A fluorescence method to monitor lysis of cheese starter bacteria using dual staining with the LIVE/DEAD BacLight bacterial viability kit is described. This kit combines membrane-permeant green fluorescent nucleic acid dye SYTO 9 and membrane-impermeant red fluorescent nucleic acid dye propidium iodide (PI), staining damaged membrane cells fluorescent red and intact cells fluorescent green. For...

Sss1p, an essential component of the heterotrimeric Sec61 complex in the ER (endoplasmic reticulum), is a tail-anchored protein whose precise mechanism of action is largely unknown. Tail-anchored proteins are involved in many cellular processes and are characterized by a single transmembrane sequence at or near the C-terminus. The Sec61 complex is the molecular machine through which secretory a...

Bioactive phospholipids (PL), particularly lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC), are being increasingly implicated in the pathogenesis of various acute and chronic inflammatory disorders, particularly those of the airways, while there is emerging evidence that vitamin E may function as a natural antagonist of these lipid mediators of inflammation. The aims of this study were to document the effects of...

Over recent years, much progress has been made in the identification and characterization of factors involved in the biosynthesis of integral membrane proteins of the helix-bundle type. In addition, our knowledge of membrane protein structure and the forces stabilizing helix-helix interactions in a lipid environment is expanding rapidly. However, it is still not clear how a membrane protein fol...

The ternary complex of spectrin, actin, and 4.1R (human erythrocyte protein 4.1) defines the nodes of the erythrocyte membrane skeletal network and is inseparable from membrane stability under mechanical stress. These junctions also contain tropomyosin (TM) and the other actinbinding proteins, adducin, protein 4.9, tropomodulin, and a small proportion of capZ, the functions of which are poorly ...