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The results of the experimental and theoretical researches of kinetics of erythrosine penetration into collagenase molecules have represented in this paper. The case with introduction of the compound (fluorescent probe) which has dimers to enzyme solution as an injection has been considered. It was shown that monomers and dimers can penetrate into enzyme molecules with formation complexes monomer — enzyme, dimer- enzyme. Moreover, transformation of probe fluorescence spectra is at each time moment. Spectrum maximum shift, and its form change. At a time, the immobilized dye dimers greatly impact to formation of end fluorescence spectrum. Well correlation between experimental and theoretical results confirms reality of the obtained data.

Numerical calculations of structures and vibrational spectra of small water clusters are performed by solution of the molecular Schrodinger equation in the density functional theory framework using B3LYP and X3LYP hybrid functionals. Spectral features and evolution of hydrogen bond properties in clusters with their size increasing are discussed. The vibrotational Hamiltonian parameters and Fermi and Darling-Dennison anharmonic resonances in small water oligomers are determined. Obtained results may be used in quantum mechanics/molecular dynamics simulations of water and processes in active site of enzyme.

It is shown that the basic amount of homologous parts at inulinases from various species is presented by Gln, Asn and Glu residues. Carboxyl groups of Asp and Glu side chains (a part of active center of inulinase) can play the role of contact groups for substrate molecules and also carry out acid-base catalysis. Comparison of primary structures of inulinases has shown that frequency of residue substitution is very variable along the polypeptide chain. The phylogenetic tree of inulinases from various sources is constructed. It is revealed that high homology degree is characteristic for enzymes from Aspergillus awamori, Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus ficuum. Rather small relation degree is shown for endo- and exo-inulinases.

In case of vessel wall damage or contact of blood plasma with a foreign surface, the chain of chemical reactions called coagulation cascade is launched that leading to the formation of a fibrin clot. A key enzyme of the coagulation cascade is thrombin, which catalyzes formation of fibrin from fibrinogen. The distribution of thrombin concentration in blood plasma determines spatio-temporal dynamics of clot formation. Contact pathway of blood coagulation triggers the production of thrombin in response to the contact with a negatively charged surface. If the concentration of thrombin generated at this stage is large enough, further production of thrombin takes place due to positive feedback loops of the coagulation cascade. As a result, thrombin propagates in plasma cleaving fibrinogen that results in the clot formation. The concentration profile and the speed of propagation of thrombin are constant and do not depend on the type of the initial activator.

Such behavior of the coagulation system is well described by the traveling wave solutions in a system of “reaction – diffusion” equations on the concentration of blood factors involved in the coagulation cascade. In this study, we carried out detailed analysis of the mathematical model describing the main reaction of the intrinsic pathway of coagulation cascade.We formulate necessary and sufficient conditions of the existence of the traveling wave solutions. For the considered model the existence of such solutions is equivalent to the existence of the wave solutions in the simplified one-equation model describing the dynamics of thrombin concentration derived under the quasi-stationary approximation.

Simplified model also allows us to obtain analytical estimate of the thrombin propagation rate in the considered model. The speed of the traveling wave for one equation is estimated using the narrow reaction zone method and piecewise linear approximation. The resulting formulas give a good approximation of the velocity of propagation of thrombin in the simplified, as well as in the original model.

The functioning of DNA regulatory regions rely primarily on their physicochemical and structural properties but not on nucleotide sequences, i.e. ‘genetic text’. The formers are responsible for coding of DNA-protein interactions that govern various regulatory events. One of the characteristics is SIDD (Stress-Induced Duplex Destabilization) that quantify DNA duplex region propensity to melt under the imposed superhelical stress. The duplex property has been shown to participate in activity of various regulatory regions. Here we employ the SIDD model to calculate melting probability profiles for T7 bacteriophage promoter sequences. The genome is characterized by small size (approximately 40 thousand nucleotides) and temporal organization of expression: at the first stage of infection early T7 DNA region is transcribed by the host cell RNA polymerase, later on in life cycle phage-specific RNA polymerase performs transcription of class II and class III genes regions. Differential recognition of a particular group of promoters by the enzyme cannot be solely explained by their nucleotide sequences, because of, among other reasons, it is fairly similar among most the promoters. At the same time SIDD profiles obtained vary significantly and are clearly separated into groups corresponding to functional promoter classes of T7 DNA. For example, early promoters are affected by the same maximally destabilized DNA duplex region located at the varying region of a particular promoter. class II promoters lack substantially destabilized regions close to transcription start sites. Class III promoters, in contrast, demonstrate characteristic melting probability maxima located in the near-downstream region in all cases. Therefore, the apparent differences among the promoter groups with exceptional textual similarity (class II and class III differ by only few singular substitutions) were established. This confirms the major impact of DNA primary structure on the duplex parameter as well as a need for a broad genetic context consideration. The differences in melting probability profiles obtained using SIDD model alongside with other DNA physicochemical properties appears to be involved in differential promoter recognition by RNA polymerases.

The results of homology modeling of HydSL, a NiFe-hydrogenase from purple sulphur bacterium Thiocapsa roseopersicina BBS are presented in this work. It is shown that the models have larger confidence level than earlier published ones; a full-size model of HydSL hydrogenase is presented for the first time. The C-end fragment of the enzyme is shown to have random orientation in relation to the main protein globule. The obtain models have a large number of ion pairs, as well as thermostable HydSL hydrogenase from Allochromatium vinosum, in contrast to thermolabile HydAB hydrogenase from Desulfovibrio vulgaris.