双向BN/SDS-PAGE分离鉴定痢疾杆菌福氏5型M90T株毒力相关膜蛋白复合物

通过蓝色非变性凝胶电泳(BN-PAGE)比较痢疾杆菌福氏5型野生株M90T和大质粒缺失株M90T△T的膜蛋白复合物,发现一个野生株特有的复合物,其分子量的为290 kD,命名为M90T-290.通过第二向SDS-PAGE分离M90T-290得到6个蛋白亚基,质谱鉴定为:一个由大质粒编码的毒力蛋白Apyrase(ATP-二磷酸水解酶)和5个染色体编码的蛋白,这些蛋白可能以膜复合物的形式影响毒力蛋白IcsA的单极性分布和痢疾杆菌在细胞间的扩散.这个新发现的毒力相关膜复合物在痢疾杆菌的致病过程中可能发挥重要作用.     

多通道神经信号分析方法及其应用

在神经科学研究中,多通道记录方法被普遍应用在对神经元群体活动特性的研究中.通过分析多个神经元的活动,可以了解神经系统协同编码外界信息的规则以及大脑实现各项功能的机制.为了挖掘出多通道神经信号中携带的信息及其潜在的相关性,需要合适的计算方法辅助对神经元放电活动进行解码.本文回顾了多通道神经信号分析中的一些常见方法,以及它...     

Neutralization of acidic residues in helix II stabilizes the folded conformation of acyl carrier protein and variably alters its function with different enzymes

Acyl carrier protein (ACP), a small protein essential for bacterial growth and pathogenesis, interacts with diverse enzymes during the biosynthesis of fatty acids, phospholipids, and other specialized products such as lipid A. NMR and hydrodynamic studies have previously shown that divalent cations stabilize native helical ACP conformation by binding to conserved acidic residues at two sites (A and B) at either end of the "recognition" helix II. To examine the roles of these amino acids in ACP structure and function, site-directed mutagenesis was used to replace individual site A (Asp-30, Asp-35, Asp-38) and site B (Glu-47, Glu-53, Asp-56) residues in recombinant Vibrio harveyi ACP with the corresponding amides, along with combined mutations at each site (SA, SB) or both sites (SA/SB). Like native V. harveyi ACP, all individual mutants were unfolded at neutral pH but adopted a helical conformation in the presence of millimolar Mg(2+) or upon fatty acylation. Mg(2+) binding to sites A or B independently stabilized native ACP conformation, whereas mutant SA/SB was folded in the absence of Mg(2+), suggesting that charge neutralization is largely responsible for ACP stabilization by divalent cations. Asp-35 in site A was critical for holo-ACP synthase activity, while acyl-ACP synthetase and UDP-N-acetylglucosamine acyltransferase (LpxA) activities were more affected by mutations in site B. Both sites were required for fatty acid synthase activity. Overall, our results indicate that divalent cation binding site mutations have predicted effects on ACP conformation but unpredicted and variable consequences on ACP function with different enzymes.     

Yeast two hybrid analyses reveal novel binary interactions between human cytomegalovirus-encoded virion proteins

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is the largest human herpesvirus and its virion contains many viral encoded proteins found in the capsid, tegument, and envelope. In this study, we carried out a yeast two-hybrid (YTH) analysis to study potential binary interactions among 56 HCMV-encoded virion proteins. We have tested more than 3,500 pairwise combinations for binary interactions in the YTH analysis, and identified 79 potential interactions that involve 37 proteins. Forty five of the 79 interactions were also identified in human cells expressing the viral proteins by co-immunoprecipitation (co-IP) experiments. To our knowledge, 58 of the 79 interactions revealed by YTH analysis, including those 24 that were also identified in co-IP experiments, have not been reported before. Novel potential interactions were found between viral capsid proteins and tegument proteins, between tegument proteins, between tegument proteins and envelope proteins, and between envelope proteins. Furthermore, both the YTH and co-IP experiments have identified 9, 7, and 5 interactions that were involved with UL25, UL24, and UL89, respectively, suggesting that these "hub" proteins may function as the organizing centers for connecting multiple virion proteins in the mature virion and for recruiting other virion proteins during virion maturation and assembly. Our study provides a framework to study potential interactions between HCMV proteins and investigate the roles of protein-protein interactions in HCMV virion formation or maturation process.     

慢性低O_2高CO_2性肺动脉高压大鼠脑超微结构改变与MDA、SOD变化及培哚普利的治疗作用

目的 :探讨慢性低O2 高CO2 时神经元线粒体及髓鞘的改变与氧自由基的变化关系及培哚普利的治疗作用。方法 :采用慢性低O2 高CO2 肺动脉高压模型 ,应用培哚普利治疗 ,电镜观察大鼠脑超微结构并测定MDA和SOD。结果 :观察到脑血管内皮细胞锯齿状突起 ,管腔狭窄 ,神经元线粒体空泡变及髓鞘分层断裂 ,测得实验大鼠MDA升高 ,SOD降低 ,用药组大鼠脑血管和神经元结构损害明显减轻。结论 :提示慢性低O2 高CO2 时神经元线粒体及髓鞘改变与MDA升高有关 ,培哚普利对慢性低O2 高CO2 时脑损害有保护作用。     

Community-wide assessment of protein-interface modeling suggests improvements to design methodology

The CAPRI (Critical Assessment of Predicted Interactions) and CASP (Critical Assessment of protein Structure Prediction) experiments have demonstrated the power of community-wide tests of methodology in assessing the current state of the art and spurring progress in the very challenging areas of protein docking and structure prediction. We sought to bring the power of community-wide experiments to bear on a very challenging protein design problem that provides a complementary but equally fundamental test of current understanding of protein-binding thermodynamics. We have generated a number of designed protein-protein interfaces with very favorable computed binding energies but which do not appear to be formed in experiments, suggesting that there may be important physical chemistry missing in the energy calculations. A total of 28 research groups took up the challenge of determining what is missing: we provided structures of 87 designed complexes and 120 naturally occurring complexes and asked participants to identify energetic contributions and/or structural features that distinguish between the two sets. The community found that electrostatics and solvation terms partially distinguish the designs from the natural complexes, largely due to the nonpolar character of the designed interactions. Beyond this polarity difference, the community found that the designed binding surfaces were, on average, structurally less embedded in the designed monomers, suggesting that backbone conformational rigidity at the designed surface is important for realization of the designed function. These results can be used to improve computational design strategies, but there is still much to be learned; for example, one designed complex, which does form in experiments, was classified by all metrics as a nonbinder.     

Semantic processing disturbance in patients with schizophrenia: a meta-analysis of the N400 component

Background

Theoretically semantic processing can be separated into early automatic semantic activation and late contextualization. Semantic processing deficits have been suggested in patients with schizophrenia, however it is not clear which stage of semantic processing is impaired. We attempted to clarify this issue by conducting a meta-analysis of the N400 component.

Methods

Twenty-one studies met the inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis procedure. The Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software package was used to compute pooled effect sizes and homogeneity.

Results

Studies favoring early automatic activation produced a significant effect size of −0.41 for the N400 effect. Studies favoring late contextualization generated a significant effect size of −0.36 for the N400 effect, a significant effect size of −0.52 for N400 for congruent/related target words, and a significant effect size of 0.82 for the N400 peak latency.

Conclusion

These findings suggest the automatic spreading activation process in patients with schizophrenia is very similar for closely related concepts and weakly or remotely related concepts, while late contextualization may be associated with impairments in processing semantically congruent context accompanied by slow processing speed.     

~（60）Co－γ射线诱变钝顶螺旋藻的研究

用不同剂量的６０Ｃｏ－γ射线诱变钝顶螺旋藻Ｓｐｉｒｕｌｉｎａｐｌａｔｅｎｓｉｓ出发株（Ｓｐ）ＩＳ－９００１０,筛选获得两株抗高光抑制突变株（Ｓｐ）ＡＩｐ－９００１０和（Ｓｐ）ＡＩｐ－９００１１,然后比较出发株和突变株的一般形态和生理生化特性。出发株和突变株的一般形态有较大的差异,与出发株相比,两个突变株藻丝体显著变短,螺旋数目大大减小。出发株是对高光敏感的品系,而突变株表现明显的抗高光抑制,１３０００ｌｘ光强下出发株和两个突变株的代时分别为２９．４、２０．８和２２．２ｈ。（Ｓｐ）ＡＩｐ－９００１１的光合作用和呼吸作用与出发株相似,而（Ｓｐ）ＡＩｐ－９００１０明显地表现出高光合、低呼吸作用。突变株和出发株都属于中温品系,最适温度为２８℃,具有较广的温度适应范围（２３～３５℃）以及相同的耐盐性,但突变株的生长速率比出发株快、代时短。此外三者的蛋白质含量、氨基酸组成差别不大：（Ｓｐ）ＡＩｐ－９００１１的可溶性多糖比出发株减少４０％。而在（Ｓｐ）ＡＩｐ－９００１０中其含量提高６０％。