Mutations in genes encoding for GABAA receptor subunits is a well-established cause of genetic generalized epilepsy. GABA neurotransmission is implicated in several developmental processes including neurite outgrowth and synapse formation. Alteration in excitatory/inhibitory synaptic activities plays a critical role in epilepsy, thus here we investigated whether mutations in α1 subunit of GABAA...

We find necessary and sufficient conditions for the integrability of one type of multisymplectic 3-forms on a 6-dimensional manifold. Let V be a 6-dimensional real vector space. The general linear group GL(V ) operates naturally on the space of 3-forms Λ3V ∗ by φα(v, v′, v′′) = α(φ−1v, φ−1v′, φ−1v′′) , α ∈ Λ3V ∗, φ ∈ GL(V ) . This action has six orbits, see e.g. [1]. They can be described by th...

To investigate the effect of prazosin on patients with diabetic nephropathy (DN), α1-adrenergic receptor (α1-R) autoantibodies and refractory hypertension, a total of 126 patients with DN and hypertension were recruited. The patients were divided into a refractory hypertension group, (n=76) and a non-refractory hypertension group (n=50). The epitope of the second extracellular loop of the α1-R ...

BACKGROUND Importin-α1 belongs to a subfamily of nuclear transport adaptors and participates in diverse cellular functions. Best understood for its role in protein transport, importin-α1 also contributes to other biological processes. For instance, arsenite treatment causes importin-α1 to associate with cytoplasmic stress granules (SGs) in mammalian cells. These stress-induced compartments cont...

Influenza A viruses may cross species barriers and transmit to humans with the potential to cause pandemics. Interplay of human- (PB2 627K) and avian-like (PB2 627E) influenza polymerase complexes with unknown host factors have been postulated to play a key role in interspecies transmission. Here, we have identified human importin-α isoforms (α1 and α7) as positive regulators of human- but not ...

We investigate Lifshits-tail behaviour of the integrated density of states for a wide class of Schrödinger operators with positive random potentials. The setting includes alloy-type and Poissonian random potentials. The considered (single-site) impurity potentials f : Rd → [0,∞[ decay at infinity in an anisotropic way, for example, f(x1, x2) ∼ (|x1|α1 +|x2|α2 )−1 as |(x1, x2)| → ∞. As is expect...

Glycine receptors play a major role in mediating fast inhibitory neurotransmission in the spinal cord and brain stem, yet their high-resolution structures remain unsolved. We determined open-channel structures of the full-length transmembrane domain (TMD) of the human glycine receptor α1-subunit (hGlyR-α1) using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and electron micrographs. hGlyR-α1 TM...

Hypothesis / aims of study It is clinically known that anticholinergic agents, commonly used for treating overactive bladder, etc., act on the muscarinic receptor in salivary glands, causing dry mouth as an adverse effect. Not only the muscarinic receptor but also the α1-adrenergic receptor are present in human salivary glands, and are thought to accelerate saliva production. The common adverse...

Background: Neutrophil recruitment to the airway is thought to be an important component of continuing inflammation and progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), particularly in the presence of severe α1-antitrypsin (α1-AT) deficiency. However, the chemoattractant nature of secretions from these patients has yet to be clarified. Methods: The chemotactic activity of spontaneou...

We recently developed ultra-sensitive ethanol receptors (USERs) as a novel tool for investigation of single receptor subunit populations sensitized to extremely low ethanol concentrations that do not affect other receptors in the nervous system. To this end, we found that mutations within the extracellular Loop 2 region of glycine receptors (GlyRs) and γ-aminobutyric acid type A receptors (GABA...