Proton Stripping to Stretched States in 26-Al, 52-Cr, and 60-Si

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHy 87-1440

Selectivity, efficacy and toxicity studies of UCCB01-144, a dimeric neuroprotective PSD-95 inhibitor

Inhibition of postsynaptic density protein-95 (PSD-95) decouples N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor downstream signaling and results in neuroprotection after focal cerebral ischemia. We have previously developed UCCB01-144, a dimeric PSD-95 inhibitor, which binds PSD-95 with high affinity and is neuroprotective in experimental stroke. Here, we investigate the selectivity, efficacy and toxicity of UCCB01-144 and compare with the monomeric drug candidate Tat-NR2B9c. Fluorescence polarization using purified proteins and pull-downs of mouse brain lysates showed that UCCB01-144 potently binds all four PSD-95-like membrane-associated guanylate kinases (MAGUKs). In addition, UCCB01-144 affected NMDA receptor signaling pathways in ischemic brain tissue. UCCB01-144 reduced infarct size in young and aged male mice at various doses when administered 30 min after permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion, but UCCB01-144 was not effective in young male mice when administered 1 h post-ischemia or in female mice. Furthermore, UCCB01-144 was neuroprotective in a transient stroke model in rats, and in contrast to Tat-NR2B9c, high dose of UCCB01-144 did not lead to significant changes in mean arterial blood pressure or heart rate. Overall, UCCB01-144 is a potent MAGUK inhibitor that reduces neurotoxic PSD-95-mediated signaling and improves neuronal survival following focal brain ischemia in rodents under various conditions and without causing cardiovascular side effects, which encourages further studies towards clinical stroke trials

High-throughput screening of monoclonal antibodies against plant cell wall glycans by hierarchical clustering of their carbohydrate microarray binding profiles

Antibody-producing hybridoma cell lines were created following immunisation with a crude extract of cell wall polymers from the plant Arabidopsis thaliana. In order to rapidly screen the specificities of individual monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), their binding to microarrays containing 50 cell wall glycans immobilized on nitrocellulose was assessed. Hierarchical clustering of microarray binding profiles from newly produced mAbs, together with the profiles for mAbs with previously defined specificities allowed the rapid assignments of mAb binding to antigen classes. mAb specificities were further investigated using subsequent immunochemical and biochemical analyses and two novel mAbs are described in detail. mAb LM13 binds to an arabinanase-sensitive pectic epitope and mAb LM14, binds to an epitope occurring on arabinogalactan-proteins. Both mAbs display novel patterns of recognition of cell walls in plant materials

Pion scattering to 8/sup -/ stretched states in /sup 60/Ni

Using the Energetic Pion Channel and Spectrometer at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility, differential cross sections for pion scattering were measured for ten previously known J/sup ..pi../ = 8/sup /minus// stretched states in /sup 60/Ni. A possible new pure isoscalar stretched state was also found. The data were taken near the /DELTA//sub 3,3/-resonance using 162 MeV incident pions and scattering angles of 65/degree/, 80/degree/, and 90/degree/ for ..pi../sup +/ and 65/degree/ and 80/degree/ for ..pi../sup /minus//. The analysis of the /sup 60/Ni data found that the use of Woods-Saxon wave functions in the theoretical calculations gave much better agreement with data than the use of the usual harmonic oscillator wave functions. The WS theory gave better predictions of: the angle at which the ..pi../sup /minus// and ..pi../sup +/ angular distributions are maximum, the ratios of ..pi../sup /minus// to ..pi../sup +/ cross sections for pure isovector states (which were much larger than unity), and the absolute size of the cross sections for all states (so that the normalization factor necessary to arrive at agreement of theory with data was closer to unity). The theoretical calculations used the distorted wave impulse approximation, including new methods for unbound states. The sensitivities of the calculations to input parameters were investigated. This analysis using WS wave functions was extended to five other nuclei (/sup 12/C, /sup 14/C, /sup 16/O, /sup 28/Si, and /sup 54/Fe) on which both pion scattering and electron scattering have been done. A significant improvement in arriving at a normalization factor close to unity was found when WS wave functions were consistently used for analyzing both pion and electron inelastic scattering data. 101 refs., 26 figs., 13 tabs

Polarization Transfer in 10-B(p,p')10-B Inelastic Scattering

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478