Rate of release of Ca2+ following laser photolysis of the DM-nitrophen-Ca2+ complex.

The determination of the rate of release of Ca2+ by pulsed photolysis of the photolabile chelator DM-nitrophen is important for its use in time-resolved physiological studies: the rate of substrate or effector release should be faster than the processes they initiate. Flash photolysis of DM-nitrophen using a 50-ns pulse from a frequency-doubled ruby laser (with emission at 347 nm having energy of ca. 10-20 mJ) yields short-lived photochromic or aci-nitro intermediates. At pH 6.9, double-exponential decay of a photochromic intermediate was observed for DM-nitrophen itself and its Ca2+ complex (tau 1/2 values of 24 and 570 microseconds, and 32 and 220 microseconds respectively), while only monoexponential decay of the DM-nitrophen-Mg2+ complex was detected (tau 1/2 = 31 microseconds). Only the photochemistry of DM-nitrophen-Ca2+ was found to be pH sensitive (monoexponential decay, tau 1/2 approximately 115 microseconds at pH 7.9 and 8.9). Use of the Ca(2+)-sensitive metallochromic dye antipyrylazo III in conjunction with pulsed photolysis of DM-nitrophen-Ca2+ enabled an upper limit of the half-time of release of Ca2+ to be established of ca. 180 microseconds (the rate of association of Ca2+ with the dye was probably rate determining). The rate of Ca2+ photorelease may, however, be faster than this. Thus, the DM-nitrophen-Ca2+ complex releases Ca2+ on photolysis sufficiently rapidly for the study of many Ca(2+)-dependent physiological processes with improved kinetic resolution over conventional mixing methods.     

Identification and purification of a family of dimeric major cold shock protein homologs from the psychrotrophic Bacillus cereus WSBC 10201.

Whole-cell protein patterns of a psychrotrophic Bacillus cereus strain from cultures grown at 7 and 30 degrees C were compared. This analysis revealed that at least three major proteins are expressed at a significantly higher rate at 7 degrees C than at 30 degrees C. The most abundant of these cold-induced proteins was a small polypeptide of 7.5 kDa, designated CspA, of B. cereus. In addition, four small proteins very similar in size to CspA were seen on both 7 degrees C and 30 degrees C two-dimensional protein gels. Immunoblot analysis using B. cereus anti-CspA antibodies indicated that the five proteins described above plus an additional sixth protein not visible on silver-stained two-dimensional gels are members of a B. cereus cold shock protein family. This hypothesis was corroborated by cloning and sequencing of the genes encoding five proteins of this family. The protein sequences deduced are highly similar and show homology to small procaryotic cold shock proteins and to the cold shock domain of eucaryotic Y-box proteins. Besides CspA, only one of the additional five CspA homologs was slightly cold inducible. In the presence of 100 mM NaCl, the two purified members of the protein family (CspA and CspE) elute as dimers at an apparent molecular mass of 15 kDa from a gel filtration column. At higher salt concentrations, they dissociate into their monomers. Their ability to bind to the ATTGG motif of single-stranded oligonucleotides was demonstrated by band shift analysis.     

The Myxococcus xanthus rfbABC operon encodes an ATP-binding cassette transporter homolog required for O-antigen biosynthesis and multicellular development.

A wild-type sasA locus is critical for Myxococcus xanthus multicellular development. Mutations in the sasA locus cause defective fruiting body formation, reduce sporulation, and restore developmental expression of the early A-signal-dependent gene 4521 in the absence of A signal. The wild-type sasA locus has been located on a 14-kb cloned fragment of the M. xanthus chromosome. The nucleotide sequence of a 7-kb region containing the complete sasA locus was determined. Three open reading frames encoded by the genes, designated rfbA, B and C were identified. The deduced amino acid sequences of rfbA and rfbB show identity to the integral membrane domains and ATPase domains, respectively, of the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter family. The highest identities are to a set of predicted ABC transporters required for the biosynthesis of lipopolysaccharide O-antigen in certain gram-negative bacteria. The rfbC gene encodes a predicted protein of 1,276 amino acids. This predicted protein contains a region of 358 amino acids that is 33.8% identical to the Yersinia enterocolitica O3 rfbH gene product, which is also required for O-antigen biosynthesis. Immunoblot analysis revealed that the sasA1 mutant, which was found to encode a nonsense codon in the beginning of rfbA, produced less O-antigen than sasA+ strains. These data indicate that the sasA locus is required for the biosynthesis of O-antigen and, when mutated, results in A-signal-independent expression of 4521.     

Evaluation of three herbaceous index plant species for bioavailability of soil cadmium, chromium, nickel and vanadium

Uncultivated plants growing on disturbed sites may be useful for assessing the bioavailability of some metals in soils, and thus the potential for metal mobilization up the terrestrial food chain, an important element in ecological risk assessment. A planted chicory cultivar (Cichorium intybus L. var. foliosum Hegi.) and the uncultivated plants horseweed (Canada fleabane) (Erigeron canadensis L.) and dogfennel (Eupatorium capillifolium (Lam.) Small) were evaluated for their ability to act as index plant species for soil Cd, Cr, Ni, and V at two field sites where these metals had been applied five yr previously to two highly weathered sandy Ultisols. Soil Cd was available to all analyzed plant tissues of all three plant species at both sites, particularly on the sandier Blanton soil. Chicory was an effective index plant for Cd on the finer textured Orangeburg soil but functioned as an indicator plant (toxicity symptoms were observed) on the sandier Blanton soil. Horseweed and dogfennel were effective index plants for Cd in both contaminated soils. Soil Cr, Ni, and V were less bioavailable than soil Cd and plant metal uptake was more sensitive to residual soil Cr, Ni, and V than was soil extraction with double acid. Horseweed and chicory may have potential as index plants for soil Cr. Chicory may have potential as a Ni index plant. Chicory and dogfennel may have potential as V index plants.     

Does observed fertility maximize fitness among New Mexican men?

Our objective is to test an optimality model of human fertility that specifies the behavioral requirements for fitness maximization in order (a) to determine whether current behavior does maximize fitness and, if not, (b) to use the specific nature of the behavioral deviations from fitness maximization towards the development of models of evolved proximate mechanisms that may have maximized fitness in the past but lead to deviations under present conditions. To test the model we use data from a representative sample of 7,107 men living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, between 1990 and 1993. The model we test proposes that low fertility in modern settings maximizes number of grandchildren as a result of a trade-off between parental fertility and next generation fertility. Results do not show the optimization, although the data do reveal a trade-off between parental fertility and offspring education and income. We propose that two characteristics of modern economies have led to a period of sustained fertility reduction and to a corresponding lack of association between income and fertility. The first is the direct link between costs of investment and wage rates due to the forces of supply and demand for labor in competitive economies. The second is the increasing emphasis on cumulative knowledge, skills, and technologies in the production of resources. Together they produce historically novel conditions. These two features of modern economies may interact with evolved psychological and physiological mechanisms governing fertility and parental investment to produce behavior that maximizes the economic productivity of lineages at the expense of fitness. If cognitive processes evolved to track diminishing returns to parental investment and if physiological processes evolved to regulate fertility in response to nutritional state and patterns of breast feeding, we might expect non-adaptive responses when returns from parental investment do not diminish until extremely high levels are reached. With high economic payoffs from parental investment, people have begun to exercise cognitive regulation of fertility through contraception and family planning practices. Those cognitive processes maynot have evolved to handle fitness trade-offs between fertility and parental investment. A preliminary presentation of this data was published in R. I. M. Dunbar, ed.,Human Reproduction Decisions: Biological and Social Perspectives. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. Support for the research project, “Male Fertility and Parenting in New Mexico,” began with two seed grants from the University of New Mexico’s Biomedical Research Grants Program, 1988 and 1989, and one from the University of New Mexico Research Allocations Committee, 1988. Further seed money as well as interim funding came from the William T. Grant Foundation (#89130589 and #91130501). The major support for the project came from the National Science Foundation from 1990 to 1993 (#BNS-9011723 and #DBS-911552). Both National Science Foundation grants included Research Experience for Undergraduates supplements. Hillard S. Kaplan is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. His earlier research and publications focused on food sharing, time allocation, parental investment, and reproductive strategies among Ache hunter-gatherers in Paraguay, Machiguenga and Piro forager-horticulturalists in Peru, and villagers of several ethnicities in Botswana. New research and theory concern fertility, parental investment, and mating strategies in developed and developing nations. This research formulates a new theory of reproductive decision-making and the demographic transition, integrating human capital and parental investment theory in a synthesis of economic and evolutionary approaches. Jane B. Lancaster is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. Her research and publications are on human reproductive biology and behavior, especially human parental investment; women’s reproductive biology of pregnancy, lactation, and child-spacing; and male fertility and investment in children. Current research with Hillard S. Kaplan is on male life history strategies among a large sample of men in New Mexico. She has coedited three books on human parental investment:School-Age Pregnancy and Parenthood (with B. Hamburg),Parenting across the Life Span (with J. Altmann, A. Rossi, and L. Sherrod), andOffspring Abuse and Neglect (with R. Gelles). She is scientific editor of a quarterly journal,Human Nature: An Interdisciplinary, Biosocial Perspective published by Aldine de Gruyter. She is also a council member of the newly formed Human Behavior and Evolution Society. John A. Bock is Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Epidemiology and Population Health at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University. His research focuses on the allocation of parental investment and the determinants of children’s activities, integrating aspects of economic and evolutionary theory. He has ongoing field research with Bantu and Bushmen agro-pastoralists and forager-horticulturalists in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. He is also collaborating with Lancaster and Kaplan on the determinants of progeny distribution and homosexuality among New Mexican men. Sara E. Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New Mexico. Her major research trajectory focuses on trade-offs in life history characters. Her research experience includes participation in a study of variation in growth and development among children in a multi-ethnic community in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, in addition to her dissertation work on individual variation in growth and mortality among juvenile baboons. She is collaborating with Lancaster and Kaplan on the association between survival and fertility among Albuquerque men.     

The role of infectious agents in sudden infant death syndrome

Abstract Epidemiological factors associated with susceptibility to respiratory infections are similar to those associated with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Here we review the evidence that respiratory pathogens might be involved in some cases of Sudden Infact Death Syndrome in the context of factors identified in epidemiological studies of cot deaths: the age range affected; mother's smoking; respiratory viral infections; immunisation status. Both laboratory and epidimiological evidence suggests that vulnerability of infants to infectious agents depends on interactions between genetic, developmental and environmental factors that contribute to colonisation by microorganisms, the inflammatory and specific immune responses and the infants' physiological responses to inflammatory mediators. A model is proposed to explain how microorganisms might trigger a series of events resulting in some of these unexpected deaths and discusses how the present recommendations regarding child care practices might help reduce the numbers of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome cases associated with infectious agents.     

Characterization of a truncated form of arrestin isolated from bovine rod outer segments.

The inactivation of photolyzed rhodopsin requires phosphorylation of the receptor and binding of a 48-kDa regulatory protein, arrestin. By binding to phosphorylated photolyzed rhodopsin, arrestin inhibits G protein (Gt) activation and blocks premature dephosphorylation, thereby preventing the reentry of photolyzed rhodopsin into the phototransduction pathway. In this study, we isolated a 44-kDa form of arrestin, called p44, from fresh bovine rod outer segments and characterized its structure and function. A partial primary structure of p44 was established by a combination of mass spectrometry and automated Edman degradation of proteolytic peptides. The amino acid sequence was found to be identical with arrestin, except that the C-terminal 35 residues (positions 370-404) are replaced by a single alanine. p44 appeared to be generated by alternative mRNA splicing, because intron 15 interrupts within the nucleotide codon for 369Ser in the arrestin gene. Functionally, p44 binds avidly to photolyzed or phosphorylated and photolyzed rhodopsin. As a consequence of its relatively high affinity for bleached rhodopsin, p44 blocks Gt activation. The binding characteristics of p44 set it apart from tryptic forms of arrestin (truncated at the N- and C-termini), which require phosphorylation of rhodopsin for tight binding. We propose that p44 is a novel splice variant of arrestin that could be involved in the regulation of Gt activation.     

Unexpected inactivation of acceptor consensus splice sequence by a −3 C to T transition in intron 2 of the CFTR gene

Human Genetics - Cystic fibrosis is caused by mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator gene (CFTR). Analysis of DNA from a pancreatic sufficient patient by means of...