Autophagosomes are double-membrane vesicles characteristic of macroautophagy, a degradative pathway for cytoplasmic material and organelles terminating in the lysosomal or vacuole compartment for mammals and yeast, respectively. This highly dynamic, multi-step process requires significant membrane reorganization events at different stages of the macroautophagic process. Such events include exch...

Clinical management of diabetes must overcome the challenge of in vivo glucose sensors exhibiting lifetimes of only a few days. Limited sensor life originates from compromised enzyme stability of the sensing enzyme. Sensing enzymes degrade in the presence of low molecular weight materials (LMWM) and hydrogen peroxide in vivo. Sensing enzymes could be made to withstand these degradative effects ...

A new miniaturized protein and peptide sequenator has been constructed which uses gas phase reagents at the coupling and cleavage steps of the Edman degradation. The sample is embedded in a matrix of Polybrene dried onto a porous glass fiber disc located in a small cartridge-style reaction cell. The protein or peptide, though not covalently attached to the support, is essentially immobile throu...

Cancer cells form actin-rich degradative protrusions (invasive pseudopods and invadopodia), which allows their efficient dispersal during metastasis. Using biochemical and advanced imaging approaches, we demonstrate that the N-WASP-interactors WIP and WICH/WIRE play non-redundant roles in cancer cell invasion. WIP interacts with N-WASP and cortactin and is essential for invadopodium assembly, w...

Munc18-1 is a critical component of the core machinery controlling neuroexocytosis. Recently, mutations in Munc18-1 leading to the development of early infantile epileptic encephalopathy have been discovered. However, which degradative pathway controls Munc18-1 levels and how it impacts on neuroexocytosis in this pathology is unknown. Using neurosecretory cells deficient in Munc18, we show that...

Lysosome-mediated ligand degradation is known to shape morphogen gradients and modulate the activity of various signalling pathways. We have investigated the degradation of Wingless, a Drosophila member of the Wnt family of secreted growth factors. We find that one of its signalling receptors, Frizzled2, stimulates Wingless internalization both in wing imaginal discs and cultured cells. However...

A mutation resulting in inducer-independent expression of the proline-degradative enzymes was isolated in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Strains carrying the mutation, put3, are partially constitutive for proline oxidase and delta 1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate dehydrogenase when grown on a medium lacking proline and are hyperinducible for both enzyme activities when grown on a proline-containi...

Fungal organisms secrete a wide range of biomolecules, including degradative enzymes that are essential for nutrition, toxins, effectors and secondary compounds that modulate interactionswithhost animals andplants, anda variety of signaling and stress-related proteins. As these are likely to be key determinants of virulence and may also be useful diagnostic and therapeutic targets, we investiga...

A detailed investigation of Valsartan`s light-induced degradation is reported. Based on UPLC-HRMS studies stressed solutions several pathways are proposed. Some the proposed structures were obtained by forced experiments. Examination analytical data including crystal allowed for structural revision one literature-known degradant. In addition, irradiation under aerobic conditions revealed furthe...

Ordinarily packaged in DNA, adenine deoxyribonucleotides are preferentially concentrated in erythrocyte and lymphocyte cytosol in adenosine deaminase (adenosine aminohydrolase, EC 3.5.4.4) deficiency. A spectrum of cytosol enzyme activities are defined in terms of reaction velocities, K0.5s, and nucleotide partition after incubation with ribo- and deoxyribonucleotides. AMP and dAMP were dephosp...