2 populations of bone marrow cells transfering the hematopoietic environment]

A bone marrow fragment transplanted under the kidney capsule created a focus of ectopic hemopoiesis, whose isze, measured by the number of hemopoietic cells, was proportional to the implant size. Dimensions of the focus proved to be 11/2--21/2 greater in the irradiated than in the intact recipients. Cells building up the focus of heterotopic hemopoiesis had a different radiosensitivity in the intact and irradiated recipients--their Do constituted about 160 and 350 rad, respectively. In this connection it is supposed that two cell populations of precursors took part in the creation of the focus. Their possible relations with the determined and inducible osteogenic precursor cells are discussed.     

Formal kinetics of H1N1 epidemic

Background  

The formal kinetics of the H1N1 epidemic seems to take the form of an exponential curve. There is a good correlation between this theoretical model and epidemiological data on the number of H1N1-infected people. But this formal model leads to paradoxes about the dates when everyone becomes infected: in Mexico this will happen after one year, then in the rest of the world.     

Arrestins: structural disorder creates rich functionality

Arrestins are soluble relatively small 44–46 kDa proteins that specifically bind hundreds of active phosphorylated GPCRs and dozens of non-receptor partners. There are binding partners that demonstrate preference for each of the known arrestin conformations: free, receptor-bound, and microtubule-bound. Recent evidence suggests that conformational flexibility in every functional state is the defining characteristic of arrestins. Flexibility, or plasticity, of proteins is often described as structural disorder, in contrast to the fixed conformational order observed in high-resolution crystal structures. However, protein-protein interactions often involve highly flexible elements that can assume many distinct conformations upon binding to different partners. Existing evidence suggests that arrestins are no exception to this rule: their flexibility is necessary for functional versatility. The data on arrestins and many other multi-functional proteins indicate that in many cases, “order” might be artificially imposed by highly non-physiological crystallization conditions and/or crystal packing forces. In contrast, conformational flexibility (and its extreme case, intrinsic disorder) is a more natural state of proteins, representing true biological order that underlies their physiologically relevant functions.     

Identification of Receptor Binding-induced Conformational Changes in Non-visual Arrestins

The non-visual arrestins, arrestin-2 and arrestin-3, belong to a small family of multifunctional cytosolic proteins. Non-visual arrestins interact with hundreds of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and regulate GPCR desensitization by binding active phosphorylated GPCRs and uncoupling them from heterotrimeric G proteins. Recently, non-visual arrestins have been shown to mediate G protein-independent signaling by serving as adaptors and scaffolds that assemble multiprotein complexes. By recruiting various partners, including trafficking and signaling proteins, directly to GPCRs, non-visual arrestins connect activated receptors to diverse signaling pathways. To investigate arrestin-mediated signaling, a structural understanding of arrestin activation and interaction with GPCRs is essential. Here we identified global and local conformational changes in the non-visual arrestins upon binding to the model GPCR rhodopsin. To detect conformational changes, pairs of spin labels were introduced into arrestin-2 and arrestin-3, and the interspin distances in the absence and presence of the receptor were measured by double electron electron resonance spectroscopy. Our data indicate that both non-visual arrestins undergo several conformational changes similar to arrestin-1, including the finger loop moving toward the predicted location of the receptor in the complex as well as the C-tail release upon receptor binding. The arrestin-2 results also suggest that there is no clam shell-like closure of the N- and C-domains and that the loop containing residue 136 (homolog of 139 in arrestin-1) has high flexibility in both free and receptor-bound states.