Staphylococcal nuclease and

Nitrophenyl esters of thymidine are substrates for staphylococcal nuclease and ribonucleotide 5 -(5-iodoindol-3-ol) (3) and 5 -(4-methyl-coumarin-7-ol) (4) esters have been used for the histochemical demon-... 

Apart from important similarities in the endo- and exonucleolytic properties of staphylococcal nuclease and other well-studied phosphodiesterases (67), those from snake venom and spleen, the basic structural substrate elements for these enzymes appear to be quite different... 

Light J, Lerner RA, Random mutagenesis of staphylococcal nuclease and phage display selection, Bioorg. Med. Chem., 3 955-967, 1995. 

Abstract. Walter Kauzmann stated in a review of protein thermodynamics that volume and enthalpy changes are equally fundamental properties of the unfolding process, and no model can be considered acceptable unless it accounts for the entire thermodynamic behaviour (Nature 325 763-764, 1987). While the thermodynamic basis for pressure effects has been known for some time, the molecular mechanisms have remained rather mysterious. We, and others in the rather small field of pressure effects on protein structure and stability, have attempted since that time to clarify the molecular and physical basis for the changes in volume that accompany protein conformational transitions, and hence to explain pressure effects on proteins. The combination of many years of work on a model system, staphylococcal nuclease and its large numbers of site-specific mutants, and the rather new pressure perturbation calorimetry approach has provided for the first time a fundamental qualitative understanding of AV of unfolding, the quantitative basis of which remains the goal of current work. 

Metal ions also participate in the functioning of other nucleases, although the structural details of their participation are not nearly as established as those for staphylococcal nuclease. DNAse I also requires Ca for its catalytic activity.SI endonuclease, mung bean nuclease, and Physarum polycephalem nuclease require zinc ion either as cofactors or intrinsically for nuclease activity, and the restriction enzyme EcoRI may also require intrinsically bound zinc ion. In terms of how the zinc ion might function in these enzymes, one can look both to staphylococcal nuclease and to bacterial alkaline phosphatase for some... 

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