The pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN), the cholinergic arm of the reticular activating system, regulates waking and rapid eye movement sleep. Here, we demonstrate immunohistochemical labeling of the leptin receptor signaling isoform in PPN neurons, and investigated the effects of G‐protein modulation and the leptin triple antagonist (TA) on the action of leptin in the PPN. Whole‐cell patch clamp recordings were performed in rat brainstem slices from 9 to 17 day old pups. Previous results showed that leptin caused a partial blockade of sodium (INa) and h‐current (IH) in PPN neurons. TA (100 nM) reduced the blockade of INa (~ 50% reduction) and IH (~ 93% reduction) caused by leptin. Intracellular guanosine 5′‐[β‐thio]diphosphate trilithium salt (a G‐protein inhibitor) significantly reduced the effect of leptin on INa(~ 60% reduction) but not on IH (~ 25% reduction). Intracellular GTPγS (a G‐protein activator) reduced the effect of leptin on both INa (~ 80% reduction) and IH (~ 90% reduction). These results suggest that the effects of leptin on the intrinsic properties of PPN neurons are leptin receptor‐ and G‐protein dependent. We also found that leptin enhanced NMDA receptor‐mediated responses in single neurons and in the PPN population as a whole, an effect blocked by TA. These experiments further strengthen the association between leptin dysregulation and sleep disturbances.
Arginine decarboxylase (ADC) is an important enzyme in the production of
putrescine and polyamines in plants. It is encoded by a single or low-copy
nuclear gene that lacks introns in sequences studied to date. The rate of
Adc amino acid sequence evolution is similar to that of ndhF for the
angiosperm family studied. Highly conserved regions provide several target
sites for PCR priming and sequencing and aid in nucleotide and amino acid
sequence alignment across a range of taxonomic levels, while a variable
region provides an increased number of potentially informative characters
relative to ndhF for the taxa surveyed. The utility of the Adc gene in
plant molecular systematic studies is demonstrated by analysis of its
partial nucleotide sequences obtained from 13 representatives of
Brassicaceae and 3 outgroup taxa, 2 from the mustard oil clade (order
Capparales) and 1 from the related order Malvales. Two copies of the Adc
gene, Adc1 and Adc2, are found in all members of the Brassicaceae studied
to data except the basal genus Aethionema. The resulting Adc gene tree
provides robust phylogenetic data regarding relationships within the
complex mustard family, as well as independent support for proposed tribal
realignments based on other molecular data sets such as those from
chloroplast DNA.
相似文献
An improved RP-HPLC method was developed for the determination of the configuration and stereochemical purity of cysteine residues in peptides. The method consists of oxidation of cysteine and cystine residues to cysteic acid, followed by hydrolysis and pre-column chiral derivatization with Val-Marfey's reagent. 相似文献
We have studied the dichroism of various samples of calf thymus DNA (of molecular weight from 3 × 105 to 7 × 106) in pulsed electric fields. The results may be summarized as follows:
1 We find that calf thymus DNA behaves in electrical orientation as if it possessed a large permanent dipole moment. This apparent moment is sensitive to such effects as Mg++ binding which lower the net charge on DNA.
2 The limiting dichroism at infinite field corresponds to an angle of at least 80% between the transition moments at 265 nm and the helix axis, and could be consistant with a number of known forms of DNA. This result is independent of DNA molecular weight. There is evidence that the conformation may be different in 80% ethanol.
3 The dichroism relaxation curves contain a component with a relaxation time of about 8 μsec, which is nearly independent of molecular weight, and a longest component which behaves either according to the Broersma theory for low-molecular-weight samples, or the Zimm-Rouse theory at high molecular weights.
The CpG Island Methylator Phenotype (CIMP) is fundamental to an important subset of colorectal cancer; however, its cause is unknown. CIMP is associated with microsatellite instability but is also found in BRAF mutant microsatellite stable cancers that are associated with poor prognosis. The isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) gene causes CIMP in glioma due to an activating mutation that produces the 2-hydroxyglutarate oncometabolite. We therefore examined IDH1 alteration as a potential cause of CIMP in colorectal cancer. The IDH1 mutational hotspot was screened in 86 CIMP-positive and 80 CIMP-negative cancers. The entire coding sequence was examined in 81 CIMP-positive colorectal cancers. Forty-seven cancers varying by CIMP-status and IDH1 mutation status were examined using Illumina 450K DNA methylation microarrays. The R132C IDH1 mutation was detected in 4/166 cancers. All IDH1 mutations were in CIMP cancers that were BRAF mutant and microsatellite stable (4/45, 8.9%). Unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis identified an IDH1 mutation-like methylation signature in approximately half of the CIMP-positive cancers. IDH1 mutation appears to cause CIMP in a small proportion of BRAF mutant, microsatellite stable colorectal cancers. This study provides a precedent that a single gene mutation may cause CIMP in colorectal cancer, and that this will be associated with a specific epigenetic signature and clinicopathological features. 相似文献