The periodicity of structural and functional effects induced by tryptophan scanning mutagenesis has been successfully used to define function and secondary structure of various transmembrane domains of the acetylcholine receptor of Torpedo californica. We expand the tryptophan scanning of the AchR of T. californica to the gammaM4 transmembrane domain (gammaTM4) by introducing tryptophan, at res...

The anticancer drug cis-diammindichloroplatin (CDDP, cisplatin) causes severe side effects like peripheral sensitive neuropathy. The toxicity of CDDP has been linked to changes in intracellular calcium homeostasis ([Ca2+]i). Voltage activated calcium channel currents (ICa(V)) are important for the regulation of [Ca2+]i; therefore, this study was designed to examine the effect of CDDP on ICa(V) ...

The second enzyme of the Entner-Doudoroff glycolytic pathway in Zymomonas mobilis, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, has been found to be inhibited by phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP). In the presence of PEP levels in the micromolar range, the response of the enzyme to glucose 6-phosphate concentration becomes sigmoidal, with a Hill coefficient up to 2. At low ionic strength in the absence of PEP, th...

It has been proposed that irreversible responses of organisms exposed to contaminants are due to a systems-level feedback. Here we tested this hypothesis by reanalyzing the published data on toxicokinetics and survival probability based on a systems-level threshold damage model (TDM) incorporating with a positive damage feedback to explore the steady-state response and dynamic behavior of damag...

The reliable response to weak biological signals requires that they be amplified with fidelity. In E. coli, the flagellar motors that control swimming can switch direction in response to very small changes in the concentration of the signaling protein CheY-P, but how this works is not well understood. A recently proposed allosteric model based on cooperative conformational spread in a ring of i...

The binding of dihydropyridine (PN200-110) to skeletal muscle microsomes (which were 84% sealed inside-out vesicles) was not influenced by the addition of calcium or magnesium nor by addition of their chelators (EDTA or EGTA) unless the vesicles were pretreated with the calcium-magnesium ionophore A23187 and EDTA to remove entrapped cations. Separation of inside-out vesicles from right-side-out...

Scallop sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR), visualized in situ by freeze-fracture and deep-etching, is characterized by long tubes displaying crystalline arrays of Ca2+-ATPase dimer ribbons, resembling those observed in isolated SR vesicles. The orderly arrangement of the Ca2+-ATPase molecules is well preserved in muscle bundles permeabilized with saponin. Treatment with saponin, however, is not neede...

The Goodwin model is a 3-variable model demonstrating the emergence of oscillations in a delayed negative feedback-based system at the molecular level. This prototypical model and its variants have been commonly used to model circadian and other genetic oscillators in biology. The only source of non-linearity in this model is a Hill function, characterizing the repression process. It was mathem...

Application of L-glutamate (L-glu) to particular neurons (G-H cells) in the esophageal ganglia of Onchidium produced hyperpolarization associated with an increase in K+ permeability. The reversal potential (Erev) for this response, was -60 mV. The ED50, an indicator of affinity between L-glu and its receptive site, was 5.3 mM, and the Hill coefficient n, an indicator of cooperativity, was 2. Ot...

For the first time we apply a new method based on the mathematical derivation of some known isotherm from the Burr function which describes many birth-death (sorption-desorption) phenomena in ecology and economy. Therefore, in this study the experimental isotherm data of biosorption of Pb(II) onto algae was modeled to Langmuir, Hill-Sips, Brouers-Sotolongo, BrouersGaspard, and Redlich-Peterson ...