This study used thermoelastic measurements to investigate the role of proline in the elastic mechanism of hydrated, spider major ampullate (MA) and flagelliform (FL) silks. Experiments on hydrated MA silk from Araneus diadematus (proline content 16%) reveal that conformational entropy elasticity accounts for about 90% of the elastic force at small extensions, but entropy elasticity drops to abo...

NSR1, a 67-kD nucleolar protein, was originally identified in our laboratory as a nuclear localization signal binding protein, and has subsequently been found to be involved in ribosome biogenesis. NSR1 has three regions: an acidic/serine-rich NH2 terminus, two RNA recognition motifs, and a glycine/arginine-rich COOH terminus. In this study we show that NSR1 itself has a bipartite nuclear local...

Loricrin is the major protein component of the cornified cell envelope of terminally differentiated mammalian epidermal (stratum corneum) cells. Using a specific human cDNA clone, we have isolated and characterized the human loricrin gene. We show that it has a very simple structure of a single intron of 1188 base pairs (bp) in the 5'-untranslated region; there are no introns in coding sequence...

GTPase activating proteins (GAPs) from pathogenic bacteria and eukaryotic host organisms deactivate Rab GTPases by supplying catalytic arginine and glutamine fingers in trans and utilizing the cis-glutamine in the DXXGQ motif of the GTPase for binding rather than catalysis. Here, we report the transition state mimetic structure of the Legionella pneumophila GAP LepB in complex with Rab1 and des...

A simple solid-state NMR method was used to study the structure of (13)C- and (15)N-enriched silk from two Australian orb-web spider species, Nephila edulis and Argiope keyserlingi. Carbon-13 and (15)N spectra from alanine- or glycine-labeled oriented dragline silks were acquired with the fiber axis aligned parallel or perpendicular to the magnetic field. The fraction of oriented component was ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Concentrations of extracellular glycine in the CNS are regulated by two Na(+)/Cl(-) -dependent glycine transporters, GlyT1 and GlyT2. Selective inhibitors of GlyT1 have been developed for the treatment of schizophrenia, whilst selective inhibitors of GlyT2 are analgesic in animal models of pain. We have assessed a series of endogenous lipids as inhibitors of GlyT1 and Gly...

Cys-loop receptor binding sites characteristically contain many aromatic amino acids. In nicotinic ACh and 5-HT3 receptors, a Trp residue forms a cation-pi interaction with the agonist, whereas in GABA(A) receptors, a Tyr performs this role. The glycine receptor binding site, however, contains predominantly Phe residues. Homology models suggest that two of these Phe side chains, Phe159 and Phe2...

Neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine (ACh) and glycine mediate fast synaptic neurotransmission by activating pentameric ligand-gated ion channels (LGICs). These receptors are allosteric transmembrane proteins that rapidly convert chemical messages into electrical signals. Neurotransmitters activate LGICs by interacting with an extracellular agonist-binding domain (ECD), triggering a tertiary...

The pleckstrin homology (PH) domains of the homologous proteins Grp1 (general receptor for phosphoinositides), ARNO (Arf nucleotide binding site opener), and Cytohesin-1 bind phosphatidylinositol (PtdIns) 3,4,5-trisphosphate with unusually high selectivity. Remarkably, splice variants that differ only by the insertion of a single glycine residue in the beta1/beta2 loop exhibit dual specificity ...

Glycine receptors are, in several ways, the member of the nicotinic superfamily that is best-suited for single-channel recording. That means that they are ideal for testing ideas about how activation proceeds in a ligand-gated ion channel from the binding of the agonist to the opening of the channel. This review describes the quantitative characterization by single-channel analysis of a novel a...