Isolation of Plant Gene Space-Related Sequence Elements by High C+G Patch (HCGP) Filtration: Model Study on Rice

For the isolation of gene space representative sequence elements, a new methodology—high C+G patch (HCGP) filtration—has been developed using rice as a model. The method is based on the fragmentation of the genomic DNA by methylation-sensitive HpaII and MspI restriction endonucleases having exclusively G/C base pair-containing recognition sites. These enzymes fragment the genome at high C+G content and hypomethylated regions. Cloning fragments spanning such regions in close vicinity (200–2,000 bp) revealed that about 60% of the clones represented gene space sequences resulting in twofold enrichment of these sequences, which is close to the theoretical maximum in rice. The sequence information of clones used in the present study was deposited in the NCBI database under the accession numbers EI 365676–EI 366364.     

Dual Actions of Sphingosine-1-Phosphate: Extracellular through the Gi-coupled Receptor Edg-1 and Intracellular to Regulate Proliferation and Survival

Sphingosine-1-phosphate (SPP), a bioactive lipid, acts both intracellularly and extracellularly to cause pleiotropic biological responses. Recently, we identified SPP as a ligand for the G protein–coupled receptor Edg-1 (Lee, M.-J., J.R. Van Brocklyn, S. Thangada, C.H. Liu, A.R. Hand, R. Menzeleev, S. Spiegel, and T. Hla. 1998. Science. 279:1552–1555). Edg-1 binds SPP with remarkable specificity as only sphinganine-1-phosphate displaced radiolabeled SPP, while other sphingolipids did not. Binding of SPP to Edg-1 resulted in inhibition of forskolin-stimulated cAMP accumulation, in a pertussis toxin–sensitive manner. In contrast, two well-characterized biological responses of SPP, mitogenesis and prevention of apoptosis, were clearly unrelated to binding to Edg-1 and correlated with intracellular uptake. SPP also stimulated signal transduction pathways, including calcium mobilization, activation of phospholipase D, and tyrosine phosphorylation of p125^FAK, independently of edg-1 expression. Moreover, DNA synthesis in Swiss 3T3 fibroblasts was significantly and specifically increased by microinjection of SPP. Finally, SPP suppresses apoptosis of HL-60 and pheochromocytoma PC12 cells, which do not have specific SPP binding or expression of Edg-1 mRNA. Conversely, sphinganine-1-phosphate, which binds to and signals via Edg-1, does not have any significant cytoprotective effect. Thus, SPP is a prototype for a novel class of lipid mediators that act both extracellularly as ligands for cell surface receptors and intracellularly as second messengers.