Carboxy terminus of vasopressin required for activity but not binding

Vasopressin antagonists are valuable pharmacological tools for investigating physiological and behavioural functions of the nonapeptide arginine-vasopressin (AVP). The removal of glycinamide from the carboxy terminus of AVP drastically reduces its characteristic vasopressor and antidiuretic activities. In contrast to this we show here that removal of the carboxy-terminal glycinamide or the glycine at position 9 from several vasopressin antagonists makes little difference to their ability to block vasopressor and antidiuretic responses to AVP. These data demonstrate the critical structural requirements of the carboxy-terminal position for receptor activation, in contrast to the lack of such requirements for receptor binding. They also provide an avenue to a wide variety of antagonists substituted at the carboxy terminus (for example radiolabelled derivatives and affinity ligands) and suggest clues for the development of more potent and/or selective antagonists.     

PKC-theta is required for TCR-induced NF-kappaB activation in mature but not immature T lymphocytes

Productive interaction of a T lymphocyte with an antigen-presenting cell results in the clustering of the T-cell antigen receptor (TCR) and the recruitment of a large signalling complex to the site of cell-cell contact. Subsequent signal transduction resulting in cytokine gene expression requires the activation of one or more of the multiple isoenzymes of serine/threonine-specific protein kinase C (PKC). Among the several PKC isoenzymes expressed in T cells, PKC-theta is unique in being rapidly recruited to the site of TCR clustering. Here we show that PKC-theta is essential for TCR-mediated T-cell activation, but is dispensable during TCR-dependent thymocyte development. TCR-initiated NF-kappaB activation was absent from PKC-theta(-/-) mature T lymphocytes, but was intact in thymocytes. Activation of NF-kappaB by tumour-necrosis factor alpha and interleukin-1 was unaffected in the mutant mice. Although studies in T-cell lines had suggested that PKC-theta regulates activation of the JNK signalling pathway, induction of JNK was normal in T cells from mutant mice. These results indicate that PKC-theta functions in a unique pathway that links the TCR signalling complex to the activation of NF-kappaB in mature T lymphocytes.     

The terminal nucleotides of retrovirus DNA are required for integration but not virus production

Deletion of specific nucleotides at either end of the long terminal repeat of the avian retrovirus, spleen necrosis virus, results in replication-competent but integration-defective virus. This result supports two conclusions: (1) the 5-base pair terminal inverted repeats and three to seven adjacent nucleotides are required for integration; (2) integration of retrovirus DNA is not required for retrovirus gene expression.     

Common effector processing mediates cell-specific responses to stimuli

The fundamental components of many signalling pathways are common to all cells. However, stimulating or perturbing the intracellular network often causes distinct phenotypes that are specific to a given cell type. This 'cell specificity' presents a challenge in understanding how intracellular networks regulate cell behaviour and an obstacle to developing drugs that treat signalling dysfunctions. Here we apply a systems-modelling approach to investigate how cell-specific signalling events are integrated through effector proteins to cause cell-specific outcomes. We focus on the synergy between tumour necrosis factor and an adenoviral vector as a therapeutically relevant stimulus that induces cell-specific responses. By constructing models that estimate how kinase-signalling events are processed into phenotypes through effector substrates, we find that accurate predictions of cell specificity are possible when different cell types share a common 'effector-processing' mechanism. Partial-least-squares regression models based on common effector processing accurately predict cell-specific apoptosis, chemokine release, gene induction, and drug sensitivity across divergent epithelial cell lines. We conclude that cell specificity originates from the differential activation of kinases and other upstream transducers, which together enable different cell types to use common effectors to generate diverse outcomes. The common processing of network signals by downstream effectors points towards an important cell biological principle, which can be applied to the understanding of cell-specific responses to targeted drug therapies.     

Antiglucocorticosteroid effects suggest why steroid hormone is required for receptors to bind DNA in vivo but not in vitro

Sequence-specific interaction between steroid hormone receptors (R) and DNA hormone-responsive elements (HRE) takes place in vitro irrespective of the presence of hormone and even when R is liganded with an antagonist. In vivo, in contrast, the presence of hormone is mandatory for glucocorticosteroid (G) receptor-HRE interaction to occur and no HRE occupancy is detected in the presence of an antagonist. One possible explanation is that in vivo R is originally complexed with a protein that prevents its binding to target HREs. The hormone would then induce the dissociation of the oligomer, thus unmasking the functional DNA binding domain of the receptor. The unliganded, non DNA-binding 8S-form of the chick GR is a hetero-oligomer including the relative molecular mass (Mr) 94,000 steroid-binding unit (4S-GR), and the non-steroid-binding, non-DNA-binding 90,000 protein common to all classes of 8S-R and identified as heat-shock protein (hsp 90). We report here that triamcinolone acetonide (TA) promotes the transformation of 8S-GR to 4S-GR complexes both in explants and in cell-free conditions and that the high-affinity antiglucocorticosteroid RU 486 stabilizes the 8S-GR, as assessed by gradient sedimentation and HPLC. However, in vitro TA- and RU 486- 4S-GR showed comparable DNA-binding activity. These results suggest that the lack of affinity for DNA of the 8S form of GR may be attributable in vivo to the interaction of the 4S-GR protein with hsp 90, and that hormone binding might trigger a conformational change which results in the release of active 4S-GR.     

Faster split-based feedback network for image super-resolution

Although most of the existing image super-resolution(SR)methods have achieved superior per-formance,contrastive learning for high-level tasks has not been fully utilized in the existing image SR methods based on deep learning.This work focuses on two well-known strategies developed for lightweight and robust SR,i.e.,contrastive learning and feedback mechanism,and proposes an in-tegrated solution called a split-based feedback network(SPFBN).The proposed SPFBN is based on a feedback mechanism to learn abstract representations and uses contrastive learning to explore high information in the representation space.Specifically,this work first uses hidden states and con-straints in recurrent neural network(RNN)to implement a feedback mechanism.Then,use cont-rastive learning to perform representation learning to obtain high-level information by pushing the fi-nal image to the intermediate images and pulling the final SR image to the high-resolution image.Besides,a split-based feedback block(SPFB)is proposed to reduce model redundancy,which tol-erates features with similar patterns but requires fewer parameters.Extensive experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method in comparison with the state-of-the-art methods.Moreover,this work extends the experiment to prove the effectiveness of this method and shows bet-ter overall reconstruction quality.     

通信网络关联信息可视化

针对日益复杂的通信网络,设计了一种对网络中关联信息进行可视化的方法。该方法以可视化分析学为依据,利用人类对于视觉信息理解与分析能力强的优势,通过对数据进行分析,完成对通信对象关联与属性分析的可视化表示,放大人类对数据的感知与认识。通过该方法,可以在不损失信息原有内容的同时,对大规模数据进行形象的、易接受的可视化表示,便于在短时间内发现感兴趣信息。     

用户层通信网络性能测试方法

为测试用户层通信系统的细粒度通信指标,设计了一种性能测试方法。该方法通过分析用户层通信系统的系统结构和通信过程,得出各通信步骤的通信延迟情况,并使用pingpong通信程序作为性能测试基准程序。通信过程中每个步骤的时间消耗数值可根据测试结果推导出来。测试结果表明:该测试方法简单有效;和常用的LogP测试方法相比,该测试方法得出的细粒度通信系统性能指标更实用,并能够为提高网络的通信性能和使用效率提供具有强有力说服性的依据。     

ATM over SDH在高速公路联网通信的应用

基于通信技术的发展趋势 ,对高速公路联网通信几种组网模式进行了系统分析 ,然后提出了联网通信 ATM over SDH组网模式 ,并通过对联网通信功能进行分析 ,建立了联网通信功能模型 ,最后给出了联网通信 ATM over SDH网络解决方案。     

多载波水声通信的频域判决反馈均衡算法

针对多载波调制(MCM)传统频域均衡算法对水声信道变化跟踪能力差的缺点.提出了一种基于判决反馈结构的频域自适应均衡算法.并在此基础上对新算法的运算量进行了分析,针对新算法运算量大的问题,对其进行了简化.在信道不变和信道时变情况下分别对算法进行了仿真验证,结果表明,在具有较高信噪比的情况下,新的均衡算法较传统算法能更有效地跟踪信道变化,并且具有更好的误码率性能,同时简化的算法能在保证误码率性能损失不大的基础上,大大减少运算量.具有较高的应用价值.     

一种星型网络中的双向量子安全直接通信方案

基于三粒子GHZ态特点,结合其在星型网络中的通信应用,提出了一种双向量子安全直接通信方案。通过对三粒子幺正变换的设计,可实现双向通信中一对量子传输4 bit经典信息,提高了通信效率。方案的安全性分析表明,利用GHZ态粒子间所选择的幺正变换及测量相关性可抵御窃听者的被动式和截获重发式攻击。该方案具有较高的通信效率,并且保障了信息的安全传输。     

ApcD is required for state transition but not involved in blue-light induced quenching in the cyanobacterium Anabaena sp.PCC7120

Pbycobilisomes(PBS) are able to transfer absorbed energy to photosystem I and Ⅱ,and the distribution of light energy between two photosystems is regulated by state transitions.In this study we show that energy transfer from PBS to photosystem I(PSI) requires ApcD.Cells were unable to perform state transitions in the absence of ApcD.The apcD mutant grows more slowly in light mainly absorbed by PBS,indicating that ApcD-dependent energy transfer to PSI is required for optimal growth under this condition.The apcD mutant showed normal blue-light induced quenching,suggesting that ApcD is not required for this process and state transitions are independent of blue-light induced quenching.Under nitrogen fixing condition,the growth rates of the wild type and the mutant were the same,indicating that energy transfer from PBS to PSI in heterocysts was not required for nitrogen fixation.     

Hyperpolarization-activated channels HCN1 and HCN4 mediate responses to sour stimuli.

Sour taste is initiated by protons acting at receptor proteins or channels. In vertebrates, transduction of this taste quality involves several parallel pathways. Here we examine the effects of sour stimuli on taste cells in slices of vallate papilla from rat. From a subset of cells, we identified a hyperpolarization-activated current that was enhanced by sour stimulation at the taste pore. This current resembled Ih found in neurons and cardio-myocytes, a current carried by members of the family of hyperpolarization-activated and cyclic-nucleotide-gated (HCN) channels. We show by in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry that HCN1 and HCN4 are expressed in a subset of taste cells. By contrast, gustducin, the G-protein involved in bitter and sweet taste, is not expressed in these cells. Lowering extracellular pH causes a dose-dependent flattening of the activation curve of HCN channels and a shift in the voltage of half-maximal activation to more positive voltages. Our results indicate that HCN channels are gated by extracellular protons and may act as receptors for sour taste.     

Analysis of network performance for computer communication systems with benchmark

This paper introduced a performance evaluating approach of computer communication system based on the simulation and measurement technology, and discussed its evaluating models. The result of our experiment showed that the outcome of practical measurement on Ether-LAN fitted in well with the theoretical analysis. The approach we presented can be used to define various kinds of artificially simulated load models conveiently, build all kinds of network application environments in a flexible way, and exert sufficiently the widely-used and high-precision features of the traditional simulation technology and the reality, reliability, adaptability features of measurement technology. Foundation item: Supported by the National 863 High-Tech Project of China (863-300-02-09-99) and by Key Research Project of Hubei Province (991P110) Biography: CAO Yang(1943-), male, Professor, Research interests are in computer network and distributed processing.     

一种电力部门光缆通信网组网方案

结合Ｃ市电业局光缆通信网的规划设计工作实际,分析了电力通信专网在线路建设、承载业务、网络拓扑、设备选型等方面的特点,提出了一个适合于大中城市电业局光缆通信网的组网方案。该方案客观地分析了电力部门业务需求,为组网建设节省了近１／３的投资,同时为通信系统提供了近２倍的传输电路。     

基于安全中间件的局域网安全通信平台

针对局域网的特点及安全需求,提出了一个以安全中间件SA为核心的网络安全通信平台的设计和实现方案,并对主要的安全部件SA的功能、结构及实现作了进一步的描述。