82. Notredame C, Higgins DG, Heringa J: T-Coffee: A novel method for fast and accurate multiple sequence alignment. J Mol Biol 2000,302(1):205–217.PubMedCrossRef Authors’ contributions LPS and ECL did the yeast two-hybrid assays that identified SsNramp, SsGAPDH and SsSit as proteins interacting with SSG-1. LPS completed the SsGAPDH, SsNramp and SsSit sequences obtained

in the yeast two-hybrid assay, did the co-immunoprecipitation experiments and participated in the bioinformatic study of the proteins. EG cloned SSG-1 in the yeast two-hybrid vector and identified SOD as a SSG-1 interacting protein. WGV constructed the yeast cDNA library for the identification of the Nramp, Sit and GAPDH homologues and contributed to the co-immunoprecipitation studies. RGM participated and supervised check details the bioinformatic study

of the proteins. NRV designed the study, drafted the manuscript, participated in sequence alignments and domain characterization. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.”
“Background The intestinal barrier is the largest interface between man and the external environment, and the maintenance of its integrity has an important role in preserving health. When intestinal barrier function Selleck Torin 1 is compromised, it can become “”leaky”" allowing pathogens and toxins to enter the body. The function of the intestinal barrier is compromised in human conditions such as Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis) [1], Irritable Bowel Syndrome [2] and some kinds of food-borne infections [3]. Moreover, intestinal barrier function can be temporarily impaired during times of stress [4] and it inevitably deteriorates with aging [5]. In addition, increased intestinal permeability can also result in pathological changes in distant organs and tissues, which can lead to further complications in susceptible individuals such as asthma [6], chronic heart failure [7], type-1-diabetes [8], chronic fatigue syndrome

[9] and depression [10]. A critical component of the intestinal barrier is the intercellular junction complexes between adjacent intestinal epithelial cells which form a semi-permeable diffusion barrier. These intercellular complexes consist of tight junctions, adherens junctions, desmosomes and gap junctions [11]. The tight Pyruvate dehydrogenase junctions are the most apical and are responsible for controlling the permeability of the paracellular pathway. Tight junctions are formed by protein dimers that span the space between adjacent cell membranes. There are over 40 proteins with well recognised roles in tight junction formation. These proteins can be selleck divided into three functional categories: 1) bridge proteins which form a web between adjacent cell membranes; 2) plaque proteins which anchor bridge proteins to the actin cytoskeleton; and 3) dual location proteins which are not continuously associated with the tight junctions and also act as transcription factors.