Inactivation of chicken muscle enolase by carbodiimide and glycine methyl ester

The effect of insulin on polypeptide chain initiation and elongation has been studied in soleus muscles isolated from lean and goldthioglucose-obese mice. Insulin increased the amount of radioactivity present in nascent chains by ～30% in muscles from both lean and obese mice, indicating that it stimulates peptide chain initiation. In contrast, elongation rates, estimated by measurement of half transit time, were similar in basal conditions and insulin-treated muscles of lean and obese animals. Thus, insulin increased the initiation without modifying the elongation rates. Obesity did not affect either basal rates of initiation and elongation or the effect of insulin.     

Primary structure of bovine complement activation fragment C4a, the third anaphylatoxin. Purification and complete amino acid sequence

Purification of C4a from heat-activated bovine plasma by elution from CM-Sephadex C-50 at pH 7.4 and gel filtration on Sephadex G-50 gives a 20% yield of pure C4a. The complete amino acid sequence of bovine C4a has been determined by automatic sequencer degradation of CNBr and enzymic fragments, and by carboxypeptidase digestion. The 77-residue bovine sequence shows 12 differences from the human sequence with five of these differences occurring in the C-terminal 11 residues. The sequence of C4a confirms earlier suggestions of homology with C3a and C5a: the three sequences show an almost equal number of identities with each other. The six cysteine residues of the 'disulphide knot' are conserved as well as seven other residues including the C-terminal arginine.     

A general method for affinity purification of complement component C3b using factor H-sepharose.

Complement component C3b has been purified from human, rabbit and bovine serum by affinity chromatography on human factor H-Sepharose after preliminary fractionation by poly(ethylene glycol) and DEAE-Sepharose. The yields are high (35--40%) and the whole process is rapid (3 days). Binding of C3b to factor H-Sepharose is equimolar, has a sharp optimum pH at 7.6 and is quite sensitive to ionic strength.     

Conservation of high efficiency promoter sequences in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The position of the yeast phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) gene has been mapped on a 2.95kb Hind III fragment. We have determined the nucleotide sequence of the 5' flanking region and compared this sequence with those from 16 other yeast genes. PGK, like all other yeast genes has an adenine residue at position -3. It has two possible TATA boxes at positions -114 and -152 and a CAAT box at -129. In addition we have defined a structure at position -63 to -39 that is common to all yeast genes that encode an abundant RNA. This structure is a CT-rich block followed, about 10 nucleotides later, by the sequence CAAG.     

The purification and characterization of bovine C4, the fourth component of complement.

The fourth component of complement, C4, was isolated from bovine plasma in high yield, by using simple purification techniques. The protein, like human component C4, is a beta-globulin with a mol.wt. of about 200 000 and consists of three polypeptide chains, alpha, beta and gamma, with apparent mol. wts. of 98 000, 82 000 and 32 000 respectively. The chains of C4 have been separated by methods previously used for human C4. Their amino acid compositions are very similar to those of the human component, but differences in carbohydrate distribution have been observed. The haemolytic activity of bovine C4 is totally destroyed by incubation with bovine C1s, the activated subcomponent of the first component of complement. Component C4, treated in this way, was shown to be cleaved in the alpha chain, which was decreased in mol.wt. by about 9000, corresponding to the removal of subcomponent C4a.