Giulia Di Rocco

TL;DR: The dimorphic features of the amelogenin protein were exploited to determine the sex of the so-called ‘Lovers of Modena’, two Late Antique individuals whose skeletons were intentionally buried hand-in-hand and were compared to 14 modern and archaeological control samples, confirming the reliability of the ion chromatogram method for sex determination.

TL;DR: It is concluded that reduction-induced solvent reorganization effects involving the hydration shell of the molecule dominate the reduction thermodynamics in these species, although they have no net effect on the E° values, owing to exact compensation.

TL;DR: The thermodynamic study shows that insertion of His and Ala residues in place of Tyr67 results mainly in differences in protein-solvent interactions at the heme crevice with no relevant effects on the E degrees' values at pH 7.

TL;DR: The results suggest that the species-dependent orientation of the protein (and thereby of the heme group) toward the negatively charged SAM influences the electrostatic interaction and the resulting E degree' change.

TL;DR: Data show that removal of the axial methionine ligand does not significantly alter the mechanism of acidic unfolding and the ranges of stability of low-pH conformers, and underlines the key role played by Tyr67 in stabilizing the three-dimensional structure of cytochrome c by means of the hydrogen bonding network connecting the Ω loops formed by residues 71-85 and 40-57.