Autocommunication and Perceptual Markers in Landscape: Japanese Examples

Juri Lotman distinguishes between two main types of communication. In addition to the classical I-YOU communication, he speaks about I-I communication, where both the addresser and the addressee are one and the same person. Contrary to how it sounds, autocommunication is not self-sufficient musing inside one’s self, it is remodelling oneself through a code from an entity outside oneself, be it animate or inanimate. According to Lotman, it is often the rhythmical phenomena like poetry, the rhythm of waves, etc. that lend themselves for the act of autocommunication as external codes. After having received the message one is not identical to the original oneself anymore. Perceptual markers of landscape—specific rhythms, ephemera, the rhythm of human everyday activities, bodily movement—can be considered as a secondary code leading to autocommunication in the person who contemplates the landscape. Looking at the landscape—which also implies the rhythmical movement of the eyes—one uses it as a code to reconstitute oneself. A person who has confronted a landscape does not leave it as the same person. The present article poses a definition of autocommunication in landscapes and discusses the way in which other sensorial information apart from the visual—smell, movement, rhythms etc—are used culturally to reinforce autocommunication with oneself. It can be said that several institutionalised religious and cultural practices expect the subject to reconstitute him- or herself mainly through the bodily landscape experience.     

Lycopene prevents 7-ketocholesterol-induced oxidative stress,cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in human macrophages

The present study was undertaken to examine whether lycopene is able to counteract 7-ketocholesterol (7-KC)-induced oxidative stress and apoptosis in human macrophages. Human THP-1 macrophages were exposed to 7-KC (10–25 μM) alone and in combination with lycopene (0.5–2 μM), and we monitored changes in cell oxidative status [reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, NOX-4, hsp70 and hsp90 expressions, 8-OHdG formation] and in cell proliferation and apoptosis. After 24 h of treatment, lycopene significantly reduced the increase in ROS production and in 8-OHdG formation induced by the oxysterol in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, the carotenoid strongly prevented the increase of NOX-4, hsp70 and hsp90 expressions as well as the phosphorylation of the redox-sensitive p38, JNK and ERK1/2 induced by the oxysterol. The attenuation of 7-KC-induced oxidative stress by lycopene coincided with a normalization of cell growth in human macrophages. Lycopene prevented the arrest in G0/G1 phase of cell cycle induced by the oxysterol and counteracted the increased expression of p53 and p21. Concomitantly, it inhibited 7-KC-induced apoptosis, by limiting caspase-3 activation and the modulatory effects of 7-KC on AKT, Bcl-2, Bcl-xL and Bax. Comparing the effects of lycopene, β-carotene and (5Z)-lycopene on ROS production, cell growth and apoptosis show that lycopene and its isomer were more effective than β-carotene in counteracting the dangerous effects of 7-KC in human macrophages. Our study suggests that lycopene may act as a potential antiatherogenic agent by preventing 7-KC-induced oxidative stress and apoptosis in human macrophages.     

Use of a fluorescence plate reader for measuring kinetic parameters with inner filter effect correction

A general method is presented here for the determination of the Km, kcat, and kcat/Km of fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) substrates using a fluorescence plate reader. A simple empirical method for correcting for the inner filter effect is shown to enable accurate and undistorted measurements of these very important kinetic parameters. Inner filter effect corrected rates of hydrolysis of a FRET peptide substrate by hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3 protease at various substrate concentrations enabled measurement of a Km value of 4.4 +/- 0.3 microM and kcat/Km value of 96,500 +/- 5800 M-1 s-1. These values are very close to the HPLC-determined Km value of 4.6 +/- 0.7 microM and kcat/Km value of 92,600 +/- 14,000 M-1 s-1. We demonstrate that the inner filter effect correction of microtiter plate reader velocities enables rapid measurement of Ki and Ki' values and kinetic inhibition mechanisms for HCV NS3 protease inhibitors.     

Synthesis and SAR of novel 1,1-dialkyl-2(1H)-naphthalenones as potent HCV polymerase inhibitors

A series of gem-dialkyl naphthalenone derivatives with varied alkyl substitutions were synthesized and evaluated according to their structure-activity relationship. This investigation led to the discovery of potent inhibitors of the hepatitis C virus at low nanomolar concentrations in both enzymatic and cell-based HCV genotype 1a assays.     

Intracranial aneurysm risk locus 5q23.2 is associated with elevated systolic blood pressure

Although genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified hundreds of complex trait loci, the pathomechanisms of most remain elusive. Studying the genetics of risk factors predisposing to disease is an attractive approach to identify targets for functional studies. Intracranial aneurysms (IA) are rupture-prone pouches at cerebral artery branching sites. IA is a complex disease for which GWAS have identified five loci with strong association and a further 14 loci with suggestive association. To decipher potential underlying disease mechanisms, we tested whether there are IA loci that convey their effect through elevating blood pressure (BP), a strong risk factor of IA. We performed a meta-analysis of four population-based Finnish cohorts (n(FIN) = 11 266) not selected for IA, to assess the association of previously identified IA candidate loci (n = 19) with BP. We defined systolic BP (SBP), diastolic BP, mean arterial pressure, and pulse pressure as quantitative outcome variables. The most significant result was further tested for association in the ICBP-GWAS cohort of 200 000 individuals. We found that the suggestive IA locus at 5q23.2 in PRDM6 was significantly associated with SBP in individuals of European descent (p(FIN) = 3.01E-05, p(ICBP-GWAS) = 0.0007, p(ALL) = 8.13E-07). The risk allele of IA was associated with higher SBP. PRDM6 encodes a protein predominantly expressed in vascular smooth muscle cells. Our study connects a complex disease (IA) locus with a common risk factor for the disease (SBP). We hypothesize that common variants in PRDM6 can contribute to altered vascular wall structure, hence increasing SBP and predisposing to IA. True positive associations often fail to reach genome-wide significance in GWAS. Our findings show that analysis of traditional risk factors as intermediate phenotypes is an effective tool for deciphering hidden heritability. Further, we demonstrate that common disease loci identified in a population isolate may bear wider significance.     

Structure modeling and functional analysis of recombinant dextransucrase from Weissella confusa Cab3 expressed in Lactococcus lactis

The dextransucrase gene from Weissella confusa Cab3, having an open reading frame of 4.2?kb coding for 1,402?amino acids, was amplified, cloned, and expressed in Lactococcus lactis. The recombinant dextransucrase, WcCab3-rDSR was expressed as extracellular enzyme in M17 medium with a specific activity of 1.5?U/mg which after purification by PEG-400 fractionation gave 6.1?U/mg resulting in 4-fold purification. WcCab3-rDSR was expressed as soluble and homogeneous protein of molecular mass, approximately, 180?kDa as analyzed by SDS-PAGE. It displayed maximum enzyme activity at 35°C at pH 5.0 in 50?mM sodium acetate buffer. WcCab3-rDSR gave K_m of 6.2?mM and V_m of 6.3?µmol/min/mg. The characterization of dextran synthesized by WcCab3-rDSR by Fourier transform infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopic analyses revealed the structural similarities with the dextran produced by the native dextransucrase. The modeled structure of WcCab3-rDSR using the crystal structures of dextransucrase from Lactobacillus reuteri (protein data bank, PDB id: 3HZ3) and Streptococcus mutans (PDB id: 3AIB) as templates depicted the presence of different domains such as A, B, C, IV, and V. The domains A and B are circularly permuted in nature having (β/α)₈ triose phosphate isomerase-barrel fold making the catalytic core of WcCab3-rDSR. The structure superposition and multiple sequence alignment analyses of WcCab3-rDSR with available structures of enzymes from family 70 GH suggested that the amino acid residue Asp510 acts as a nucleophile, Glu548 acts as a catalytic acid/base, whereas Asp621 acts as a transition-state stabilizer and these residues are found to be conserved within the family.     

Contribution of a single hydroxyl group to transition-state discrimination by adenosine deaminase: evidence for an "entropy trap" mechanism

Adenosine deaminase was found to bind 6-hydroxy-1,6-dihydropurine ribonucleoside (II), formed by reversible addition of water to purine ribonucleoside (I) in a reaction analogous to formation of a tetrahedral intermediate in substrate deamination, with an apparent Ki value of 3 x 10(-13) M at 20 degrees C. 1,6-Dihydropurine ribonucleoside (IV), synthesized by photolysis of purine ribonucleoside in the presence of NaBH4, exhibited a Ki value of 5.4 x 10-6 M. After correction for differences between the relative free energies of solvation of II and IV, the 6-hydroxyl group of II was estimated to contribute more than 16 kcal to the free energy of binding, approaching the enthalapy of formation of a single hydrogen bond to charged group in the vapor phase. The relatively weak binding of IV and of substrate water suggests that entropic effects, arising from the cooperative action of binding determinants contained within these separate molecules, contribute more than 10 kcal/mol to the free energy of binding of II in which these binding determinants are contained within a single molecule. In free solution, the entropy of reversible hydration of I was evaluated by measuring the temperature dependence of equilibria of protonation of I and of pseudobase formation from I-methylpurinium ribonucleoside as -35 eu, comparable with the entropy of activation for the uncatalyzed hydrolysis of adenosine. In the active site of adenosine deaminase, this thermodynamic obstacle is evidently climbed spontaneously as a result of attractive interactions between the active site and the critical hydroxyl group at the 6-position.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)