Enzymic memory. Steady state kinetic and physical studies with ascorbate oxidase and aspartate aminotransferase.

Enzymic memory is a kinetic phenomenon observable in double displacement mechanisms. The defining feature of enzymic memory is the occurrence of different rates of transfer for a common transferable group from the substituted enzymes obtained with different donor substrates. Memory behavior was previously demonstrated for both the bovine and human liver rhodaneses (EC 2.8.1.1). Steady state kinetic tests for enzymic memory have now been done with ascorbate oxidase (EC 1.10.3.3) and aspartate aminotransferase (EC 2.6.1.1). The results were positive with ascorbate oxidase, which showed an oxygen reactivity ratio of 1:20:300 for the reduced enzymes obtained with reductate, araboascorbate, and ascorbate, respectively. Results were negative for the aminotransferase tested with the alternate donors glutamate and cysteine sulfinate, with oxaloacetate as the common acceptor. The structural basis of the ascorbate oxidase results was probed by comparison of both the ultraviolet absorption and fluorescence spectra of the oxidized enzyme with those of the reduced forms obtained with ascorbate and reductate. The results are consistent with a conformational basis for the memory phenomenon.     

Parsing a Cognitive Task: A Characterization of the Mind's Bottleneck

Parsing a mental operation into components, characterizing the parallel or serial nature of this flow, and understanding what each process ultimately contributes to response time are fundamental questions in cognitive neuroscience. Here we show how a simple theoretical model leads to an extended set of predictions concerning the distribution of response time and its alteration by simultaneous performance of another task. The model provides a synthesis of psychological refractory period and random-walk models of response time. It merely assumes that a task consists of three consecutive stages—perception, decision based on noisy integration of evidence, and response—and that the perceptual and motor stages can operate simultaneously with stages of another task, while the central decision process constitutes a bottleneck. We designed a number-comparison task that provided a thorough test of the model by allowing independent variations in number notation, numerical distance, response complexity, and temporal asynchrony relative to an interfering probe task of tone discrimination. The results revealed a parsing of the comparison task in which each variable affects only one stage. Numerical distance affects the integration process, which is the only step that cannot proceed in parallel and has a major contribution to response time variability. The other stages, mapping the numeral to an internal quantity and executing the motor response, can be carried out in parallel with another task. Changing the duration of these processes has no significant effect on the variance.     

The effect of salt acclimation of the water uptake and osmotic permeability of the skin of the toad (Bufo viridis, L.)

1. Water uptake in vivo, and water fluxes across the isolated skin were studied in salt (NaCl) acclimated toads. 2. Water uptake of acclimated toads maintained in the solution of acclimation, decreased with the environmental salinity. 3. The osmotic water permeability (Pos) of the skin increased upon salt (NaCl) acclimation, both in vivo and in vitro. 4. Pos of the skin of toads acclimated to non-permeant solutes such as sucrose (230 mmol/l) or mannitol (400 nmol/l), was greatly reduced. 5. Oxytocin (syntocinon) increased the Pos both in tap water and salt acclimated toads. In high salt (greater than 200 mmol/l NaCl) acclimated toads however, the increased Pos and water flux at larger osmotic gradients, could not be stimulated further by the hormone. 6. The adaptive nature of the selective changes in the permeability properties of the skin under salt acclimation conditions is discussed.     

The mouse immune interferon receptor gene is located on chromosome 10

When mouse L cells are incubated with 32P-labeled recombinant murine immune interferon ( [32P]Mu-IFN-gamma) and subsequently cross-linked with disuccinimidyl suberate, a major complex with an apparent molecular mass of 95,000-125,000 daltons can be visualized by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The complex was not formed when the binding was performed in the presence of excess unlabeled Mu-IFN-gamma or when Chinese hamster ovary cells were used. This complex therefore represents the Mu-IFN-gamma receptor (or its interferon-binding subunit). The chromosomal location of the Mu-IFN-gamma receptor (or the binding subunit of the receptor) gene, termed Ifgr, was identified by performing the binding and cross-linking reactions on a series of mouse-hamster somatic cell hybrids with different subsets of mouse chromosomes. The presence of mouse chromosome 10 was shown to be necessary and sufficient for the formation of the cross-linked complex. Thus, the gene coding for the binding subunit of the Mu-IFN-gamma receptor was localized to mouse chromosome 10. The presence of this chromosome in the hybrid cells was not sufficient, however, to confer antiviral resistance to the hybrids when they were treated with Mu-IFN-gamma and challenged with encephalomyocarditis virus.     

Transient increase in glucose 1,6-bisphosphate in human skeletal muscle during isometric contraction.

Changes in glucose 1,6-bisphosphate and regulators of glucose-1,6-bisphosphate synthase and phosphatase during isometric contraction have been determined. Biopsies were obtained from the quadriceps femoris muscle before and after 20 s of contraction and at fatigue. Glucose 1,6-bisphosphate increased by 35% after 20 s of contraction (P less than 0.001) with no further change at fatigue (P greater than 0.05 versus 20 s). Pi, fructose 1,6-bisphosphate and glycerate 3-phosphate, all inhibitors of the synthase, increased significantly during the first 20 s (P less than 0.05-0.001), whereas muscle pH (decrease in which inhibits synthase) decreased continuously. The decrease in the total adenine nucleotide pool, which is stoichiometric with the increase in IMP (an activator of phosphatase), was not significant after 20 s, but was 15% at fatigue (P less than 0.001). The rapid increase in glucose 1,6-bisphosphate, despite increases in the inhibitors of synthase, suggests that the synthase was activated, possibly by the substrate glycerate 1,3-bisphosphate and/or a yet unknown activator(s). The lack of any further change in glucose 1,6-bisphosphate during the latter part of contraction may be due to concomitant activation of the synthase and phosphatase.