Mycoplasma insons sp. nov., a twisted mycoplasma from green iguanas (Iguana iguana)

Mycoplasma insons sp. nov., first cultured from the choanae and tracheae of healthy green iguanas (Iguana iguana) from El Salvador, was readily distinguished from all previously described mollicutes and assigned to the Mycoplasma fastidiosum phylogenetic cluster by 16S rRNA gene sequence comparisons. Growth inhibition assays distinguished the isolates serologically from the other two members of that cluster. Many M. insons cells exhibit a remarkable twisted rod morphology despite lacking a cell wall. The organism is nonmotile, produces acid from glucose, but does not hydrolyze arginine, esculin, or urea. Mycoplasma insons 16S rRNA gene was also detected by PCR in packed blood cells from culture-negative iguanas. The type strain I17P1(T) has been deposited with the Mollicutes Collection at Purdue University and with the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC BAA-1435) in the USA. A limited number of cultures generated by the authors have also been deposited with the Culture Collection, University of G?teborg, in Sweden (CCUG 53461).     

Forty years of research on the assembly and infection process of bacteriophage

This short biographical note was written as part of the lead-in material for a festschrift kindly organized for me on the occasion of my 70th birthday. The collection of articles assembled in this issue range within the spectrum of the topics covered in the special issue ‘Multiscale structural biology—biophysical principles and practice ranging from biomolecules to bionanomachines.’ Here I describe some of the high points of my 40 years of research science conducted in the USA, Switzerland and Japan. I also use this opportunity to express my sincerest thanks to my former colleagues and the very many contributors who so kindly contributed to this special issue.     

Computational biophysics and structural biology of proteins—a Special Issue in honor of Prof. Haruki Nakamura’s 70th birthday

Receiving his initial training jointly in theoretical and applied physics at the University of Tokyo, Professor Haruki Nakamura has had a long and eventful scientific career, along the way helping to shape the way that biophysics is carried out in Japan. Concentrating his research efforts on the simulation of protein structure and function, he has, over his career arc, acted as director of the Institute for Protein Research (Osaka, Japan), director of the Protein Data Bank of Japan (PDBj), president of the Biophysical Society of Japan (BSJ), president of the Protein Science Society of Japan (PSSJ), and group leader and professor of Bioinformatics and Computational Structural Biology at Osaka University. In 2022, Prof. Haruki Nakamura turned 70 years old, and to mark this occasion, his scientific colleagues from around the world have combined their efforts to produce this Festschrift Issue of the IUPAB Biophysical Reviews journal around the theme of the computational biophysics and structural biology of proteins.

The aim of this Festschrift Issue is to both acknowledge and celebrate the scientific career and achievements of Prof. Haruki Nakamura by publishing a series of review articles contributed by his former students and colleagues in the field of computational and structural biology. In this Editorial, we first provide some background to the articles published within this Special Issue (SI) before then going on to describe some background to Professor Nakamura’s life, research science, and professional endeavors.     

Looking back at a quarter-century of research at the Maurice E. Müller Institute for Structural Biology

The Maurice E. Müller Institute, embedded in the infrastructure of the Biozentrum, University of Basel, was founded in 1985 and financed by the Maurice E. Müller Foundation of Switzerland. For 26 years its two founders, Ueli Aebi and Andreas Engel, pursued the vision of integrated structural biology. This paper reviews selected publications issuing from the Maurice E. Müller Institute for Structural Biology and marks the end of this era.     

History of the Department of Pediatrics Yale University School of Medicine.

The history of pediatrics at the Yale University School of Medicine can be divided into eight historical eras. The "Paleohistorical Era" included colonial figures such as Governor John Winthrop and Hezekiah Beardsley who wrote about children''s disease in colonial times. Eli Ives, Professor of the Diseases of Children at Yale Medical School gave the first systematic pediatric course in America in the first half of the nineteenth century. During the second era, from 1830-1920, the New Haven Hospital was opened. An affiliation between Yale University and the New Haven Hospital led to the formal establishment of clinical departments including pediatrics in the early 20th century. Six eras coinciding with successive pediatric chairman have led the department to its present respected position in American pediatrics. The department''s 75th anniversary in 1996 is an occasion to recognize many of the department''s accomplishments and leaders over the years. It is also a time to reaffirm the mission of the department: to the health needs of the children of Connecticut and beyond, to the advancement of scientific knowledge of infants and children and their diseases, and to the training and educational of the pediatric clinicians, educators and investigators of the future.     

H. N. Martin and W. K. Brooks: Exemplars for American Biology?

The Johns Hopkins University offered the first modern, American,research-oriented programin biology when it opened in 1876.The program included both physiological and morphological work,so that students could choose either for their advanced degrees.Physiologists studied with Henry Newell Martin, morphologistswith William Keith Brooks. Yet students took courses in bothareas, and the unique exposure to two lines of research andto two very different sorts of teachers made the Johns Hopkinsprogram exceptional. This paper outlines the dual characterof biology at Hopkins, and the particular contributions of bothMartin and Brooks. It also argues that the impact of that uniquedual offering on four of the more famous students, E. B. Wilson,T. H. Morgan, E. G. Conklin, and R. G. Harrison, strongly influencedthe successful and progressive program of research that eachchose.     

Richard G.W. Anderson (1940-2011) and the birth of receptor-mediated endocytosis

On March 19, 2011, the discipline of cell biology lost a creative force with the passing of Richard G.W. Anderson, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cell Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. An unabashed chauvinist for cell biology, Dick served for many years on the editorial board of The Journal of Cell Biology and the Council of the American Society for Cell Biology. He died of glioblastoma multiforme six days before his 71st birthday.     

George N. Papanicolaou (1883-1962): Fifty years after the death of a great doctor, scientist and humanitarian

Fifty years have passed since the death of Dr George Nicholas Papanicolaou, who was born in Kyme at the island of Euboea in Greece in 1883 and became known for his innovative revolutionary invention of the Pap smear test performed at the Cornell University Medical College in the USA. To date, even after the introduction of HPV vaccination into the clinical practice, Dr George Papanicolaou's method remains an essential component of the prevention strategy against cancer and has resulted in a 70% decrease in cervical cancer mortality over the last 60 years. This article, which presents briefly his biography, is dedicated to him on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death.     

The onset of a revolution in drug discovery

Cell electrophysiology is extremely important to cell biology, medicine and drug development, and micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS)-based systems hold great promise to alleviate several problems associated with the current methods used by the pharmaceutical industry to probe drug development. Porterfield et al. at Purdue University have developed an integrated MEMS-based system, which offers considerable advantages compared with current electrophysiological systems and might have greater implications as an advanced method for drug development.     

Hydrogen exchange: the modern legacy of Linderstrøm-Lang.

This discussion, prepared for the Protein Society's symposium honoring the 100th anniversary of Kaj Linderstrøm-Lang, shows how hydrogen exchange approaches initially conceived and implemented by Lang and his colleagues some 50 years ago are contributing to current progress in structural biology. Examples are chosen from the active protein folding field. Hydrogen exchange methods now make it possible to define the structure of protein folding intermediates in various contexts: as tenuous molten globule forms at equilibrium under destabilizing conditions, in kinetic intermediates that exist for less than one second, and as infinitesimally populated excited state forms under native conditions. More generally, similar methods now find broad application in studies of protein structure, energetics, and interactions. This article considers the rise of these capabilities from their inception at the Carlsberg Labs to their contemporary role as a significant tool of modern structural biology.     

Q & A. [interview

Elaine and Gary Ostrander spent their youth in New Jersey and New York before heading to Nebraska for their teen years and eventually Washington State for High School and college, as their father moved around in library administration. Elaine was an undergraduate at the University of Washington, a graduate student at the Oregon Health Sciences University and a postdoc with James Wang at Harvard, studying DNA supercoiling. She next went to Berkeley, where she began the canine genome project, initiating the meiotic linkage map and working on human chromosome 21 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. In 1993 she moved to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center where she is now a Member of the Divisions of Clinical Research and Human Biology. She is also an Affiliate Professor of Genome Sciences and Biology at the University of Washington, and heads the Program in Genetics at the Hutchinson Center. Gary completed his undergraduate degree in Biology at Seattle University, a M.S. degree at Illinois State University and a Ph.D at the University of Washington in Ocean and Fisheries Science. He went on to be a postdoc in the Department of Pathology at the University of Washington Medical School while being mentored by Senitroh Hakomori of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Eric Holmes of the Pacific Northwest Research Foundation. His work focused on using novel aspects of the biology of fishes to address fundamental questions about cancer. He subsequently held both faculty and administrative positions at Oklahoma State University. Since 1996, he has been at the Johns Hopkins University, where he currently holds academic appointments in the Departments of Biology and Comparative Medicine and is the Associate Provost for Research.     

Estimation of maternal,sex-linked and additive x additive epistatic gene effects for body size of Tribolium

Summary The genetic structure of two quantitative traits, 13-day larval weight and pupal weight, in two unselected populations of Tribolium castaneum was investigated by the genetic model of Carbonell et al. (1983). The variability among two and three-way crosses was analyzed into components due to: general and specific combining abilities, maternal, sex-linkage, specific reciprocal and additive-by-additive epistasis. Also, indirect evidence of higher order epistasis was studied. It is concluded that the heterotic trait larval weight is highly affected by sex-linked genes and by non-additive gene action with additive-by-additive as well as higher order epistasis playing major roles. Pupal weight, on the other hand, is determined mostly by additive gene action although epistasis is also a significant source for genetic variability. Both traits are significantly influenced by maternal effects.Journal Paper No. 9033 from Purdue University Agricultural Experiment Station. Based in part on PhD Theses submitted by the first two authors at Purdue University     

Gel formation on nodal root surfaces ofZea mays

Summary A gel forms profusely on the surface of nodal roots of corn. The nature and properties of the material was investigated with the purpose of understanding the mucilaginous layer which exists at the root-soil interface. Acid hydrolysis of the material revealed that it contained uronic acids, galactose, arabinose, xylose, and frucose in an approximate molecular ratio of (3:7:5:11). In addition to these sugars glucose and fructose were also present in the exudate of first or second stage nodal roots. The enzymes acid phosphatase and ATPase were present in the gel. ATPase was only slightly stimulated by K. The gel showed phosphatase activity over a broad range in pH. Contribution from the Department of Agronomy, Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.A. Journal Paper No. 3696 of the Purdue Agricultural Experiment Station.     

新世纪中推动生物科学发展的“Bio-X”

近二年国际上正掀起建立以生物科学为中心的交叉学科研究中心或研究所等实体的热潮。其中最引入注目的是美国斯坦福大学以诺贝尔物理学奖获得者朱棣文教授等人组建的“Bio-X”研究中心。Bio-X中的Bio为生物学,X泛指物理学、化学、工程学、医学等其它学科,在新世纪到来之时,生物科学中有不少迅速发展的领域迫切需要多学科交叉共同研究和参与,特别是：后基因组、基于同步辐射的结构生物学、单分子测量、纳米技术、脑科学、生物医学工程等。     

The future is hybrid

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Structural Biology, we review some of the major advances that have taken place in molecular and cellular structural biology over this timeframe and consider some current trends, as well as promising new directions. While the primary experimental techniques of X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy and NMR spectroscopy continue to improve and other powerful new techniques have come on-line, it appears that the most comprehensive analyses of large, dynamic, macromolecular machines will rely on integrated combinations of different methodologies, viz. "hybrid approaches". The same prospect applies to the challenge of integrating observations of isolated macromolecules with data pertaining to their distributions and interaction networks in living cells. Looking ahead, computation in its diverse aspects may be expected to assume an increasingly important role in structural biology, as the prediction of molecular structures, the computation of dynamic properties, and quantitative time-resolved models of intracellular molecular populations (structural systems biology) move towards functional maturity.     

Comparative Studies on Pollination Biology of Mosla hangchouensis and M.chinensis (Labiatae)

Mosla hangchouensis Matsuda and M. chinensis Maxim. are sibling species. The former is endemic to the coastal areas of Zhejiang Province, and the latter occupies southern China. Their morphological differences were associated with their different breeding systems indicated by pollen-ovule ratio (P/O). M. hangchouensis was predominantly outcrossing with P/O ranging from 756 to 6163 due to the variation among populations. Floral characters also showed that M. hangchouensis is an outcrosser: corolla tube 5～10 mm long, 3~5 mm wide, bright red: style 6～15 mm long; stigma 1.5～2.0 mm horizontally away from anthers. On the contrary, M. chinensis was predominantly a selfer with a low P/O ratio (P/O= 110). Its floral parameters contrasted sharply with M. hangchouensis: corolla tube 3.0 mm long, 1.0 ～ 1.5 mm wide, pale colored; style 2.5 mm long. stigma close to or touching anthers. The pollinators of M. hangchouensis most frequently seen are: Bombus trifascitus Smith., Scolia spp., Apis cerana Fabricius, Hylaeus sp. and Lasioglossum spp. These pollinators began to visit flowers at about 8:00 am, when flower buds were ready to open. When insects entered corolla tube for honey and (or) pollen, the stigmata touched the insects body hairs to which pollen grains adhered, and pollen grains were transferred to the stigmata. Meanwhile the hairs collected pollen from anthers under the upper lips of corolla as the insects thrusted their bodies forward. Bumble bees and honey bees were considered more efficient pollinators because they were hair-rich and their body size fitted corolla tube fairly well. Due to the'short flight distance of pollinators between two visits (average flight distances of honey bees and solitary bees were 0.52 m and 0.32 m respectively), pollen dispersal was probably restricted. Pollen vectors were important for the reproductive success of M. hangchouensis because 84.3 % of its seed-set depended on the pollinators' visitation. Although insects did pay visits to M. chinensis occasionally, such visitation was insignificant in seed-set due to cleistogamy. Discussions are made on the evolutionary significance of breeding system divergence between M. hangchouensis and M. chinensis, and the contribution of studies on pollination biology to conservation biology. Further studies are suggested for more thorough understanding of pollination biology of M. hangchouensis.     

霜霉属菌一新种——微孔草霜霉

本文报道寄生于甘青微孔草(Microula pseudotrichocarpa W.T.Wang)和疏花微孔草[M.diffusa(Maxim.)Johnst.]上的霜霉属一新种——微孔草霜霉(Peronospora microulaeMeng et G.Y.Yin)。以汉文和拉丁文描述此新种的形态性状,并。附图     

Celebrate Darwin Day, An Event for Education and Outreach in Evolutionary Biology

Darwin Day is an international celebration of Charles Darwin’s birthday, February 12, and is used as an occasion for education and outreach in evolutionary biology. I describe the history and structure of Darwin Day at the University of Tennessee, one of the oldest Darwin Day organizations in the world. I detail past events including speakers, themes, and advertising ideas that have worked for us and suggestions for getting a Darwin Day started. I encourage interested groups especially those at schools, museums, libraries, nature centers, and other institutions to adapt ideas from our organization to fit their own circumstances and to start planning their own Darwin Days for the celebration of Darwin’s 200th birthday in 2009.     

The mitotic apparatus of a zygomycete,Phycomyces blakesleeanus

Summary A novel type of mitotic apparatus is described in Phycomyces blakesleeanus. Its spindle consists of a pole-to-pole bundle of regularly spaced microtubules which terminally insert in an electron-opaque knob projection from the inner nuclear membrane. The poles are not determined by centrioles or any centriole-equivalent extranuclear structures. The structural details of the Zygomycete mitosis are discussed as to their possible functions and are compared with those of the mitotic apparatuses of other fungal groups.The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the excellent technical help of Miss Sigrid Krien. The present work was part of the Botany course of advanced students of the Faculty of Biology, University of Freiburg i. Br. We thank also Drs. Charles Bracker (Purdue University, Lafayette, U.S.A.), Max Delbrück (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, U.S.A.), Heinz Falk, Rainer Hertel, Ulrich Scheer and Peter Sitte (Institute of Biology II, III, University of Freiburg i. Br.) for various support and helpful discussions. We thank Dr. R. M. Brown (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, U.S.A.) for information on unpublished data.     

Structural biology of G protein‐coupled receptor signaling complexes

G protein‐coupled receptors (GPCRs) constitute the largest family of cell surface receptors that mediate numerous cell signaling pathways, and are targets of more than one‐third of clinical drugs. Thanks to the advancement of novel structural biology technologies, high‐resolution structures of GPCRs in complex with their signaling transducers, including G‐protein and arrestin, have been determined. These 3D complex structures have significantly improved our understanding of the molecular mechanism of GPCR signaling and provided a structural basis for signaling‐biased drug discovery targeting GPCRs. Here we summarize structural studies of GPCR signaling complexes with G protein and arrestin using rhodopsin as a model system, and highlight the key features of GPCR conformational states in biased signaling including the sequence motifs of receptor TM6 that determine selective coupling of G proteins, and the phosphorylation codes of GPCRs for arrestin recruitment. We envision the future of GPCR structural biology not only to solve more high‐resolution complex structures but also to show stepwise GPCR signaling complex assembly and disassembly and dynamic process of GPCR signal transduction.