Dimos Gaidatzis

Abstract Substrate specificity determines protease functions in physiology and in clinical and biotechnological application, yet quantitative cleavage information is often unavailable, biased, or limited to a small number of events. Here, we develop qPISA (quantitative Protease specificity Inference from Substrate Analysis) to study Dipeptidyl Peptidase Four (DPP4), a key regulator of blood glucose levels.

Abstract Substrate specificity determines protease functions in physiology and in clinical and biotechnological application. However, affordable and unbiased assays for large-scale quantification of substrate cleavage have been lacking. Here, we develop hiMAPS (high-throughput mapping of protease cleavage sites), a cheap, mass spectrometry-based assay, to derive cleavage motifs for human Dipeptidyl Peptidase Four (DPP4), a key regulator of blood glucose levels.

Abstract DNA methylation is considered a stable epigenetic mark, yet methylation patterns can vary during differentiation and in diseases such as cancer. Local levels of DNA methylation result from opposing enzymatic activities, the rates of which remain largely unknown. Here we developed a theoretical and experimental framework enabling us to infer methylation and demethylation rates at 860,404 CpGs in mouse embryonic stem cells.