Ghrelin induces vasoconstriction in the rat coronary vasculature without altering cardiac peptide secretion

We administered ghrelin, a novel growth hormone-releasing hormone, to isolated perfused rat hearts, coronary arterioles, and cultured neonatal cardiomyocytes to determine its effects on coronary vascular tone, contractility, and natriuretic peptide secretion and gene expression. We also determined cardiac levels of ghrelin and whether the heart is a source of the circulating peptide. Ghrelin dose dependently increased coronary perfusion pressure (44 +/- 9%, P < 0.01), constricted isolated coronary arterioles (12 +/- 2%, P < 0.05), and significantly enhanced the pressure-induced myogenic tone of arterioles. These effects were blocked by diltiazem, an L-type Ca(2+) channel blocker, and bisindolylmaleimide (Bis), a protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor. Interestingly, coinfusion of ghrelin with diltiazem completely restored myocardial contractile function that was decreased 30 +/- 3% (P < 0.01) by diltiazem alone. In contrast, combination of ghrelin with diltiazem or Bis did not significantly alter atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) secretion, which was decreased 40% (P < 0.01) and 50% (P < 0.05) by these agents alone, respectively. Administration of ghrelin to cultured cardiomyocytes had no effect on ANP or B-type natriuretic peptide secretion or gene expression. Detectable amounts of low-molecular-weight ghrelin were present in cardiac tissue extracts but not in isolated heart perfusate. Thus we provide the first evidence that ghrelin has a coronary vasoconstrictor action that is dependent on Ca(2+) and PKC. Furthermore, the data obtained from diltiazem infusion suggest that ghrelin has a role in regulation of contractility when L-type Ca(2+) channels are blocked. Finally, the observation that immunoreactive ghrelin is found in cardiac tissue suggests the presence of a local cardiac ghrelin system.     

Enhancing the thermal stability of avidin. Introduction of disulfide bridges between subunit interfaces

In this study we showed that tetrameric chicken avidin can be stabilized by introducing intermonomeric disulfide bridges between its subunits. These covalent bonds had no major effects on the biotin binding properties of the respective mutants. Moreover, one of the mutants (Avd-ccci) maintained its tetrameric integrity even in denaturing conditions. The new avidin forms Avd-ci and Avd-ccci, which have native --> denatured transition midpoints (T(m)) of 98.6 and 94.7 degrees C, respectively, in the absence of biotin, will find use in applications where extreme stability or minimal leakage of subunits is required. Furthermore, we showed that the intramonomeric disulfide bridges found in the wild-type avidin affect its stability. The mutant Avd-nc, in which this bridge was removed, had a lower T(m) in the absence of biotin than the wild-type avidin but showed comparable stability in the presence of biotin.     

Merlin links to the cAMP neuronal signaling pathway by anchoring the RIbeta subunit of protein kinase A

The cAMP-protein kinase A (PKA) pathway, important in neuronal signaling, is regulated by molecules that bind and target PKA regulatory subunits. Of four regulatory subunits, RIbeta is most abundantly expressed in brain. The RIbeta knockout mouse has defects in hippocampal synaptic plasticity, suggesting a role for RIbeta in learning and memory-related functions. Molecules that interact with or regulate RIbeta are still unknown. We identified the neurofibromatosis 2 tumor suppressor protein merlin (schwannomin), a molecule related to the ezrin-radixin-moesin family of membrane-cytoskeleton linker proteins, as a binding partner for RIbeta. Merlin and RIbeta demonstrated a similar expression pattern in central nervous system neurons and an overlapping subcellular localization in cultured hippocampal neurons and transfected cells. The proteins were coprecipitated from brain lysates by cAMP-agarose and coimmunoprecipited from cellular lysates with specific antibodies. In vitro binding studies verified that the interaction is direct. The interaction appeared to be under conformational regulation and was mediated via the alpha-helical region of merlin. Sequence comparison between merlin and known PKA anchoring proteins identified a conserved alpha-helical PKA anchoring protein motif in merlin. These results identify merlin as the first neuronal binding partner for PKA-RIbeta and suggest a novel function for merlin in connecting neuronal cytoskeleton to PKA signaling.     

A novel strategy for microarray quality control using Bayesian networks

MOTIVATION: High-throughput microarray technologies enable measurements of the expression levels of thousands of genes in parallel. However, microarray printing, hybridization and washing may create substantial variability in the quality of the data. As erroneous measurements may have a drastic impact on the results by disturbing the normalization schemes and by introducing expression patterns that lead to incorrect conclusions, it is crucial to discard low quality observations in the early phases of a microarray experiment. A typical microarray experiment consists of tens of thousands of spots on a microarray, making manual extraction of poor quality spots impossible. Thus, there is a need for a reliable and general microarray spot quality control strategy. RESULTS: We suggest a novel strategy for spot quality control by using Bayesian networks, which contain many appealing properties in the spot quality control context. We illustrate how a non-linear least squares based Gaussian fitting procedure can be used in order to extract features for a spot on a microarray. The features we used in this study are: spot intensity, size of the spot, roundness of the spot, alignment error, background intensity, background noise, and bleeding. We conclude that Bayesian networks are a reliable and useful model for microarray spot quality assessment. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: http://sigwww.cs.tut.fi/TICSP/SpotQuality/.     

Androgen receptor acetylation governs trans activation and MEKK1-induced apoptosis without affecting in vitro sumoylation and trans-repression function

The androgen receptor (AR) is a nuclear hormone receptor superfamily member that conveys both trans repression and ligand-dependent trans-activation function. Activation of the AR by dihydrotestosterone (DHT) regulates diverse physiological functions including secondary sexual differentiation in the male and the induction of apoptosis by the JNK kinase, MEKK1. The AR is posttranslationally modified on lysine residues by acetylation and sumoylation. The histone acetylases p300 and P/CAF directly acetylate the AR in vitro at a conserved KLKK motif. To determine the functional properties governed by AR acetylation, point mutations of the KLKK motif that abrogated acetylation were engineered and examined in vitro and in vivo. The AR acetylation site point mutants showed wild-type trans repression of NF-kappa B, AP-1, and Sp1 activity; wild-type sumoylation in vitro; wild-type ligand binding; and ligand-induced conformational changes. However, acetylation-deficient AR mutants were selectively defective in DHT-induced trans activation of androgen-responsive reporter genes and coactivation by SRC1, Ubc9, TIP60, and p300. The AR acetylation site mutant showed 10-fold increased binding of the N-CoR corepressor compared with the AR wild type in the presence of ligand. Furthermore, histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1) bound the AR both in vivo and in cultured cells and HDAC1 binding to the AR was disengaged in a DHT-dependent manner. MEKK1 induced AR-dependent apoptosis in prostate cancer cells. The AR acetylation mutant was defective in MEKK1-induced apoptosis, suggesting that the conserved AR acetylation site contributes to a pathway governing prostate cancer cellular survival. As AR lysine residue mutations that abrogate acetylation correlate with enhanced binding of the N-CoR repressor in cultured cells, the conserved AR motif may directly or indirectly regulate ligand-dependent corepressor disengagement and, thereby, ligand-dependent trans activation.     

Cellular distribution and contribution of cyclooxygenase COX-2 to diabetogenesis in NOD mouse

Unlike most other mammalian cells, beta-cells of Langerhans constitutively express cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 rather than COX-1. COX-2 is also constitutively expressed in type 1 diabetes (T1D) patients' periphery blood monocytes and macrophage. To understand the role of COX-2 in the beta-cell, we investigated COX-2 expression in beta-cells and islet infiltrates of NOD and BALB/c mice using fluorescence immunohistochemistry and cytochemical confocal microscopy and Western blotting. Immunostaining showed that COX-2 is expressed in islet-infiltrating macrophages, and that the expression of insulin and COX-2 disappeared concomitantly from the beta-cells when NOD mice progressed toward overt diabetes. Also cultured INS-1E cells coexpressed insulin and COX-2 but clearly in different subcellular compartments. Treatment with celecoxib increased insulin release from these cells in a dose-dependent manner in glucose concentrations ranging from 5 to 17 mM. Excessive COX-2 expression by the islet-infiltrating macrophages may contribute to the beta-cell death during insulitis. The effects of celecoxib on INS-1E cells suggest that PGE(2) and other downstream products of COX-2 may contribute to the regulation of insulin release from the beta-cells.     

Pronatriuretic peptide is a sensitive marker of the endocrine function of teleost heart

We recently characterized a novel heart-specific hormone from salmon (salmon cardiac peptide, sCP). We have now prepared a recombinant plasmid expressing the NH(2)-terminal fragment of pro-sCP (NT-pro-sCP) and used it to set up a specific RIA for the peptide. Because of the sensitivity of the assay and the high circulating levels, NT-pro-sCP can be measured from as little as 2 microl of serum. This enables repeated sampling from the same animal in different experimental setups. Mechanical load increased the release of NT-pro-sCP from isolated perfused salmon ventricle, in parallel with sCP. Bolus injection of human endothelin-1 (ET-1; 1 microg) in the dorsal aorta of salmon resulted in an extensive increase of serum NT-pro-sCP (from 0.99 +/- 0.11 to 4.6 +/-1.5 nmol/l). The response was abolished by pretreatment with a specific type A ET (ET(A)) receptor antagonist (BQ-123) but not with a type B ET receptor antagonist (BQ-788). The NT-pro-sCP levels had a good correlation with those of sCP (r(2) = 0.75). Our results demonstrate the practical usefulness of circulating NT-pro-sCP as a marker of the endocrine function of salmon heart. They also suggest that ET-1 has an important role in regulating sCP release from teleost heart by an ET(A) receptor-mediated mechanism.     

VHS domain -- a longshoreman of vesicle lines

The VHS (Vps-27, Hrs and STAM) domain is a 140 residue long domain present in the very NH2-terminus of at least 60 proteins. Based on their functional characteristics and on recent data on the involvement of VHS in cargo recognition in trans-Golgi, VHS domains are considered to have a general membrane targeting/cargo recognition role in vesicular trafficking. Structurally, VHS is a right-handed superhelix of eight helices with charged surface patches probably serving as sites of protein-protein recognition and docking.