Ca(2+) activates SK Ca(2+)-activated K(+) channels through the protein Ca(2+) sensor, calmodulin (CaM). To understand how SK channels operate, it is necessary to determine how Ca(2+) regulates CaM binding to its target on SK. Tagless, recombinant SK peptide (SKp), was purified for binding studies with CaM at low and high Ca(2+) concentrations. Composition gradient multi-angle light scattering a...

Since the first mammal was cloned, the idea of using this technique to help endangered species has aroused considerable interest. However, several issues limit this possibility, including the relatively low success rate at every stage of the cloning process, and the dearth of usable tissues from these rare animals. iPS cells have been produced from cells from a number of rare mammalian species ...

BACKGROUND Pulmonary vascular structure remodeling (PVSR) is a hallmark of pulmonary hypertension. P27(kip1), one of critical cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors, has been shown to mediate anti-proliferation effects on various vascular cells. Beta-estradiol (β-E2) has numerous biological protective effects including attenuation of hypoxic pulmonary hypertension (HPH). In the present study, we em...

The transplantation of Schwann cells (SCs) holds considerable promise as a therapy for spinal cord injury, but the optimal source of these cells and the best timing for intervention remains debatable. Previously, we demonstrated that delayed transplantation of SCs generated from neonatal mouse skin-derived precursors (SKP-SCs) promoted repair and functional recovery in rats with thoracic contus...

The outer membrane proteins (OMPs) of Gram-negative bacterial cells, as well as the mitochondrion and chloroplast organelles, possess unique and highly stable β-barrel structures. Biogenesis of OMPs in Escherichia coli involves such periplasmic chaperones as SurA and Skp. In this study, we found that the ΔsurA Δskp double-deletion strain of E. coli, although lethal and defective in the biogenes...

The Information System representation is moving in a conflicting direction with organisations evolution, which have to be more accessible and transparent for the external environment in order to be able to anticipate on the market moves and trends. The existing separated layers between internal users and end products or services users are harmful to the normal business process continuity. With ...

In this paper, we review various properties of the supersymmetric Two Boson (sTB) system. We discuss the equation and its nonstandard Lax representation. We construct the local conserved charges as well as the Hamiltoniam structures of the system. We show how this system leads to various other known supersymmetric integrable models under appropriate field redefinition. We discuss the sTB and th...

Predicate encryption is an important cryptographic primitive that has found wide applications as it allows for fine-grained key management. In a predicate encryption scheme for a class P of predicates, the owner of the master secret key can derive a secret key SkP for any predicate P ∈ P. Similarly, when encrypting plaintext M , the sender can specify an attribute vector ~x for the ciphertext C...

The OMPs (outer membrane proteins) of Gram-negative bacteria have to be translocated through the periplasmic space before reaching their final destination. The aqueous environment of the periplasmic space and high permeability of the outer membrane engender such a translocation process inevitably challenging. In Escherichia coli, although SurA, Skp and DegP have been identified to function in t...

Given a set of items with associated deterministic weights and random rewards, the Adaptive Stochastic Knapsack Problem (Adaptive SKP) maximizes the probability of reaching a predetermined target reward level when items are inserted sequentially into a capacitated knapsack before the reward of each item is realized. This model arises in resource allocation problems which permit or require seque...