Dopamine receptor microdomains involved in molecular recognition and the regulation of drug affinity and function

A cationic protonatable amine moiety on dopaminergic ligands forms a high affinity reinforced ionic bond with an anionic aspartic acid at position 3.32 of dopamine receptors. When present, catechol hydroxyls of the ligands form hydrogen bonds with serines at position 5.42, 5.43, and 5.46, and this network of hydrogen bonds serves to orient ligands in the binding-site crevice and increase their binding affinity. A steric clash between aromatic moieties of the ligands and aromatic amino acids of the receptor (e.g., H6.55, F6.52 or F6.51 and W6.48) is likely to be propagated in domino-like fashion along the length of TM6, which is believed to trigger activation of the receptor. Specifically, it is the change in the conformation of W6.48 from an orientation perpendicular to the plane of the lipid membrane to one that is parallel that is believed to result in activation. Molecular determinants that mediate the D4/D2-selectivity of many extremely D4-selective 1,4-DAP ligands, include a nonconserved cluster of bulky amino acids at the TM2/TM3 interface (positions 2.61, 3.28 and 3.29).     

MICROFAMILY (version 1): a computer program for detecting flanking‐region similarities among different microsatellite loci

Microsatellite flanking regions are not necessarily unique sequences, but they may group into sequence families. Microsatellites occurring within such families are likely to give multiple banding patterns during polymerase chain reaction amplifications. microfamily (version 1) is a program that detects flanking‐region similarities between different microsatellite‐containing sequences, thus allowing for potentially problematic sequences to be eliminated prior to primer design. The program also accomplishes some otherwise tedious sequence editing, such as checking for nonpermitted characters, and eliminates poorly readable extremities or potential vector/adapter contamination. microfamily is written in Perl and available for Linux and Windows systems at http://www.up.univ‐mrs.fr/local/egee/dir/meglecz/microfamily.html .     

Isolation and characterization of polymorphic microsatellites in Parnassius apollo and Euphydryas aurinia (Lepidoptera)

Microsatellite loci were developed from Parnassius apollo and Euphydryas aurinia, two endangered Palaearctic butterfly species. Respectively, six and five polymorphic loci were characterized from an enriched partial genomic library. Genetic diversity range from three to 25 alleles for the first species and from seven to 21 for the second. Although the presence of null alleles is suspected, these polymorphic loci are likely to provide important information on the fine scale genetic structure among populations of these species.