Oskar and Cecile Vogt, Lenin's brain and the bumble-bees of the black forest

Oskar Vogt (1870-1955) was a prominent German neurologist and neuroanatomist with a strong interest in the pathogenesis of brain diseases. Together with his wife Cecile (1875-1962), he published landmark papers on the cyto- and myelo-architecture of the brain and the functional anatomy of the basal ganglia. He developed the concept of pathoclisis, i.e., the selective vulnerability of specific neuronal populations in the CNS. In the 1920's, Vogt created a multi-disciplinary brain research institute, the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut fur Hirnforschung in Berlin-Buch. After Lenin's death in 1924, Oskar Vogt was called to Moscow where he formed a new brain research institute, with the main purpose to investigate the revolutionary's brain. After being dismissed from office by the Nazi government in 1937, the Vogts continued their work in a privately funded institute in Neustadt, the Black Forest

HIV-1 Nef protein exhibits structural and functional similarity to scorpion peptides interacting with K+ channels.

The persistent infection of human glial cells with HIV-1 is characterized by prominent expression of the Nef protein. In order to evaluate the possible role of Nef in the development of HIV-1-associated neurological disorders, we compared Nef with known neuroactive proteins. We found that HIV Nef shares sequence and structural features with scorpion peptides known to interact with K+ channels. Sequence similarity encompasses two distinct regions of scorpion peptides. Based on crystallography data, both regions in scorpion peptides cooperate in forming a common domain stabilized by ion pairs between charged amino-acid residues. Recombinant Nef protein, as well as a synthetic part of a scorpion channel active peptide (M10), reversibly increased the total K+ current of chick dorsal root ganglions in patch-clamp experiments without killing the cells. These results indicate that a region conserved in HIV Nef and scorpion peptides concurs in both structure and electrophysiological activity and suggest that Nef, like scorpion peptides, may affect neuronal cell function