Protein modeling of apical membrane antigen-1(AMA-1) of Plasmodium cynomolgi

Apical membrane Antigen-1(AMA-1), an asexual blood stage antigen of Plasmodium cynomolgi, is an important candidate for testing as a component of malarial vaccine. The degree of conservation ofAMA-1 sequences implies a conserved function for this molecule across different species of Plasmodium. Since the AMA-1 of plasmodium cyanomolgi is yet to be structured, the authors have generated a homology model of AMA-1 by using the Swiss-PDB server. The protein’s conservity has been verified by performing multiple alignments using Bioedit and conserved domain database. The model was further checked for its correctness by predicting 2D and 3D structures, which validates thestructure

Studies on the quantitative and qualitative characters of cocoons and silk from methoprene and fenoxycarb treated Bombyx mori (L) larvae

Juvenile hormone analogues (JHA s) are known to prolong larval life in insects, and these have been tried for the improvement of silk production in the silkworm, Bombyx mori (L). In the cocoons and silk from 5thinstar B. mori treated with selected doses of methoprene and fenoxycarb, quantitative parameters like cocoon weight, shell weight, shell percentage, filament length and denier followed by qualitative charactersof the silk like non-breakable filament length, reelability, winding capacity, tenacity, elongation percentage, cohesiveness, sericin and fibroin contents were determined. The cocoon from 1.0 mg methoprene and 3.0fg/larvae treated on days one and two showed improved quantitative characters of cocoons followed by qualitative characters of the silk over the control. The use of juvenile hormone like methprene and fenoxycarb during summer season will help to get improved cocoon yiel

Activation of Wnt Signaling by Chemically Induced Dimerization of LRP5 Disrupts Cellular Homeostasis

Wnt signaling is crucial for a variety of biological processes, including body axis formation, planar polarity, stem cell maintenance and cellular differentiation. Therefore, targeted manipulation of Wnt signaling in vivo would be extremely useful. By applying chemical inducer of dimerization (CID) technology, we were able to modify the Wnt co-receptor, low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-receptor-related protein 5 (LRP5), to generate the synthetic ligand inducible Wnt switch, iLRP5. We show that iLRP5 oligomerization results in its localization to disheveled-containing punctate structures and sequestration of scaffold protein Axin, leading to robust β-catenin-mediated signaling. Moreover, we identify a novel LRP5 cytoplasmic domain critical for its intracellular localization and casein kinase 1-dependent β-catenin signaling. Finally, by utilizing iLRP5 as a Wnt signaling switch, we generated the Ubiquitous Activator of β-catenin (Ubi-Cat) transgenic mouse line. The Ubi-Cat line allows for nearly ubiquitous expression of iLRP5 under control of the H-2Kb promoter. Activation of iLRP5 in isolated prostate basal epithelial stem cells resulted in expansion of p63+ cells and development of hyperplasia in reconstituted murine prostate grafts. Independently, iLRP5 induction in adult prostate stroma enhanced prostate tissue regeneration. Moreover, induction of iLRP5 in male Ubi-Cat mice resulted in prostate tumor progression over several months from prostate hyperplasia to adenocarcinoma. We also investigated iLRP5 activation in Ubi-Cat-derived mammary cells, observing that prolonged activation results in mammary tumor formation. Thus, in two distinct experimental mouse models, activation of iLRP5 results in disruption of tissue homeostasis, demonstrating the utility of iLRP5 as a novel research tool for determining the outcome of Wnt activation in a precise spatially and temporally determined fashion