We showed previously a cause and effect relationship between increased activity of an endogenous vascular elastase (EVE) and experimentally induced pulmonary hypertension in rats. We now report the isolation and characterization of EVE. Degenerate oligonucleotides synthesized to homologous sequences in serine elastases were used in a PCR with rat pulmonary artery (PA) cDNA. The PCR product hybr...

Transcription factor codes play an essential role in neuronal specification and axonal guidance in both vertebrate and invertebrate organisms. However, how transcription codes regulate axon pathfinding remains poorly understood. One such code defined by the homeodomain transcription factor Even-skipped (Eve) and by the GATA 2/3 homologue Grain (Grn) is specifically required for motor axon proje...

The pair-rule segmentation gene even skipped (eve) is required to activate engrailed stripes and to organize odd-numbered parasegments (PSs). The protein product Eve has been shown to be an active repressor of transcription, and recent models for Eve function suggest that activation of engrailed is indirect, but these models have not been fully tested. Here we identify the forkhead domain trans...

A key step in Drosophila segmentation is the establishment of periodic patterns of pair-rule gene expression in response to gap gene products. From an examination of the distribution of gap and pair-rule proteins in various mutants, we conclude that the on/off periodicity of pair-rule stripes depends on both the exact concentrations and combinations of gap proteins expressed in different embryo...

esearchers have proposed that complex embryonic patterns are generated by multiple enhancers that respond differentially to gradients of repressor proteins. In a recent report, Dorothy Clyde, Dmitri Papatsenko, Stephen Small, and colleagues (New York University, New York, NY) combine genetics and bioinformatics to demonstrate that this model may be essentially correct. The pattern of the fly em...

SCOOP (Simple Concurrent Object-Oriented Programming) is a simple but very powerful O-O contract based framework for concurrent programming. The idea which was initially published in 1990 has since been developed to a comprehensive model with enriched type system, generalized semantics of contracts, flexible locking policy and library implementation. To use SCOOP one important step is missing: ...