Perturbed angular correlation study of a haptenic molecule

The angular correlation of the 173-247 keV gamma-ray cascade after the electron-capture decay of (111)In is strongly perturbed when the I-p-nitrophenylethylenediaminetetraacetate chelate of (111)In(3+) is added to a solution containing rabbit antibody to dinitrophenyl groups. The radioactive chelate can be displaced by the addition of dinitrophenyllysine or unlabeled chelate. The average association constant between the antibody and the labeled chelate has been estimated from perturbed angular correlation measurements; this value is compared to the results of equilibrium dialysis. These experiments provide good evidence that information concerning macromolecular behavior can be obtained from perturbed angular correlation experiments that use chemically specific labels

Spatial Attention Modulates Center-Surround Interactions in Macaque Visual Area V4

SummaryIn natural viewing, a visual stimulus that is the target of attention is generally surrounded by many irrelevant distracters. Stimuli falling in the receptive field surround can influence the neuronal response evoked by a stimulus appearing within the classical receptive field. Such modulation by task-irrelevant distracters may degrade the target-related neuronal signal. We therefore examined whether directing attention to a target stimulus can reduce the influence of task-irrelevant distracters on neuronal response. We find that in area V4 attention to a stimulus within a neuron's receptive field filters out a large fraction of the suppression induced by distracters appearing in the surround. When attention is instead directed to the surround stimulus, suppression is increased, thereby filtering out part of the neuronal response to the irrelevant distracter positioned within the receptive field. These findings demonstrate that attention modulates the neural mechanisms that give rise to center-surround interactions

Small-molecule control of cytokine function: new opportunities for treating immune disorders

Manipulating cytokine function with protein-based drugs has proven effective for treating a wide variety of autoimmune and autoinflammatory disorders. However, the limited ability of protein-based drugs to modulate intracellular targets, including many implicated by studies of the genetics and physiology of these diseases, and to coordinately neutralize redundant inflammatory cytokines, suggests an important and complementary role for small molecules in immunomodulatory drug development. The recent clinical approval of Janus kinase and phosphodiesterase inhibitors, along with emerging evidence from other compound classes, firmly establish small molecules as effective tools for modulating therapeutically relevant proteins that give rise to aberrant cytokine signaling or mediate its downstream consequences

Zeeman Anisotropy Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Characteristic Radiative Lifetimes, and Novel Site Symmetries in KCl: Sm 2+

By means of Zeeman anisotropy fluorescence (ZAF) and its field dependence (up to 55.8 kG), the authors have investigated the 4.2 K narrow-line fluorescence of KCl:Sm2+ and identified some hitherto unreported Sm2+ sites. The strong no-field line at 7693.5 Å (5D0→7F3) and a very weak no-field line at 8742.8 Å (5D0→7F5) are shown to be of C3v symmetry origin. The 24.5-kG ZAF pattern observed in the 7696-7700-Å (5D0→7F3) region has been identified to originate from a type-II Cs site. The 26.5-kG ZAF patterns of the C3v no-field line at 7693.5 Å and the type-I Cs no-field line at 7694.5 Å overlap in the 7693-7695.3-Å region, and are elucidated through the field dependence of their Zeeman components. Characteristic radiative lifetimes of the 5D0 level in several Sm2+ symmetry types have been determined from dominant transitions to the 7FJ (J\u3c~4) levels. There are two distinct C4v sites: one with a lifetime of 9.5 msec, and the other 11.2 msec. C2v and type-I Cs sites have lifetimes of 10.5 and 10.8 msec, respectively, which are indistinguishable within the experimental error. The role of O2− compensation of Sm2+ in addition to K+ vacancy compensation in KCl is discussed in terms of these findings