Anti-Casp2 polyclonal antibody

A single protein-protein pair, the complex of the influenza virus hemagglutinin with an antibody (Fab BH151), was suggested for prediction at the second experiment on the Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction. To predict the structure of the complex, we applied our docking program GRAMM at a decreased resolution (to accommodate the conformational inaccuracies). The lowest-energy match showed a remarkable "low-resolution" surface complementarity between the molecular structure. After receiving the experimental structure of the complex we had a chance to verify our assumptions and results. The analysis of the hemagglutinin-antibody interface revealed several significant conformational change in the side chains, which resulted in deep interpenetrations of the hemagglutinin and the antibody structures. This confirmed our initial assumption that the structural changes will be beyond the tolerance of high-resolution rigid-body docking. The comparison of the predicted low-resolution match, submitted as the solution, and the experimentally determined complex showed significant structural discrepancies in the orientation of the antibody, due to the low-resolution character of the docking. Because of the severe structural errors, no residue-residue contacts were predicted correctly. However, a significant part of the antigenic site was determined. This illustrates the practical value of the present methodology for the initial prediction of the binding site, as well as points out the problem of transition from the low-resolution predictions of protein-protein complexes to the accurate structure. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Background: Huntington Disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder in which caspase activation and cleavage of substrates, including the huntingtin protein, has been invoked as a pathological mechanism. Specific changes in caspase-2 (casp2) activity have been suggested to contribute to the pathogenesis of HD, however unique casp2 cleavage substrates have remained elusive. We thus utilized mice completely lacking casp2 (casp2-/-) to examine the role played by casp2 in the progression of HD. This 'substrate agnostic' approach allows us to query the effect of casp2 on HD progression without pre-defining proteolytic substrates of interest. Results: YAC128 HD model mice lacking casp2 show protection from well-validated motor and cognitive features of HD, including performance on rotarod, swimming T-maze, pre-pulse inhibition, spontaneous alternation and locomotor tasks. However, the specific pathological features of the YAC128 mice including striatal volume loss and testicular degeneration are unaltered in mice lacking casp2. The application of high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques validates specific neuropathology in the YAC128 mice that is not altered by ablation of casp2. Conclusions: The rescue of behavioral phenotypes in the absence of pathological improvement suggests that different pathways may be operative in the dysfunction of neural circuitry in HD leading to behavioral changes compared to the processes leading to cell death and volume loss. Inhibition of caspase-2 activity may be associated with symptomatic improvement in HD.