Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous clonal disorder of myeloid precursors arrested in their maturation, creating a diverse disease entity with a wide range of responses to historically standard treatment approaches. While signifi cant progress has been made in characterizing and individualizing the disease at diagnosis to optimally inform those affected, progress in treatment to reduce relapse and induce remission has been limited thus far. In addition to a brief summary of the factors that shape prognostication at diagnosis, this review attempts to expand on the current therapies under investigation that have shown promise in treating AML, including hypomethylating agents, gemtuzumab ozogamicin, FLT3 tyrosine kinase inhibitors, antisense oligonucleotides, and other novel therapies, including aurora kinases, mTOR and PI3 kinase inhibitors, PIM kinase inhibitors, HDAC inhibitors, and IDH targeted therapies. With these, and undoubtedly many others in the future, it is the hope that by combining more accurate prognostication with more effective therapies, patients will begin to have a different, and more complete, outlook on their disease that allows for safer and more successful treatment strategies.
GPCR proteins represent the largest family of signaling membrane proteins in eukaryotic cells. Their importance to basic cell biology, human diseases, and pharmaceutical interventions is well established. Many crystal structures of GPCR proteins have been reported in both active and inactive conformations. These data indicate that agonist binding alone is not suffi cient to trigger the conformational change of GPCRs necessary for binding of downstream G-proteins, yet other essential factors remain elusive. Based on analysis of available GPCR crystal structures, we identifi ed a potential conformational switch around the conserved Asp2.50, which consistently shows distinct conformations between inactive and active states. Combining the structural information with the current literature, we propose an energy-coupling mechanism, in which the interaction between a charge change of the GPCR protein and the membrane potential of the living cell plays a key role for GPCR activation.
Leukocyte immunoglobulin-like receptors (LILRs), also called CD85s, ILTs, or LIRs, are important mediators of immune activation and tolerance that contain tandem immunoglobulin (Ig)-like folds. There are 11 (in addition to two pseudogenes) LILRs in total, two with two Ig-like domains (D1D2) and the remaining nine with four Ig-like domains (D1D2D3D4). Thus far, the structural features of the D1D2 domains of LILR proteins are well defi ned, but no structures for the D3D4 domains have been reported. This is a very important fi eld to be studied as it relates to the unknown functions of the D3D4 domains, as well as their relative orientation to the D1D2 domains on the cell surface. Here, we report the crystal structures of the D3D4 domains of both LILRB1 and LILRB2. The two Iglike domains of both LILRB1-D3D4 and LILRB2-D3D4 are arranged at an acute angle (~60°) to form a bent structure, resembling the structures of natural killer inhibitory receptors. Based on these two D3D4 domain structures and previously reported D1D2/HLA I complex structures, two alternative models of full-length (four Ig-like domains) LILR molecules bound to HLA I are proposed.
Coxsackievirus A16 belongs to the family
The transition metal cobalt, an essential cofactor for many enzymes in prokaryotes, is taken up by several specifi c transport systems. The CbiMNQO protein complex belongs to type-1 energy-coupling factor (ECF) transporters and is a widespread group of microbial cobalt transporters. CbiO is the ATPase subunit (A-component) of the cobalt transporting system in the gram-negative thermophilic bacterium