Search results for "membrane proteins"
showing 10 items of 713 documents
Mosaicism due to postzygotic mutations in women with focal dermal hypoplasia
2019
International audience; Focal dermal hypoplasia (FDH, Goltz syndrome, MIM: #305600) constitutes a rare multisystem genetic disorder of the skin, skeleton, teeth and eyes with considerable variation in the clinical features. FDH is transmitted as an X-linked dominant trait and is caused by mutations in PORCN. In males, hemizygous PORCN mutations are lethal in utero. Around 300 cases have been reported in the literature to date. About 10% of them are males presenting either Klinefelter syndrome (karyotype 47, XXY) or mosaicism of a postzygotic mutation. Here we describe four cases of women with typical features of FDH, in whom a PORCN mutation was found in DNA from affected cutaneous tissue b…
YAP/TAZ activity in stromal cells prevents ageing by controlling cGAS-STING
2022
Ageing is intimately connected to the induction of cell senescence(1,2), but why this is so remains poorly understood. A key challenge isthe identification of pathways that normally suppress senescence, are lost during ageing and are functionally relevant to oppose ageing(3). Here we connected the structural and functional decline of ageing tissues to attenuated function of the master effectors of cellular mechanosignalling YAP and TAZ. YAP/TAZ activity declines during physiological ageing in stromal cells, and mimicking such decline through genetic inactivation of YAP/TAZ in these cells leads to accelerated ageing. Conversely, sustaining YAP function rejuvenates old cells and opposes the e…
Differential cysteine depletion in respiratory chain complexes enables the distinction of longevity from aerobicity.
2010
Mitochondrially encoded proteins in long-lived animals exhibit a characteristic anomaly on the amino acid usage level: they abstain from the use of cysteine in a lifespan-dependent fashion. Here, we have further investigated this phenomenon by analyzing respiratory chain complex subunits individually. We find that complex I cysteine depletion is the almost exclusive carrier of the cysteine-lifespan correlation, whereas complex IV cysteine depletion is uniform in all aerobic animals, unrelated to longevity, but even more pronounced than complex I cysteine depletion in the longest-lived species. In nuclear encoded subunits of the respiratory chain, we find lifespan-independent cysteine deplet…
ADAM-10 over-expression increases cortical synaptogenesis.
2006
Cortical cholinergic, glutamatergic and GABAergic terminals become upregulated during early stages of the transgenic amyloid pathology. Abundant evidence suggests that sAPP alpha, the product of the non-amyloidogenic alpha-secretase pathway, is neurotrophic both in vitro and when exogenously applied in vivo. The disintegrin metalloprotease ADAM-10 has been shown to have alpha-secretase activity in vivo. To determine whether sAPP alpha has an endogenous biological influence on cortical presynaptic boutons in vivo, we quantified cortical cholinergic, glutamatergic and GABAergic presynaptic bouton densities in either ADAM-10 moderate expressing (ADAM-10 mo) transgenic mice, which moderately ov…
Anxiolytic-like effects of acute and chronic GABA transporter inhibition in rats.
2002
Acute GABA transporter inhibition can induce anxiolytic-like behaviors. The present analysis addressed whether chronic treatment (23 days via drinking water) with a GABA transporter inhibitor affects rat behavior similar to acute treatment and interferes with additional benzodiazepine-receptor agonistic treatment. Seventy-one rats divided into seven groups were acutely treated with either vehicle, diazepam (2 mg/kg), zolpidem (0.05 mg/kg), tiagabine (19 mg/kg) or chronically with tiagabine with or without acute diazepam or zolpidem. Animals were behaviorally characterized in an elevated plus-maze. None of the treatments induced changes in the activity of the animals. Acute and chronic treat…
Structural Mechanism of N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor Type 1 Partial Agonism
2012
N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors belong to a family of ionotropic glutamate receptors that contribute to the signal transmission in the central nervous system. NMDA receptors are heterotetramers that usually consist of two GluN1 and GluN2 monomers. The extracellular ligand-binding domain (LBD) of a monomer is comprised of discontinuous segments that form the functional domains D1 and D2. While the binding of a full agonist glycine to LBD of GluN1 is linked to cleft closure and subsequent ion-channel opening, partial agonists are known to activate the receptor only sub-maximally. Although the crystal structures of the LBD of related GluA2 receptor explain the mechanism for the partial a…
Association between the PNPLA3 (rs738409 C>G) variant and hepatocellular carcinoma: Evidence from a meta-analysis of individual participant data
2014
The incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is increasing in Western countries. Although several clinical factors have been identified, many individuals never develop HCC, suggesting a genetic susceptibility. However, to date, only a few single-nucleotide polymorphisms have been reproducibly shown to be linked to HCC onset. A variant (rs738409 C>G, encoding for p.I148M) in the PNPLA3 gene is associated with liver damage in chronic liver diseases. Interestingly, several studies have reported that the minor rs738409[G] allele is more represented in HCC cases in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) and alcoholic liver disease (ALD). However, a significant association with HCC related to CHC has not b…
CyaC, a redox-regulated adenylate cyclase of Sinorhizobium meliloti with a quinone responsive diheme-B membrane anchor domain.
2019
The nucleotide cyclase CyaC of Sinorhizobium meliloti is a member of class III adenylate cyclases (AC), a diverse group present in all forms of life. CyaC is membrane-integral by a hexahelical membrane domain (6TM) with the basic topology of mammalian ACs. The 6TM domain of CyaC contains a tetra-histidine signature that is universally present in the membrane anchors of bacterial diheme-B succinate-quinone oxidoreductases. Heterologous expression of cyaC imparted activity for cAMP formation from ATP to Escherichia coli, whereas guanylate cyclase activity was not detectable. Detergent solubilized and purified CyaC was a diheme-B protein and carried a binuclear iron-sulfur cluster. Single poin…
Transport of C(4)-dicarboxylates in Wolinella succinogenes.
2000
ABSTRACT C 4 -dicarboxylate transport is a prerequisite for anaerobic respiration with fumarate in Wolinella succinogenes , since the substrate site of fumarate reductase is oriented towards the cytoplasmic side of the membrane. W. succinogenes was found to transport C 4 -dicarboxylates (fumarate, succinate, malate, and aspartate) across the cytoplasmic membrane by antiport and uniport mechanisms. The electrogenic uniport resulted in dicarboxylate accumulation driven by anaerobic respiration. The molar ratio of internal to external dicarboxylate concentration was up to 10 3 . The dicarboxylate antiport was either electrogenic or electroneutral. The electroneutral antiport required the prese…
Novel Insights and Therapeutical Applications in the Field of Inhibitors of COX-2
2004
The discovery of the two isoenzymes COX-1 and COX-2 and the knowledge of their function, localisation and regulation has initiated the development of COX-2 selective inhibitors (coxibs). Inducible COX-2 at the peripheral site of inflammation has been detected in the early 1990s, the involvement of recently detected spinal COX-2 has led to new insights into mechanisms of pain and may explain analgesic and antipyretic properties of COX-2 selective inhibitors. The coxibs rofecoxib and celecoxib have been introduced into therapy and seem to offer some advantages over the classical non-selective NSAIDs. The search for new COX-2 inhibitors is going on, the development of etoricoxib and lumiracox…