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by Eric Martz
Black spots are mutations of concern in SARS-CoV-2 spike protein reported by UK scientists in December, 2020. RNA viruses mutate quickly so mutations are expected. These mutations may speed up contagion, but are unlikely to cause more severe COVID-19 and unlikely to reduce vaccine effectiveness. ACE2 binding residues. Animation shows priming via cleavage by furin.
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by Alice Clark (PDBe)
In the 1970s, an exciting discovery of a family of medicines was made by the Japanese scientist Satoshi Ōmura. One of these molecules, ivermectin, is shown in this artwork bound in the ligand binding pocket of the Farnesoid X receptor, a protein which helps regulate cholesterol in humans. This structure showed that ivermectin induced transcriptional activity of FXR and could be used to regulate metabolism.

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IB Tomasic, MC Metcalf, AI Guce, NE Clark, SC Garman. J. Biol. Chem. 2010 doi: 10.1074/jbc.M110.118588
The human lysosomal enzymes α-galactosidase and α-N-acetylgalactosaminidase share 46% amino acid sequence identity and have similar folds. Using a rational protein engineering approach, we interconverted the enzymatic specificity of α-GAL and α-NAGAL. The engineered α-GAL retains the antigenicity but has acquired the enzymatic specificity of α-NAGAL. Conversely, the engineered α-NAGAL retains the antigenicity but has acquired the enzymatic specificity of the α-GAL enzyme. Comparison of the crystal structures of the designed enzyme to the wild-type enzymes shows that active sites superimpose well, indicating success of the rational design. The designed enzymes might be useful as non-immunogenic alternatives in enzyme replacement therapy for treatment of lysosomal storage disorders such as Fabry disease.

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Positive (+) and Negative (-) charges on the surface of a protein molecule play crucial roles in its interactions with other molecules, and hence in its functions. Electrostatic potential maps coloring the surface of a protein molecule are a popular way to visualize the distribution of surface charges. Easy to use free software is available to to create these surface maps. Above is an integral membrane potassium channel protein. One of its 4 identical chains is removed so you can see the Negative (-) protein surface contacting the 3 K+ ions.

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