Eukaryotic translation initiation factor eIF4AI, the founding member of DEAD-box helicases, undergoes ATP hydrolysis-coupled conformational changes to unwind mRNA secondary structures during translation initiation. However, the mechanism of its coupled enzymatic activities remains unclear. Here we report that a gating mechanism for Pi release controlled by the inter-domain linker of eIF4AI regu...

In stressed cells, a general decrease in the rate of protein synthesis occurs due to modifications in the activity of translation initiation factors. Compelling data now indicate that these changes also permit a selective post-transcriptional expression of proteins necessary for either cell survival or completion of apoptosis when cells are exposed to severe or prolonged stress. In this review,...

Schizophrenia patients exhibit several smooth pursuit abnormalities including poor pursuit initiation. Velocity discrimination is also impaired and is correlated with pursuit initiation performance-suggesting that pursuit deficits are related to impairments in processing velocity information. Studies suggest that pursuit initiation is influenced by prior target motion information and/or expecta...

A complete diet containing 23% protein was fed to two-day-fasted rats. The effects of this diet on protein biosynthesis, through the examination of liver slices, was investigated. (1) Refeeding enhanced the protein-synthesizing activity with better preservation of heavy polysomes in the liver slices. Protein in the diet was necessary to induce, through refeeding, the activation of protein synth...

Protein Quality Control (PQC) pathways are essential to maintain the equilibrium between protein folding and the clearance of misfolded proteins. In order to discover novel human PQC factors, we developed a high-content, high-throughput cell-based assay to assess PQC activity. The assay is based on a fluorescently tagged, temperature sensitive PQC substrate and measures its degradation relative...

Replication of the Escherichia coli chromosome is initiated at a unique site, oriC. Concurrent initiation occurs at all oriC sites present in a cell once, and only once, per cell cycle. A mechanism to ensure cyclic initiation events was found operating through the chromosomal site, datA, a 1-kb segment located at 94.7 min on the genetic map that titrates exceptionally large amounts of the bacte...