Alternatively spliced exons of the beta tropomyosin gene exhibit different affinities for F-actin and effects with nonmuscle caldesmon

The rat beta-tropomyosin (TM) gene expresses two isoforms via alternative RNA splicing, namely skeletal muscle beta-TM and fibroblast TM-1. The latter is also expressed in smooth muscle where it corresponds to smooth muscle beta-TM. Skeletal muscle beta-TM contains exons 7 and 10, whereas exons 6 and 11 are used in fibroblasts and smooth muscle. In order to study the properties of the alternatively spliced proteins, recombinant TMs derived from bacterial and insect cell expression systems were produced, including the normal beta gene products, fibroblast TM-1 and beta skeletal muscle TM, two carboxy-terminal chimeric TMs, TM-6/10 and TM-7/11, as well as a carboxyl-truncated version of each, TM-6Cla and TM-7Cla. The purified TM isoforms were used in actin filament association studies. The apparent TM association constants (Ka) were taken as the free concentration at half saturation and were found to be 6 microM for beta Sk TM, 8.5 for TM-6/10, 25 microM for TM-1, and 30 microM for TM-7/11 at an F-actin concentration of 42 microM. For the truncated TMs, the values determined were higher still but the binding was not carried out to full saturation. Isoforms were also produced using the baculovirus-insect cell system which produces proteins with an acetylated amino terminus as is normally found in vivo. This modification significantly enhanced the F-actin association of TM-1 but not the beta skeletal TM or the other isoforms. Fibroblast TM-2 or TM-3, both products of the alpha gene, enhanced the affinity of TM-1 for F-actin, demonstrating different isoforms can act cooperatively on binding to actin. This effect was not detected with the other expressed beta gene products. The presence of 83 kDa nonmuscle caldesmon was found to enhance the binding of TM-1 for F-actin. This effect was dependent on the presence of both exons 6 and 11, as caldesmon had little effect on the other beta gene products. Collectively these results demonstrate TMs differ in their affinity for F-actin, which can be altered by other TMs or actin-binding proteins. The beta tropomyosin isoforms were fluorescently-tagged and microinjected into cultured cells to study their in vivo localization where it was found that each of the full-length TMs bound to microfilaments but, at the light microscopy level, the isoforms were not differentially localized in these fibroblasts

Some Properties of the Computable Cross Norm Criterion for Separability

The computable cross norm (CCN) criterion is a new powerful analytical and computable separability criterion for bipartite quantum states, that is also known to systematically detect bound entanglement. In certain aspects this criterion complements the well-known Peres positive partial transpose (PPT) criterion. In the present paper we study important analytical properties of the CCN criterion. We show that in contrast to the PPT criterion it is not sufficient in dimension 2 x 2. In higher dimensions we prove theorems connecting the fidelity of a quantum state with the CCN criterion. We also analyze the behaviour of the CCN criterion under local operations and identify the operations that leave it invariant. It turns out that the CCN criterion is in general not invariant under local operations.Comment: 7 pages; accepted by Physical Review A; error in Appendix B correcte

Classicality in discrete Wigner functions

Gibbons et al. [Phys. Rev. A 70, 062101(2004)] have recently defined a class of discrete Wigner functions W to represent quantum states in a Hilbert space with finite dimension. We show that the only pure states having non-negative W for all such functions are stabilizer states, as conjectured by one of us [Phys. Rev. A 71, 042302 (2005)]. We also show that the unitaries preserving non-negativity of W for all definitions of W form a subgroup of the Clifford group. This means pure states with non-negative W and their associated unitary dynamics are classical in the sense of admitting an efficient classical simulation scheme using the stabilizer formalism.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Topiramate improves neurovascular function, epidermal nerve fiber morphology, and metabolism in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Amanda L Boyd, Patricia M Barlow, Gary L Pittenger, Kathryn F Simmons, Aaron I VinikDepartment of Internal Medicine, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, VA, USAPurpose: To assess the effects of topiramate on C-fiber function, nerve fiber morphology, and metabolism (including insulin sensitivity, obesity, and dyslipidemia) in type 2 diabetes.Patients and methods: We conducted an 18-week, open-label trial treating patients with topiramate. Twenty subjects with type 2 diabetes and neuropathy (61.5 ± 1.29 years; 15 male, 5 female) were enrolled and completed the trial. Neuropathy was evaluated by total neuropathy scores, nerve conduction studies, quantitative sensory tests, laser Doppler skin blood flow, and intraepidermal nerve fibers in skin biopsies.Results: Topiramate treatment improved symptoms compatible with C-fiber dysfunction. Weight, blood pressure, and hemoglobin A1c also improved. Laser Doppler skin blood flow improved significantly after 12 weeks of treatment, but returned to baseline at 18 weeks. After 18 weeks of treatment there was a significant increase in intraepidermal nerve fiber length at the forearm, thigh, and proximal leg. Intraepidermal nerve fiber density was significantly increased by topiramate in the proximal leg.Conclusion: This study is the first to demonstrate that it is possible to induce skin intraepidermal nerve fiber regeneration accompanied by enhancement of neurovascular function, translating into improved symptoms as well as sensory nerve function. The simultaneous improvement of selective metabolic indices may play a role in this effect, but this remains to be determined.Keywords: diabetic neuropathy, skin blood flow, skin biopsy, diabete

Nonadditive measure and quantum entanglement in a class of mixed states of N^n-system

Through the generalization of Khinchin's classical axiomatic foundation, a basis is developed for nonadditive information theory. The classical nonadditive conditional entropy indexed by the positive parameter q is introduced and then translated into quantum information. This quantity is nonnegative for classically correlated states but can take negative values for entangled mixed states. This property is used to study quantum entanglement in the parametrized Werner-Popescu-like state of an N^n-system, that is, an n-partite N-level system. It is shown how the strongest limitation on validity of local realism (i.e., separability of the state) can be obtained in a novel manner

Separability and Fourier representations of density matrices

Using the finite Fourier transform, we introduce a generalization of Pauli-spin matrices for $d$-dimensional spaces, and the resulting set of unitary matrices $S(d)$ is a basis for $d\times d$ matrices. If $N=d_{1}\times d_{2}\times...\times d_{b}$ and H^{[ N]}=\bigotimes H^{% [ d_{k}]}, we give a sufficient condition for separability of a density matrix $\rho$ relative to the $H^{[ d_{k}]}$ in terms of the $L_{1}$ norm of the spin coefficients of $\rho >.$ Since the spin representation depends on the form of the tensor product, the theory applies to both full and partial separability on a given space $H^{[ N]}$% . It follows from this result that for a prescribed form of separability, there is always a neighborhood of the normalized identity in which every density matrix is separable. We also show that for every prime $p$ and $n>1$ the generalized Werner density matrix $W^{[ p^{n}]}(s)$ is fully separable if and only if $s\leq (1+p^{n-1}) ^{-1}$

Symmetric Informationally Complete Measurements of Arbitrary Rank

There has been much interest in so-called SIC-POVMs: rank 1 symmetric informationally complete positive operator valued measures. In this paper we discuss the larger class of POVMs which are symmetric and informationally complete but not necessarily rank 1. This class of POVMs is of some independent interest. In particular it includes a POVM which is closely related to the discrete Wigner function. However, it is interesting mainly because of the light it casts on the problem of constructing rank 1 symmetric informationally complete POVMs. In this connection we derive an extremal condition alternative to the one derived by Renes et al.Comment: Contribution to proceedings of International Conference on Quantum Optics, Minsk, 200

Valence bond solid formalism for d-level one-way quantum computation

The d-level or qudit one-way quantum computer (d1WQC) is described using the valence bond solid formalism and the generalised Pauli group. This formalism provides a transparent means of deriving measurement patterns for the implementation of quantum gates in the computational model. We introduce a new universal set of qudit gates and use it to give a constructive proof of the universality of d1WQC. We characterise the set of gates that can be performed in one parallel time step in this model.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures. Published in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Genera

Generalized reduction criterion for separability of quantum states

A new necessary separability criterion that relates the structures of the total density matrix and its reductions is given. The method used is based on the realignment method [K. Chen and L.A. Wu, Quant. Inf. Comput. 3, 193 (2003)]. The new separability criterion naturally generalizes the reduction separability criterion introduced independently in previous work of [M. Horodecki and P. Horodecki, Phys. Rev. A 59, 4206 (1999)] and [N.J. Cerf, C. Adami and R.M. Gingrich, Phys. Rev. A 60, 898 (1999)]. In special cases, it recovers the previous reduction criterion and the recent generalized partial transposition criterion [K. Chen and L.A. Wu, Phys. Lett. A 306, 14 (2002)]. The criterion involves only simple matrix manipulations and can therefore be easily applied.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure