ajs21

Many congratulations to Omar who passed his PhD viva today!

A new VIZIB (Virtual Institute of Zinc Biology) website has been launched, with help of the Royal Society of Chemistry as part of the Zinc-net European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action chaired by Prof. Nicola Lowe (UCLAN). The purpose of the new site is for researchers interested in the study of zinc to share ideas and establish collaborations. The site can be accessed here (please note that registration is required).

We report the first structural characterisation of histidine-rich glycoprotein, an important plasma adaptor protein following elucidation of the 1.93 Å X-ray crystal structure of the protein’s N2 domain (PDB: 4CCV). This region forms part of an important ligand interaction site on the molecule, that binds a range of molecules including the natural anti-coagultant, heparin. The structure, solved in collaboration with Prof. Jim Naismith’s laboratory revealed the presence of an S-glutathionyl adduct, which has implications for the control of angiogenesis. – Open access version in Europe PMC.