Alcohol dehydrogenase 2 is a major hepatic enzyme for human retinol metabolism

The metabolism of all-trans- and 9-cis-retinol/ retinaldehyde has been investigated with focus on the activities of human, mouse and rat alcohol dehydrogenase 2 (ADH2), an intriguing enzyme with apparently different functions in human and rodents. Kinetic constants were determined with an HPLC method and a structural approach was implemented by in silico substrate dockings. For human ADH2, the determined K_m values ranged from 0.05 to 0.3 μM and k_cat values from 2.3 to 17.6 min⁻¹, while the catalytic efficiency for 9-cis-retinol showed the highest value for any substrate. In contrast, poor activities were detected for the rodent enzymes. A mouse ADH2 mutant (ADH2Pro47His) was studied that resembles the human ADH2 setup. This mutation increased the retinoid activity up to 100-fold. The K_m values of human ADH2 are the lowest among all known human retinol dehydrogenases, which clearly support a role in hepatic retinol oxidation at physiological concentrations. Received 12 October 2006; received after revision 6 December 2006; accepted 8 January 2007     

五四时期的灵学会:组织、理念与活动

灵学会是一个由许多社会名流和知识分子参与的民间团体.它以<灵学丛志>为理念宣传平台,以盛德坛为活动平台,主要开展出版期刊、挟乩和灵魂摄影三类活动.在科学救国的时代语境中,尽管灵学会在外在组织上采取学会结社、期刊出版等现代手法,同时利用科学、伪装科学进行理念宣传和巫术活动,而在内在精神上却反对科学,井依循扶乩的传统.这种内在的限制是灵学绝不可能救国的根本原因.     

与企业全方位深度融合建设精品专业

行业发展是专业建设的前提,与企业结合是专业建设的关键,与生产结合是专业建设的核心,与就业结合是专业建设的根本。航空制造业的快速发展需要大量的数控技术专业人才。数控技术专业的发展离不开与企业的良好合作。企业为专业建设注入活力,专业建设为企业发展提供保障。     

用ASP技术实现网站新闻发布系统

提出了一个基于WWW环境的新闻动态发布系统.系统采用ASP+ACCESS的开发模式,以数据库为核心,实现网站的新闻动态管理,有比较完善的后台管理系统,用户完全可以按照自己的网站修改前台分类,以使其与站点内容保持一致.     

A genome-wide association study for celiac disease identifies risk variants in the region harboring IL2 and IL21

We tested 310,605 SNPs for association in 778 individuals with celiac disease and 1,422 controls. Outside the HLA region, the most significant finding (rs13119723; P = 2.0 x 10(-7)) was in the KIAA1109-TENR-IL2-IL21 linkage disequilibrium block. We independently confirmed association in two further collections (strongest association at rs6822844, 24 kb 5' of IL21; meta-analysis P = 1.3 x 10(-14), odds ratio = 0.63), suggesting that genetic variation in this region predisposes to celiac disease.     

New Membranes Based on Polybenzimidazole for Polymer Fuel Cells

1 Results Acid-doped polybenzimidazoles[1] are particularly appealing because of high proton conductivity with no or low humidification and promising fuel cells performances. PBI, in fact, contains basic functional groups which can easily interact with strong oxo-acids, such as H3PO4 and H2SO4. The acid partially protonates the polymer and partially is freely dispersed in the polymer backbone, so allowing proton migration via Grotthuss mechanism along the anionic chains[2]. Anyway, a technological limit...