The role(s) of arginine-specific mono(ADP-ribosyl)transferase in skeletal muscle cells

The overall goal of this research project was to examine the biological function of arginine-specific mono(ADP-ribosyl) transferase in skeletal muscle cells. To better understand the function of this enzyme in skeletal muscle, the experimental approach to accomplish this goal consisted of two specific objectives. The first objective was to identify the protein substrates for this enzyme in myogenic cell cultures and cellular fractions. Embryonic chick primary muscle cell cultures were used as a working system for this purpose. In membrane fractions of 96-h myotube cultures incubated with [[superscript]32 P]NAD under conditions selected for mono(ADP-ribosyl)ation, proteins of 127,000, 56,000 and 36,000 Da were predominately labeled. Based on the inhibitory effects of two inhibitors, novobiocin and meta-iodobenzylguanidine (MIBG), as well as the reducing agent, DTT, on ADP-ribosylation of muscle membrane proteins, two potential intracellular target substrates with molecular masses of 56 kDa and 36 kDa were identified. The result of an immunoblot assay where rabbit antiserum specific for desmin reacted with 56 kDa protein strongly suggests that 56 kDa protein might be desmin;The second objective was to examine the enzymology of muscle ADP-ribosyltransferase using the defined protein substrate(s) and to characterize the enzyme by expressing it in bacterial systems. Muscle specific intermediate filament protein type III, desmin, was found to be an excellent substrate for the purified muscle transferase in vitro. Results from sedimentation and electron microscopy experiments showed that ADP-ribosylation of desmin resulted in a remarkable inhibition of desmin polymerization into 10 nm filaments. Additionally, ADP-ribosylation caused a significant inhibition of phosphorylation of desmin by the catalytic subunit of phosphokinase A. Fragmentation of desmin by lysyl endopeptidase revealed that the ADP-ribosylation site was located within the head domain of desmin that has been suggested to play an important role in filament formation;To better understand muscle ADP-ribosyltransferase structure and catalytic properties, significant amounts of pure enzyme are needed. To this regard, skeletal muscle arginine-specific mono(ADP-ribosyl) transferase has been expressed in E. coli. The enzyme appears in the inclusion bodies and a method using the combination of oxidized and reduced glutathione and a pair of refolding assistants, polyoxyethylene 10 lauryl ether (POE10L) and [beta]-cyclodextrin, was successfully used to yield the active enzyme

Ambiguity in the Negative V+bo NP Construction in Taiwanese Southern Min

PACLIC 21 / Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea / November 1-3, 200

Second-harmonic generation in graded metallic films

We study the effective second-harmonic generation (SHG) susceptibility in graded metallic films by invoking the local field effects exactly, and further numerically demonstrate that the graded metallic films can serve as a novel optical material for producing a broad structure in both the linear and SHG response and an enhancement in the SHG signal.Comment: 10 pages, 2 EPS figures. Minor revision

Error Correction for Dense Semantic Image Labeling

Pixelwise semantic image labeling is an important, yet challenging, task with many applications. Typical approaches to tackle this problem involve either the training of deep networks on vast amounts of images to directly infer the labels or the use of probabilistic graphical models to jointly model the dependencies of the input (i.e. images) and output (i.e. labels). Yet, the former approaches do not capture the structure of the output labels, which is crucial for the performance of dense labeling, and the latter rely on carefully hand-designed priors that require costly parameter tuning via optimization techniques, which in turn leads to long inference times. To alleviate these restrictions, we explore how to arrive at dense semantic pixel labels given both the input image and an initial estimate of the output labels. We propose a parallel architecture that: 1) exploits the context information through a LabelPropagation network to propagate correct labels from nearby pixels to improve the object boundaries, 2) uses a LabelReplacement network to directly replace possibly erroneous, initial labels with new ones, and 3) combines the different intermediate results via a Fusion network to obtain the final per-pixel label. We experimentally validate our approach on two different datasets for the semantic segmentation and face parsing tasks respectively, where we show improvements over the state-of-the-art. We also provide both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the generated results

An Analysis of Information Systems Research in Chinese Mainland

This study examines information systems (IS) research in Chinese Mainland in recent years and identifies the similarities and the differences between international and Chinese IS research in terms of research topics and research methods. The data consists of a total of 410 research papers published in ten leading Chinese academic journals related to IS over the five-year period from 1999 to 2004. Compared to IS research abroad, the following may be said of Chinese IS research: (1) Systems-related issues, especially system design issues, system implementation, analytical models and tools, DSS/ESS/EIS are emphasized in research topics, whereas human-related and research methodologies issues are scarce. (2) Empirical studies, including case study, survey and experiment, are few and far between. (3) The majority of non-empirical studies focus on applications and conceptual description of IS, mainly in different applied fields and introducing or illustrating hot topics abroad. The general shift from traditional issues such as system design to non-technical problems is still continuing. There is a need to go beyond mere description of IS related phenomenon and to move away from non-empirical to empirical studies

Associations among systemic blood pressure, microalbuminuria and albuminuria in dogs affected with pituitary- and adrenal-dependent hyperadrenocorticism

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hypertension and proteinuria are medical complications associated with the multisystemic effects of long-term hypercortisolism in dogs with hyperadrenocorticism (HAC).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This study investigated the relationships among adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)-stimulation test results, systemic blood pressure, and microalbuminuria in clinically-healthy dogs (n = 100), in dogs affected with naturally occurring pituitary-dependent (PDH; n = 40), or adrenal-dependent hyperadrenocorticism (ADH; n = 30).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Mean systemic blood pressure was similar between clinically healthy dogs and dogs with HAC (<it>p </it>= 0.803). However the incidence of hypertension was highest in dogs with ADH (<it>p = 0.017</it>), followed by dogs with PDH, with the lowest levels in clinically healthy dogs (<it>p = 0.019</it>). Presence of microalbuminuria and albuminuria in clinically healthy dogs and dogs affected with HAC was significantly different (<it>p </it>< 0.001); incidences of albuminuria followed the same pattern of hypertension; highest incidence in dogs with ADH, and lowest level in clinically healthy dogs; but microalbuminuria showed a different pattern: clinically healthy dogs had highest incidences and dogs with ADH had lowest incidence. The presence of albuminuria was not associated with blood pressure values, regardless of whether dogs were clinically healthy or affected with ADH or PDH (<it>p </it>= 0.306).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Higher incidence of hypertension and albuminuria, not microalbuminuria was seen in dogs affected with HAC compared to clinically healthy dogs; incidence of hypertension and albuminuria was significantly higher in dogs affected with ADH compared to PDH. However, presence of albuminuria was not correlated with systemic blood pressure.</p

Studies towards the Total Asymmetric Synthesis of the Pentacyclic Indole Alkaloid Arboflorine: Asymmetric Synthesis of a Key Intermediate

The synthesis of a plausible key intermediate for a biomimetic asymmetric synthesis of indole alkaloid arboflorine is described. The method featured the use of Ellman's sulfinamide chemistry for the establishment of the first chiral center, and the Polonovski-Potier reaction for the formation of the alpha-aminonitrile moiety.NSF of China[20832005]; NFFTBS[J1030415]; National Basic Research Program (973 Program) of China[2010CB833200