Interpretation of the oblique Abrikosov flux lattice in YBa2Cu3O7

We investigated to find which types of neuronal disturbance in the hypothalamus are responsible for ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus (VMH) lesion-induced development of obesity. We found that in VMH-lesioned obese rats, the contents of norepinephrine (NE) and dopamine in the hypothalamus were selectively decreased, but that the serotonin and acetylcholine levels were unchanged from those in sham controls. Also, the content of NE in the lateral portion of the hypothalamus was decreased. Our results show that disturbance of the hypothalamic noradrenergic and dopaminergic neurons, but not of the serotonergic or cholinergic neurons, contributes to the development of VMH lesion-induced obesity.     

Tolerance of single, but not multiple, amino acid replacements in antibody VH CDR 2: a means of minimizing B cell wastage from somatic hypermutation?

Mutations in the heavy chain complementarity determining region 2 (CDR2) of the phosphocholine-specific T15 Ab can have a dramatic effect on the ability of the Ab to bind Ag. A panel of multisite mutants that had lost detectable binding to phosphocholine-containing Ags was previously created by saturation mutagenesis of the CDR2 region of T15. Based on the predicted importance of amino acid changes represented in the multisite mutants, we have created single-site mutations, yielding a panel of Abs with which to test 17 of the 19 CDR2 residues. Of the 17 positions examined, only one, Arg52, is intolerant to change, yielding a nonbinder phenotype even with conservative amino acid replacement. Mutation at two other sites, Ala50 and Tyr55, can yield a nonbinder phenotype depending on the amino acid replacement. Single-site mutations of the remaining 14 positions allowed retention of binding ability. Thus, except for positions 50, 52, and 55, multiple mutations must be introduced into the CDR2 region to create a nonbinder phenotype. We provide a newly refined model of T15, illustrating the structure and the interactions of the CDR2 region. Our results imply that introduction of point mutations would not normally delete Ag-binding ability until two or more mutations had accumulated. This would minimize potentially harmful effects of somatic mutation on Ig V region genes and improve the chance of survival for an Ab such as T15, which in its unmutated form is already well suited to bind Ag.     

Unscheduled DNA synthesis and mitochondrial DNA synthetic rate following injury of the facial nerve

Unscheduled DNA synthesis (UDS) of nuclear DNA and mitochondrial (mt) DNA synthetic rates were determined autoradiographically in different cell types of the rodent brain 14 days after unilateral facial nerve transection. In addition to an increased synthetic rate of mtDNA in facial motoneurons 12 h after axotomy, a significant increase of UDS, i.e., DNA repair, and mtDNA synthesis were found in the regenerating facial nucleus 4 days after axotomy. Specificity of the observed labeling was confirmed by injection of 3H2O instead of [3H]thymidine. Using electron microscopic autoradiography, it was further shown that cytoplasmic labeling of neurons was mainly due to incorporation of radioactive label into mitochondria, indicating their subsequent multiplication by division. The observation that Northern blot signals for O6-alkylguanine-DNA-alkyltransferase mRNA from homogenized facial nuclei of both the axotomized and normal side remained unchanged over 14 days after axotomy indicated that the observed DNA-repair activity was not caused by endogenously produced alkylating agents. The combined presence of transiently increased UDS, enhanced mtDNA synthesis and elevated protein synthetic rates of regenerating motoneurons (as shown in the literature) suggests that free radicals produced by mitochondria in injured nerve cells could cause unspecific DNA damage followed by immediate repair.     

Reduced IL-12 production by monocytes upon ultraviolet-B irradiation selectively limits activation of T helper-1 cells

The capacity of APC to stimulate the proliferation of human peripheral blood T cells decreases upon ultraviolet-B (UVB) irradiation. The aim of this study was to investigate whether all T cell subsets are equally sensitive to this reduced APC function. Established human Th1, Th2, and Th0 clones were stimulated with monocytes in a soluble CD3 mAb-mediated assay that is dependent on the presence of APC. Monocytes were exposed to low nonlethal doses of UVB radiation before coculture with T cells. UVB irradiation inhibited the capacity of monocytes to stimulate the proliferation and IFN-gamma production of Th1 cells in a dose-related fashion. In contrast, UVB-treated monocytes induced normal proliferation and IL-4 production in Th2 cells. Stimulation of Th0 cell proliferation by UVB-irradiated monocytes was normal, but a preferential suppression of IFN-gamma production was observed, thus leading to a more Th2-like cytokine response. The loss of Th1 proliferation upon stimulation with UVB-irradiated monocytes could be overcome by rIL-2; however, IFN-gamma production remained suppressed. IFN-gamma production could be completely restored by rIL-12, whereas the addition of IL-1 beta, TNF-alpha, or indomethacin had no such effect, nor did the addition of mAb to CD28, added to compensate for the reduced B7 expression of UVB-irradiated monocytes. Monocytes exposed to UVB radiation exhibited reduced expression of mRNA for the IL-1 2 subunits p35 and p40 and suppressed production of the IL-12 p70 protein. Our results thus indicate that UVB irradiation of APC selectively impairs Th1-like responses, a phenomenon caused by the UVB-induced suppression of monocyte IL-12 production.     

Chromophore-assisted light inactivation and self-organization of microtubules and motors

Chromophore-assisted light inactivation (CALI) offers the only method capable of modulating specific protein activities in localized regions and at particular times. Here, we generalize CALI so that it can be applied to a wider range of tasks. Specifically, we show that CALI can work with a genetically inserted epitope tag; we investigate the effectiveness of alternative dyes, especially fluorescein, comparing them with the standard CALI dye, malachite green; and we study the relative efficiencies of pulsed and continuous-wave illumination. We then use fluorescein-labeled hemagglutinin antibody fragments, together with relatively low-power continuous-wave illumination to examine the effectiveness of CALI targeted to kinesin. We show that CALI can destroy kinesin activity in at least two ways: it can either result in the apparent loss of motor activity, or it can cause irreversible attachment of the kinesin enzyme to its microtubule substrate. Finally, we apply this implementation of CALI to an in vitro system of motor proteins and microtubules that is capable of self-organized aster formation. In this system, CALI can effectively perturb local structure formation by blocking or reducing the degree of aster formation in chosen regions of the sample, without influencing structure formation elsewhere.