Starch Binding Domain-containing Protein 1/Genethonin 1 Is a Novel Participant in Glycogen Metabolism

Stbd1 is a protein of previously unknown function that is most prevalent in liver and muscle, the major sites for storage of the energy reserve glycogen. The protein is predicted to contain a hydrophobic N terminus and a C-terminal CBM20 glycan binding domain. Here, we show that Stbd1 binds to glycogen in vitro and that endogenous Stbd1 locates to perinuclear compartments in cultured mouse FL83B or Rat1 cells. When overexpressed in COSM9 cells, Stbd1 concentrated at enlarged perinuclear structures, co-localized with glycogen, the late endosomal/lysosomal marker LAMP1 and the autophagy protein GABARAPL1. Mutant Stbd1 lacking the N-terminal hydrophobic segment had a diffuse distribution throughout the cell. Point mutations in the CBM20 domain did not change the perinuclear localization of Stbd1, but glycogen was no longer concentrated in this compartment. Stable overexpression of glycogen synthase in Rat1WT4 cells resulted in accumulation of glycogen as massive perinuclear deposits, where a large fraction of the detectable Stbd1 co-localized. Starvation of Rat1WT4 cells for glucose resulted in dissipation of the massive glycogen stores into numerous and much smaller glycogen deposits that retained Stbd1. In vitro, in cells, and in animal models, Stbd1 consistently tracked with glycogen. We conclude that Stbd1 is involved in glycogen metabolism by binding to glycogen and anchoring it to membranes, thereby affecting its cellular localization and its intracellular trafficking to lysosomes.     

Simple models including energy and spike constraints reproduce complex activity patterns and metabolic disruptions

In this work, we introduce new phenomenological neuronal models (eLIF and mAdExp) that account for energy supply and demand in the cell as well as the inactivation of spike generation how these interact with subthreshold and spiking dynamics. Including these constraints, the new models reproduce a broad range of biologically-relevant behaviors that are identified to be crucial in many neurological disorders, but were not captured by commonly used phenomenological models. Because of their low dimensionality eLIF and mAdExp open the possibility of future large-scale simulations for more realistic studies of brain circuits involved in neuronal disorders. The new models enable both more accurate modeling and the possibility to study energy-associated disorders over the whole time-course of disease progression instead of only comparing the initially healthy status with the final diseased state. These models, therefore, provide new theoretical and computational methods to assess the opportunities of early diagnostics and the potential of energy-centered approaches to improve therapies.     

Inhibiting effect of (sarcosine-1-isoleucine-8)-angiotensin II in anesthesized rats

The peptidic sequence (Sarcosine-1-Isoleucine-8)-Angiotensin II has been demonstrated to be an in vitro specific and competitive antagonist of the Angiotensin II action. The present results show it to be a competitive antagonist also in vivo since pA2 values are similar, always reaches a 100% response on increasing the Angiotensin II dose, and when relating log (DR-1) and log dose of agonist, the slope is very near to one (0.925).     

Induction of the blue form of bacteriohodopsin by low concentrations of sodium dodecyl sulfate

The effects produced on bacteriorhodopsin by low concentrations of several detergents have been studied by absorption and fourth-derivative spectrophotometry. Sodium dodecyl sulfate induces the appearance of the blue form of bacteriorhodopsin (λ_max = 600 nm) at pH values up to 7.0 in a reversible manner. The apparent pK of the purple-to-blue transition raised with increasing concentration of SDS. Of the other detergents tested, only sodium dodecyl-N-sarcosinate showed a slight red-shift of the absorption band to 580 nm, whereas sodium taurocholate, Triton X-100 and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide did not favour the appearance of the blue form. The effect of SDS was found to be consistent with a localized conformational change that moves away the counter-ion of the protonated Schiff base.