Nitric oxide protects cardiac sarcolemmal membrane enzyme function and ion active transport against ischemia-induced inactivation

Nitric oxide (NO.) generated from nitric oxide synthase (NOS) isoforms bound to cellular membranes may serve to modulate oxidative stresses in cardiac muscle and thereby regulate the function of key membrane-associated enzymes. Ischemia is known to inhibit the function of sarcolemmal enzymes, including the (Na+ + K+)-ATPase, but it is unknown whether concomitant injury to sarcolemma (SL)-associated NOS isoforms may contribute to this process by reducing the availability of locally generated NO. Here we report that nNOS, as well as eNOS (SL NOSs), are tightly associated with cardiac SL membranes in several different species. In isolated perfused rat hearts, global ischemia caused a time-dependent irreversible injury to cardiac SL NOSs and a disruption of SL NO. generation. Pretreatment with low concentrations of the NO. donor 1-hydroxy-2-oxo-3-(N-3-methyl-aminopropyl)-3-methyl-1-triazene (NOC-7) markedly protected both SL NOS and (Na+ + K+)-ATPase functions against ischemia-induced inactivation. Moreover, ischemia impaired SL Na+/K+ binding, and NOC-7 significantly prevented ischemic injury to the ion binding sites on (Na+ + K+)-ATPase. These novel findings indicate that NO. can protect cardiac SL NOSs and (Na+ + K+)-ATPase against ischemia-induced inactivation and suggest that locally generated NO. may serve to regulate SL Na+/K+ ion active transport in the heart.     

Recent advances in human quantitative-trait-locus mapping: comparison of methods for selected sibling pairs

During the past few years, there has been a great deal of new work on methods for mapping quantitative-trait loci by use of sibling pairs and sibships. There are several new methods based on linear regression, as well as several more that are based on score statistics. In theory, most of the new methods should be relatively robust to violations of distributional assumptions and to selected sampling, but, in practice, there has been little evaluation of how the methods perform on selected samples. We survey most of the new regression-based statistics and score statistics and propose a few minor variations on the score statistics. We use simulation to evaluate the type I error and the power of all of the statistics, considering (a) population samples of sibling pairs and (b) sibling pairs ascertained on the basis of at least one sibling with a trait value in the top 10% of the distribution. Most of the statistics have correct type I error for selected samples. The statistics proposed by Xu et al. and by Sham and Purcell are generally the most powerful, along with one of our score statistic variants. Even among the methods that are most powerful for "nice" data, some are more robust than others to non-Gaussian trait models and/or misspecified trait parameters.     

Simultaneous nitrification and denitrification using stored substrate (PHB) as the electron donor in an SBR

The potential for PHB (poly-beta-hydroxybutyrate) to serve as the electron donor for effective simultaneous nitrification and denitrification (SND) was investigated in a 2-L sequencing batch reactor (SBR) using a mixed culture and acetate as the organic substrate. During the feast period (i.e., acetate present), heterotrophic respiration activity was high and nitrification was prevented due to the inability of nitrifying bacteria to compete with heterotrophs for oxygen. Once acetate was depleted the oxidation rate of PHB was up to 6 times slower than that of soluble acetate and nitrification could proceed due to the decreased competition for oxygen. The slow nature of PHB degradation meant that it was an effective substrate for SND, as it was oxidised at a similar rate to ammonium and was therefore available for SND throughout the entire aerobic period. The percentage of nitrogen removed via SND increased at lower DO concentrations during the famine period, with up to 78% SND achieved at a DO concentration of 0.5 mg L(-1). However, the increased percentage of SND at a low DO concentration was compromised by a 2-times slower rate of nitrogen removal. A moderate DO concentration of 1 mg L(-1) was optimal for both SND efficiency (61%) and rate (4.4 mmol N x Cmol x(-1) x h(-1)). Electron flux analysis showed that the period of highest SND activity occurred during the first hour of the aerobic famine period, when the specific oxygen uptake rate (SOUR) was highest. It is postulated that a high SOUR due to NH(4) (+) and PHB oxidation decreases oxygen penetration into the floc, creating larger zones for anoxic denitrification. The accumulation of nitrate towards the end of the SND period showed that SND was finally limited by the rate of denitrification. As PHB degradation was found to follow first-order kinetics (df(PHB)/dt = -0.19 x f(PHB)), higher PHB concentrations would be expected to drive SND faster by increasing the availability rate of reducing power and reducing penetration of oxygen into the floc, due to the corresponding increased SOUR. Process control techniques to accumulate higher internal PHB concentrations to improve PHB-driven SND are discussed.     

Parathyroid hormone regulation of type II sodium-phosphate cotransporters is dependent on an A kinase anchoring protein

Parathyroid hormone inhibits sodium-phosphate cotransport in proximal renal tubule cells through activation of several kinases. We tested the hypothesis that the activity of these kinases was coordinated by an A kinase anchoring protein (AKAP) by demonstrating that the type II sodium-phosphate cotransporter (NaPi-4) physically associated with an AKAP and that this association was necessary for regulation of phosphate transport by parathyroid hormone. Immunoprecipitation with anti-NaPi-4 antiserum and glutathione S-transferase pull-down with GST-NaPi-4 showed that NaPi-4 associated with AKAP79, protein kinase A catalytic and regulatory subunits, and the parathyroid hormone receptor in opossum kidney cells. When the regulatory subunit of protein kinase A was uncoupled from the AKAP by a competing peptide, parathyroid hormone lost the ability to inhibit phosphate transport. This result was confirmed by co-transfecting HEK293 cells with the sodium-phosphate cotransporter and wild type AKAP, a mutant AKAP79, or the empty vector. 8-Bromo-cAMP was able to inhibit phosphate transport in cells expressing the wild type AKAP79 but not empty vector or mutant AKAP79. We conclude that parathyroid hormone inhibits proximal renal tubule sodium-phosphate cotransport through a signaling complex dependent upon an AKAP.     

Combined EM/X-ray imaging yields a quasi-atomic model of the adenovirus-related bacteriophage PRD1 and shows key capsid and membrane interactions

BACKGROUND: The dsDNA bacteriophage PRD1 has a membrane inside its icosahedral capsid. While its large size (66 MDa) hinders the study of the complete virion at atomic resolution, a 1.65-A crystallographic structure of its major coat protein, P3, is available. Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and three-dimensional reconstruction have shown the capsid at 20-28 A resolution. Striking architectural similarities between PRD1 and the mammalian adenovirus indicate a common ancestor. RESULTS: The P3 atomic structure has been fitted into improved cryo-EM reconstructions for three types of PRD1 particles: the wild-type virion, a packaging mutant without DNA, and a P3-shell lacking the membrane and the vertices. Establishing the absolute EM scale was crucial for an accurate match. The resulting "quasi-atomic" models of the capsid define the residues involved in the major P3 interactions, within the quasi-equivalent interfaces and with the membrane, and show how these are altered upon DNA packaging. CONCLUSIONS: The new cryo-EM reconstructions reveal the structure of the PRD1 vertex and the concentric packing of DNA. The capsid is essentially unchanged upon DNA packaging, with alterations limited to those P3 residues involved in membrane contacts. These are restricted to a few of the N termini along the icosahedral edges in the empty particle; DNA packaging leads to a 4-fold increase in the number of contacts, including almost all copies of the N terminus and the loop between the two beta barrels. Analysis of the P3 residues in each quasi-equivalent interface suggests two sites for minor proteins in the capsid edges, analogous to those in adenovirus.     

Treating mites in a bat colony: a case study

Since many bats used in research are wild-caught, dealing with mite infestation can present a unique challenge to the animal care staff. The authors tested the efficacy of fipronil spray for eliminating mites from a bat colony.     

Statistics for Nonparametric Linkage Analysis of X-Linked Traits in General Pedigrees

We have compared the power of several allele-sharing statistics for "nonparametric" linkage analysis of X-linked traits in nuclear families and extended pedigrees. Our rationale was that, although several of these statistics have been implemented in popular software packages, there has been no formal evaluation of their relative power. Here, we evaluate the relative performance of five test statistics, including two new test statistics. We considered sibships of sizes two through four, four different extended pedigrees, 15 different genetic models (12 single-locus models and 3 two-locus models), and varying recombination fractions between the marker and the trait locus. We analytically estimated the sample sizes required for 80% power at a significance level of.001 and also used simulation methods to estimate power for a sample size of 10 families. We tried to identify statistics whose power was robust over a wide variety of models, with the idea that such statistics would be particularly useful for detection of X-linked loci associated with complex traits. We found that a commonly used statistic, S(all), generally performed well under various conditions and had close to the optimal sample sizes in most cases but that there were certain cases in which it performed quite poorly. Our two new statistics did not perform any better than those already in the literature. We also note that, under dominant and additive models, regardless of the statistic used, pedigrees with all-female siblings have very little power to detect X-linked loci.