Vertebrate rod photoreceptors adjust their sensitivity as they adapt during exposure to steady light. Light adaptation prevents the rod from saturating and significantly extends its dynamic range. We examined the time course of the onset of light adaptation in bullfrog rods and compared it with the projected onset of feedback reactions thought to underlie light adaptation on the molecular level...

Previous studies have demonstrated that both the 105,000 X g soluble supernatant (S105) and microsomal membranes from rat liver are required for the enzymatic conversion of squalene to cholesterol (Scallen, T.J., Dean, W.J., and Schuster, M.W. (1968) J. Biol. Chem. 243, 5202). It was postulated that S105 contained a noncatalytic carrier protein which was required for this enzymatic process (Sca...

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae CDC25 gene encodes a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) for Ras proteins. Its catalytic domain is highly homologous to Ras-GEFs from all eukaryotes. Even though Cdc25 is the first Ras-GEF identified in any organism, we still know very little about how its function is regulated in yeast. In this work we provide evidence for the involvement of the N terminus of ...

The bovine heart mitochondrial F1-ATPase (MF1) is inactivated by 5'-p-fluorosulfonylbenzoylethenoadenosine (FSB epsilon A) with pseudo-first order kinetics. The dependence of the rate of inactivation on the concentration of FSB epsilon A revealed an apparent Kd of 0.25 mM. ATP and ADP, and to a lesser extent, ITP and IDP provide partial protection against inactivation by the reagent. Isolation ...

The ADP-ribosyltransferase activity of pertussis toxin resides within the S-1 subunit of the toxin. Deletion mapping of a recombinant S-1 subunit produced in Escherichia coli showed that amino acids 2 through 180 are required for ADP-ribosylation of Gi protein. Mutants of the S-1 subunit which lacked either amino acids 2 through 22 or amino acids 153 through 180 failed to express enzyme activit...

Although conserved counterparts for most proteins involved in the G(2)/M transition of the cell cycle have been found in all eukaryotes, a notable exception is the essential but functionally enigmatic fungal kinase NIMA. While a number of vertebrate kinases have been identified with catalytic domain homology to NIMA, none of these resemble NIMA within its extensive noncatalytic region, a region...