Search results for "fluorescent"

The Cleavage Product of Amyloid-β Protein Precursor sAβPPα Modulates BAG3-Dependent Aggresome Formation and Enhances Cellular Proteasomal Activity

2015

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the major age-associated form of dementia characterized by gradual cognitive decline. Aberrant cleavage of the amyloid-β protein precursor (AβPP) is thought to play an important role in the pathology of this disease. Two principal AβPP processing pathways exist: amyloidogenic cleavage of AβPP resulting in production of the soluble N-terminal fragment sAβPPβ, amyloid-β (Aβ), which accumulates in AD brain, and the AβPP intracellular domain (AICD) sAβPPα, p3 and AICD are generated in the non-amyloidogenic pathway. Prevalence of amyloidogenic versus non-amyloidogenic processing leads to depletion of sAβPPα and an increase in Aβ. Although sAβPPα is a well-accepted neu…

Thermal Isomerization Mechanism in Dronpa and Its Mutants.

2016

The photoswitching speed of the reversibly switchable fluorescent proteins (RSFPs) from the family of green fluorescent proteins (GFPs) changes upon mutation which is of direct importance for various high-resolution techniques. Dronpa is one of the most used RSFPs. Its point mutants rsFastLime (Dronpa V157G) and rsKame (Dronpa V157L) exhibit a striking difference in their photoswitching speed. Here the QM/MM on-the-fly string method is used in order to explore the details of the thermal isomerization mechanism. The four principal ways in which isomerization may occur have been scrutinized for each of the three proteins. It has been shown that thermal isomerization occurs via a one-bond-flip…

Activation of the p75 neurotrophin receptor through conformational rearrangement of disulphide-linked receptor dimers.

2009

Ligand-mediated dimerization has emerged as a universal mechanism of growth factor receptor activation. Recent structural studies have shown that neurotrophins interact with dimers of the p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR), but the actual mechanism of receptor activation has remained elusive. Here we show that p75NTR forms disulphide-linked dimers independently of neurotrophin binding through the highly conserved Cys257 in its transmembrane domain. Mutation of Cys257 abolished neurotrophin-dependent receptor activity but did not affect downstream signaling by the p75NTR/NgR/Lingo-1 complex in response to MAG, indicating the existence of distinct, ligand-specific activation mechanisms for p7…

Two amino acid residues determine the low substrate affinity of human cationic amino acid transporter-2A.

2003

Mammalian cationic amino acid transporters (CAT) differ in their substrate affinity and sensitivity to trans-stimulation. The apparent Km values for cationic amino acids and the sensitivity to trans-stimulation of CAT-1, -2B, and -3 are characteristic of system y+. In contrast, CAT-2A exhibits a 10-fold lower substrate affinity and is largely independent of substrate at the trans-side of the membrane. CAT-2A and -2B demonstrate such divergent transport properties, even though their amino acid sequences differ only in a stretch of 42 amino acids. Here, we identify two amino acid residues within this 42-amino acid domain of the human CAT-2A protein that are responsible for the apparent low af…

Thin-layer affinity chromatography in analysis of protein-ligand affinity.

1996

BAG3 mediates chaperone-based aggresome-targeting and selective autophagy of misfolded proteins.

2010

Increasing evidence indicates the existence of selective autophagy pathways, but the manner in which substrates are recognized and targeted to the autophagy system is poorly understood. One strategy is transport of a particular substrate to the aggresome, a perinuclear compartment with high autophagic activity. In this paper, we identify a new cellular pathway that uses the specificity of heat-shock protein 70 (Hsp70) to misfolded proteins as the basis for aggresome-targeting and autophagic degradation. This pathway is regulated by the stress-induced co-chaperone Bcl-2-associated athanogene 3 (BAG3), which interacts with the microtubule-motor dynein and selectively directs Hsp70 substrates …

A Membrane-Bound Vertebrate Globin

2011

The family of vertebrate globins includes hemoglobin, myoglobin, and other O(2)-binding proteins of yet unclear functions. Among these, globin X is restricted to fish and amphibians. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) globin X is expressed at low levels in neurons of the central nervous system and appears to be associated with the sensory system. The protein harbors a unique N-terminal extension with putative N-myristoylation and S-palmitoylation sites, suggesting membrane-association. Intracellular localization and transport of globin X was studied in 3T3 cells employing green fluorescence protein fusion constructs. Both myristoylation and palmitoylation sites are required for correct targeting and m…

Thioflavin T templates amyloid β(1–40) conformation and aggregation pathway

2015

Aβ(1-40) peptide supramolecular assembly and fibril formation processes are widely recognized to have direct implications in the progression of Alzheimer's disease. The molecular basis of this biological process is still unknown and there is a strong need of developing effective strategies to control the occurring events. To this purpose the exploitation of small molecules interacting with Aβ aggregation represents one of the possible routes. Moreover, the use specific labeling has represented so far one of the most common and effective methods to investigate such a process. This possibility in turn rests on the reliability of the probe/labels involved. Here we present evidences of the effe…

Secretory Pathway Research: The More Experimental Systems the Better

2012

Transient gene expression, in plant protoplasts or specific plant tissues, is a key technique in plant molecular cell biology, aimed at exploring gene products and their modifications to examine functional subdomains, their interactions with other biomolecules, and their subcellular localization. Here, we highlight some of the major advantages and potential pitfalls of the most commonly used transient gene expression models and illustrate how ectopic expression and the use of dominant mutants can provide insights into protein function.

CD34+ progenitor to endothelial cell transition in post-pneumonectomy angiogenesis.

2012

In many species, pneumonectomy triggers compensatory lung growth that results in an increase not only in lung volume, but also in alveolar number. Whether the associated alveolar angiogenesis involves the contribution of blood-borne progenitor cells is unknown. To identify and characterize blood-borne progenitor cells contributing to lung growth after pneumonectomy in mice, we studied wild-type and wild-type/green fluorescence protein (GFP) parabiotic mice after left pneumonectomy. Within 21 days of pneumonectomy, a 3.2-fold increase occurred in the number of lung endothelial cells. This increase in total endothelial cells was temporally associated with a 7.3-fold increase in the number of …