The regulatory mechanisms that control intracellular vesicular trafficking play important roles in cellular function and viability. Neurons have specific vesicular trafficking systems for synaptic vesicle formation, release and recycling. Synaptic vesicular trafficking impairments induce neuronal dysfunction and physiological and behavioral disorders. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is an age-dependen...

The quantal nature of synaptic transmission requires a mechanism to transport neurotransmitter into synaptic vesicles without promoting non-vesicular efflux across the plasma membrane. Indeed, the vesicular transport of most classical transmitters involves a mechanism of H(+) exchange, which restricts flux to acidic membranes such as synaptic vesicles. However, vesicular transport of the princi...

Commentary on Ge, P.; Tsao, J.; Schein, S.; Green, T.J.; Luo, M.; Zhou, Z.H. Cryo-EM model of the bullet-shaped vesicular stomatitis virus. Science2010, 327, 689-693.

Virus mutants isolated from persistent infections of vesicular stomatitis virus in BHK-21 cells were much less susceptible to interference mediated by the defective interfering particle used to establish the persistent infection. This mutational change occurred as early as 34 days in the persistent infection and continued for over 5 years. The earliest variants showed no oligonucleotide map cha...

objective: infectious microorganisms are major sources of illness and death worldwide, and the leading cause of death in neonates. effective vaccination of this age group is of particular importance. the lack of a response and greater susceptibility to tolerance are two major features that limit the effectiveness of vaccines in neonates. in this study we compare the cellular immune response gen...

Methylation-protection studies with nucleocapsids from vesicular stomatitis virus indicate that the viral polymerase (L and NS proteins) contacts the genomic RNA template in the middle of the leader gene, 16-30 nucleotides from the 3' terminus. The data suggest that the NS protein binds to the sequence (formula, see text) and may function as an initiator protein for transcription.

The crystal structure of the vesicular stomatitis virus nucleoprotein (N) in complex with RNA reveals extensive and specific intermolecular interactions among the N molecules in the 10-member oligomer. What roles these interactions play in encapsidating RNA was studied by mutagenesis of the N protein. Three N mutants intended for disruption of the intermolecular interactions were designed and c...

Vesicular stomatitis (VS) outbreaks of unknown origin occur at 8-10-year intervals in the south-western USA with the most recent outbreak beginning in 2004. A previous study has suggested that strains causing US outbreaks are closely related to strains causing outbreaks in Mexico [Rodriguez (2002) Virus Res 85, 211-219]. This study determined the phylogenetic relationships among 116 vesicular s...