Changes in body water elicit reflex adjustments at the kidney, thus maintaining fluid volume homeostasis. These renal adjustments change the concentration and color of urine, variables that can, in turn, be used as biomarkers of hydration status. It has been suggested that vitamin supplementation alters urine color; it is unclear whether any such alteration would confound hydration assessment v...

Denote by Prop(Bn,BN ) the space of proper holomorphic maps from the unit ball Bn ⊂ Cn into the unit ball BN ⊂ CN , Propk(B,B ) := Prop(Bn,BN ) ∩ Ck(Bn) and Rat(Bn,BN ) := Prop(Bn,BN ) ∩ {rational maps}. We recall that F,G ∈ Rat(Bn ,BN ) are said to be equivalent if there are automorphisms σ ∈ Aut(Bn) and τ ∈ Aut(BN ) such that F = τ ◦ G ◦ σ. In this paper, we study the classification problem f...

Kinins have been shown to play an important role in the cardioprotective effect of ACE inhibitors (ACEi) during heart failure and ischemia-reperfusion. However, it is controversial as to whether kinins oppose the hypertensinogenic effect of deoxycorticosterone acetate plus salt (DOCA-salt) or aortic coarctation and whether they mediate both chronic antihypertensive and cardiac antihypertrophic ...

A flavocytochrome b2 (L-lactate dehydrogenase) mutant was constructed in which the C-terminal tail (23 amino acid residues) had been deleted (Gly-489----Stop). This tail appears to form many intersubunit contacts in the tetrameric wild-type protein, and it was expected that its removal might lead to the formation of monomeric flavocytochrome b2. The isolated tail-deleted mutant enzyme (TD-b2), ...

Two glutathione S-transferase (GST) isozymes, A1/A1 and B1/B2, were purified from etiolated, O-1,3-dioxolan-2-yl-methyl-2,2,2, -trifluoro-4'-chloroacetophenone-oxime-treated sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) shoots. GST A1/A1, a constitutively expressed homodimer, had a subunit molecular mass of 26 kD and an isoelectric point of 4.9. GST A1/A1 exhibited high activity with 1-chloro-2, 4, dinit...

B1 and B2 are two highly homologous isoforms of the vacuolar H(+)-ATPase (V-ATPase) 56-kDa B subunit. We investigated whether the B2 subunit is expressed alongside B1 in proton-secreting cells of the rodent kidney collecting duct (intercalated cells, IC) and epididymis (clear cells) by using antibodies against distinct COOH-terminal peptides from the two B isoforms. B2 was detected not only in ...

To the Editor: Kobold et al. (1) describe candidate reference methods for hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) that are based on the identification of hexapeptides from the N-terminus of the b-chains by both a mass spectrometry technique and capillary electrophoresis. Although they are to be congratulated on their efforts in this regard, I wonder whether the (IFCC) definition of HbA1c as hemoglobin modified ...

Ribonucleoside diphosphate reductase is an allosteric enzyme consisting of two nonidentical subunits, proteins B1 and B2. B1 contains dithiols which participate in the oxidation-reduction reactions of electron transport, while B2 contains a free radical essential for activity. Ribonucleoside diphosphates are bound to B1 but not to B2. Addition of 2'-deoxy-2'-chloro ribonucleoside diphosphates t...

It is known that the non-structural B2 protein of nervous necrosis virus (NNV) plays an important role in viral replication and can inhibit the RNA interference system of the host cell. Moreover, the mechanism of NNV B2 protein to inhibit RNAi is by sequestration and protection of double strand (ds) RNA. In the flock house virus (FHV), a model alphanodavirus, the structural and mutational analy...

Renal kinins release prostaglandins and nitric oxide via the B2 receptor, promoting diuresis and natriuresis; hence, they may also contribute significantly to blood pressure regulation. We hypothesized that mutant mice lacking the gene encoding for the bradykinin-B2 receptor (B2-KO) become hypertensive when placed on a long-term high-salt diet. To test this, B2-KO and control mice were placed o...