The light distribution in the inner few kiloparsecs of the Milky Way is recovered non-parametrically from a dust-corrected near-infrared COBE/DIRBE surface brightness map of the inner Galaxy. The best ts to the photometry are obtained when the Sun is assumed to lie 14 4 pc below the plane. The recovered density distributions clearly show an elongated three-dimensional bulge set in a highly non-...

As the first structural elucidation of a modular polyketide synthase (PKS) domain, the crystal structure of the macrocycle-forming thioesterase (TE) domain from the 6-deoxyerythronolide B synthase (DEBS) was solved by a combination of multiple isomorphous replacement and multiwavelength anomalous dispersion and refined to an R factor of 24.1% to 2.8-A resolution. Its overall tertiary architectu...

Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) is a pleiotropic cytokine belonging to the gp130 family. LIF is induced peripherally and within the brain during inflammatory or chronic autoimmune diseases and is a potent stimulator of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Here we investigated the role of LIF in mediating glucocorticoid receptor (GR) expression in the HPA axis. LIF treatment (3 microg...

the nw-se trending zagros fold and thrust belt extends for about 1,800 km from a location some 300 km se of the east anatolian fault in ne turkey to the strait of hormuz where the north-south trending zendan-minab-palami fault system (zmp) separates the zagros belt from the makran accretionary prism. the ne limit of the zagros belt is marked by the main zagros reverse fault which is rotated abo...

A set of three catecholamide ligands mimicking the structure of enterobactin was constructed on ferritin, where the 3-fold symmetric arrangement of the monomer subunits served as a foundation to form a coordination space. Similar to enterobactin, the ligands showed strong affinity for the ferric ion and formed a tris-catechoyl complex. Crystallography revealed that the complex was embedded in t...