caffeine significantly decreased DNA methylation levels in older bees. The compound could be considered as a natural diet supplement increasing apian resistance to stress factors. Our studies will enhance possibilities of using Apis mellifera as a model organism in gerontological studies.

Natural bioactive preparations that will boost apian resistance, aid body detoxification, or fight crucial bee diseases are in demand. Therefore, we examined the influence of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10, 2,3-dimethoxy, 5-methyl, 6-decaprenyl benzoquinone) treatment on honeybee lifespan, Nosema resistance, the activity/concentration of antioxidants, proteases and protease inhibitors, and biomarkers. CoQ10 slows age-related metabolic processes. Workers that consumed CoQ10 lived longer than untreated controls and were less infested with Nosema spp. Relative to controls, the CoQ10-treated workers had higher protein concentrations that increased with age but then they decreased in older bees. CoQ10 treatments increased the activities of antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase, GPx, catalase, glutathione S-transferase), protease inhibitors, biomarkers (aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, alanine aminotransferase), the total antioxidant potential level, and concentrations of uric acid and creatinine. The activities of acidic, neutral, and alkaline proteases, and concentrations of albumin and urea were lower in the bees that were administered CoQ10. CoQ10 could be taken into consideration as a natural diet supplement in early spring before pollen sources become available in the temperate Central European climate. A response to CoQ10 administration that is similar to mammals supports our view that Apis mellifera is a model organism for biochemical gerontology.

a b s t r a c t We examined the influence of curcumin-supplemented feeding on worker lifespan, Nosema resistance, key enzyme activities, metabolic compound concentrations and percentage of the global dna methylation. two worker groups (Apis mellifera) were set up: 1) control group; workers were fed ad libitum with sucrose syrup; 2) workers were fed with the syrup with the addition of curcumin. dead workers were removed every two days and the Nosema spp. infection levels were assessed. hemolymph was taken from living workers for biochemical analyses. the global dna methylation level was analysed using dna from worker heads and thoraces. the bees that consumed curcumin lived longer and were less infested with Nosema spp. the curcumin-treated workers had higher concentrations of proteins, non-enzymatic biomarkers (triglycerides, glucose, cholesterol, mg 2+ and Ca 2+ ), uric acid and creatinine, as well as elevated activities of antioxidant enzymes (sod, Gpx, Cat, Gst), neutral proteases, protease inhibitors, enzymatic biomarkers (ast, alt, alp). the concentrations of albumin and urea, and the activities of acidic and alkaline proteases were higher in the control group. Curcumin decreased global dna methylation levels especially in older bees in which the natural, age-related level increase was observed. most of the parameters increased over the apian youth and adulthood, and decreased in older bees. the decrease was markedly delayed in the bees fed with curcumin. Curcumin appeared to be an unexpectedly effective natural bio-stimulator, improving apian health and vitality. this multifactorial effect is caused by the activation of many biochemical processes involved in the formation of apian resistance.

Amino acid sequences of native proteins are generally not palindromic. Nevertheless, the protein molecule obtained as a result of reading the sequence backwards, i.e. a retro-protein, obviously has the same amino acid composition and the same hydrophobicity profile as the native sequence. The important questions which arise in the context of retro-proteins are: does a retro-protein fold to a well defined native-like structure as natural proteins do and, if the answer is positive, does a retro-protein fold to a structure similar to the native conformation of the original protein? In this work, the fold of retro-protein A, originated from the retro-sequence of the B domain of Staphylococcal protein A, was studied. As a result of lattice model simulations, it is conjectured that the retro-protein A also forms a three-helix bundle structure in solution. It is also predicted that the topology of the retro-protein A three-helix bundle is that of the native protein A, rather than that corresponding to the mirror image of native protein A. Secondary structure elements in the retro-protein do not exactly match their counterparts in the original protein structure; however, the amino acid side chain contract pattern of the hydrophobic core is partly conserved.

We examined the influence of bromfenvinphos, a commonly used acaricide, on activities of many metabolic enzymes affecting the biochemical defences/physiology of the western honeybee, Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera: Apidae), as well as on some metabolic compound concentrations, percentage of global DNA methylation, and Nosema spp. infection levels. Bromfenvinphos-treated workers had decreased haemolymph volumes and higher protein concentrations on their cuticle but lower protein concentrations in the haemolymph. They had higher global DNA methylation levels independent of the age-related variants. Bromfenvinphos decreased the activities of antioxidant enzymes (SOD, GPx, CAT, GST), acidic, neutral, and alkaline protease inhibitors and enzymatic physiological markers (AST, ALT, ALP), and concentrations of urea, uric acid, creatinine, cholesterol, glucose, Mg 2+ , and Ca 2+ in worker haemolymph, depending on the age of the bees. Protease activities were higher only in the haemolymph of young bromfenvinphos-treated bees in comparison with untreated bees. This compound decreased the activities of alkaline proteases and neutral protease inhibitors on the cuticle. Unexpectedly, in the treated bees, the activities of acidic and neutral proteases, and acidic and alkaline protease inhibitors, were higher in the young bees and lower in the older workers in comparison to the untreated group. The bromfenvinphos-treated workers were more heavily infested with Nosema spp. Thus, bromfenvinphos not only supressed many levels of biochemical defences, and therefore stress-resistance-related biochemical pathways but also visibly increased the Nosema spp. infection levels.

Proposed is a method for locating functionally relevant atoms in protein structures and a representation of spatial arrangements of these atoms allowing for a flexible description of active sites in proteins. The search method is based on comparison of local structure features of proteins that share a common biochemical function. The method does not depend on overall similarity of structures and sequences of compared proteins or on previous knowledge about functionally relevant residues. The compared protein structures are condensed to a graph representation, with atoms as nodes and distances as edge labels. Protein graphs are then compared to extract all possible Common Structural Cliques. These cliques are merged to create Structural Templates: graphs that describe structural analogies between compared proteins. Structures of serine endopeptidases were compared in pairs using the presented algorithm with different geometrical parameters. Additionally, a Structural Template was extracted from the structures of aminotransferases, two different proteins that catalyze the same type of chemical reaction. The results presented show that the method works efficiently even in the case of large protein systems and allows for extraction of common structural features from proteins catalyzing a particular chemical reaction, but that evolved from different ancestors by convergent evolution.

A self-consistent multitorsional field (SCMTF) method of global optimization of the conformational energy of an oligopeptide is proposed. The method is based on the idea that the maximum of the square of the ground-state wave function is very often close to the global minimum of the potential energy and may be relatively unaffected by the complexity of the potential, e.g., its many minima. Using a mean field approximation, a set of coupled Schrijdinger equations for the motion of the nuclei is solved iteratively in a dihedral-angle space, each equation depending on a single dihedral angle. To obtain the effective potential energy, and therefore the Hamiltonian, for the particular dihedral angle, a Monte Carlo averaging is carried out over all other dihedral angles. Thus, the wave function and therefore the probability distribution of a particular dihedral angle depends on the mean field of the rest of the molecule. The method was found to converge rapidly when applied to searches for the global minimum of the potential energy of terminally-blocked alanine. In the case of the pentapeptide Met-enkephalin, convergence was slightly slower, but it also led to the global minimum. Because the number of evaluations of the potential energy increases approximately linearly with the number of dihedral angles (not counting the cost to compute the potential energy), the method is expected to be applicable to larger molecules.