Kinetic modelling of coupled transport across biological membranes.

In this report, we have modelled a secondary active co-transporter (symport and antiport), based on the classical kinetics model. Michaelis-Menten model of enzyme kinetics for a single substrate, single intermediate enzyme catalyzed reaction was proposed more than a hundred years ago. However, no single model for the kinetics of co-transport of molecules across a membrane is available in the literature. We have made several simplifying assumptions and have followed the basic Michaelis-Menten approach. The results have been simulated using GNU Octave. The results will be useful in general kinetic simulations and modelling.

Promoters, toll like receptors and microRNAs: A strange association.

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are proteins that play key role in the innate immune system. In the present study, ~1000 base pairs upstream are taken from the transcription start site of the various TLR genes (10 known) in human. About 40 microRNAs have been identified that share 12-19 nucleotide sequence similarity with the promoter regions of 10 TLRs. It is proposed that the microRNA performs potential role in identification of promoter sequence and initiation of transcription.