A labile, selenium donor compound required for synthesis of selenium-dependent enzymes and seleno-tRNAs is formed from ATP and selenide by the SELD enzyme. This compound, tentatively identified as a selenophosphate [Veres, Z., Tsai, L., Scholz, T. D., Politino, M., Balaban, R. S., & Stadtman, T. C. (1992) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 89, 2975-2979], is indistinguishable from chemically prepared monoselenophosphate by 31P NMR spectroscopy and ion pairing HPLC. Furthermore, addition of chemically prepared monoselenophosphate caused a dose-dependent decrease in the amount of 75Se incorporated into tRNAs from 75SePX generated in situ by SELD enzyme. A procedure is described for the chemical synthesis of monoselenophosphate in which the readily prepared (MeO)3PSe is converted in quantitative yield to (TMSO)3PSe followed by complete cleavage of the latter to monoselenophosphate in oxygen-free aqueous buffer. The chemical properties of chemically synthesized monoselenophosphate are described.

Synthesis of 5-methylaminomethyl-2-selenouridine in tRNAs: 31P NMR studies show the labile selenium donor synthesized by the selD gene product contains selenium bonded to phosphorus Contributed by Thressa C. Stadtman, December 27, 1991 ABSTRACT An enzyme preparation from Salmonella typhimurium catalyzes the conversion of 5-methylaminomethyl-2-thiouridine in tRNAs to 5-methylaminomethyl-2-selenouridine when supplemented with selenide and ATP. Similar preparations from a Salmonella mutant strain carrying a defective selD gene fail to catalyze this selenium substitution reaction. However, supplementation of the deficient enzyme preparation with the purified seD gene product (SELD protein) restored synthesis of seleno-tRNAs. In the absence of the complementary enzyme(s), the SELD protein catalyzes the synthesis of a labile selenium donor compound from selenide and ATP. 31P NMR studies show that among the products of this reaction are AMP and a compound containing selenium bonded to phosphorus. The reaction is completely dependent on the addition of both selenide and magnesium. The dependence of reaction velocity on ATP concentration shows sigmoidal kinetics, whereas dependence on selenide concentration obeys Michaelis-Menten kinetics indicating a Km value of 46

Human P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is an ATP-binding cassette multidrug transporter that confers resistance to a wide range of chemotherapeutic agents in cancer cells by active efflux of the drugs from cells. P-gp also plays a key role in limiting oral absorption and brain penetration and in facilitating biliary and renal elimination of structurally diverse drugs. Thus, identification of drugs or new molecular entities to be P-gp substrates is of vital importance for predicting the pharmacokinetics, efficacy, safety, or tissue levels of drugs or drug candidates. At present, publicly available, reliable in silico models predicting P-gp substrates are scarce. In this study, a support vector machine (SVM) method was developed to predict P-gp substrates and P-gp-substrate interactions, based on a training data set of 197 known P-gp substrates and non-substrates collected from the literature. We showed that the SVM method had a prediction accuracy of approximately 80% on an independent external validation data set of 32 compounds. A homology model of human P-gp based on the X-ray structure of mouse P-gp as a template has been constructed. We showed that molecular docking to the P-gp structures successfully predicted the geometry of P-gp-ligand complexes. Our SVM prediction and the molecular docking methods have been integrated into a free web server (http://pgp.althotas.com), which allows the users to predict whether a given compound is a P-gp substrate and how it binds to and interacts with P-gp. Utilization of such a web server may prove valuable for both rational drug design and screening.

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Hydrogen flame-ionization detectors (FIDs) are the most widely used type of detector in gas chromatography. The FID signal is proportional to the number of carbon atoms in a hydrocarbon molecule; the presence of heteroatoms usually reduces the signal. If the extent of the signal-reducing effect of heteroatoms were known, it would be possible to measure compounds which are not available as pure standards, or cannot be prepared, or their preparation is very expensive. The sensitivity of a detector to an organic molecule containing heteroatoms is referred to normal hydrocarbons by means of the effective carbon-atom number (ECN)value. By use of the values of increments in ECNfor heteroatoms and functional groups, the ECNcan be calculated for any organic molecule. For this, exact values of the ECN increments are needed, and the effects of different factors on the increments must be known. In this study a wide range of homolog ues of normal paraffins, alcohols, amines, and esters was investigated, with emphasis on differences bef,,veen the behaviour of lower and higher homologues. Studies were extended to the ECNvalues of ketones, and aromatic and halogenated compounds. For all types of compound investigated the difference between the actual carbon number and the calculated effective carbon number (dECIxl) was compared with literature data, and an attempt was made to interpret the differences.